Blacks In The New Deal The Shift From An Electoral Tradition And Ist Legacy

No group of American minority voters shifted allegiance more dramatically in the 1930s than Black Americans did. Up until the New Deal era, Blacks had shown their traditional loyalty to the party of Lincoln by voting overwhelmingly the Republican ticket. By the end of F.D. Roosevelt’s first administration, however, they tremendously voted the Democratic ticket. The decades long, wholesale attachment of Blacks to the party of Lincoln, with its laudable efforts to support Blacks (Emancipation Proclamation and Reconstruction) was understandable and inevitable enough. The anomaly was the massive shift by Blacks to the Democratic Party, traditionally identified with its long list of constant anti-Black and premeditated opposition to Black liberation: opposition to emancipation and Reconstruction, and with an ongoing record of all forms of racial discrimination, segregation, disfranchisement, exclusion, white primaries, and white supremacy. The transformation of the Black vote from solidly Republican to solidly Democratic did not happen instantaneously, but rather it developed over decades of maturing as a result of the amalgamated efforts of Presidents and Black leaders. The move of Black voters toward the Democratic Party was part of a nationwide trend that had occurred with the creation of the Roosevelt Coalition of1936. This national shift would make the Democrats the majority party for the next several decades including a very decisive margin of Black voters in the balance of power.

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, course: American civilization, language: English, abstract: This thesis deals with the reasons behind the Blacks' shift of commitment from the Republican to the Democratic Party during the New Deal period and its legacy. This recurrent phenomenon comes to the fore with every American presidential election since the first election of Roosevelt in 1932. By the coming of the New Deal they shifted their traditional electoral support to the Democratic Party. In addition, this research probes the motives behind this allegiance by examining Blacks' political, social and economic situation and its effect on the political arena. The electoral powerlessness of Blacks in the 1896-1930 period was as much the product of party affiliation as it was the result of disfranchisement. A concrete reconsideration of this process began to happen in the 1930s, when the Roosevelt administration and the New Deal made circumstances favorable. The Black shift of allegiance is interpreted in different ways: First, in relation to Black protest movements and maturation of political consciousness by the beginning of the 20th century up until the New Deal. Second, in relation to Black labor struggle and interracial issues. Third, through the achievements of Roosevelt's relief policies and the inclusion of Black intellectuals as members within the federal government. The Blacks' outpouring support for Roosevelt in 1936 cannot be explained solely by Roosevelt's initiatives on civil rights over the first New Deal. The strategic importance of Black voters in the North was converted into more federal patronage and awareness. The insistence on economic recovery combined with a sense of inclusion, was the centerpiece of the Democratic appeal to Blacks in the 1936 elections. Finally, the study concludes with an assessment of the shift and its legacy. The electoral strength of this minority increased dramatically between

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“A powerful argument, swept along by Katznelson’s robust prose and the imposing scholarship that lies behind it.”—Kevin Boyle, New York Times Book Review A work that “deeply reconceptualizes the New Deal and raises countless provocative questions” (David Kennedy), Fear Itself changes the ground rules for our understanding of this pivotal era in American history. Ira Katznelson examines the New Deal through the lens of a pervasive, almost existential fear that gripped a world defined by the collapse of capitalism and the rise of competing dictatorships, as well as a fear created by the ruinous racial divisions in American society. Katznelson argues that American democracy was both saved and distorted by a Faustian collaboration that guarded racial segregation as it built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power. Fear Itself charts the creation of the modern American state and “how a belief in the common good gave way to a central government dominated by interest-group politics and obsessed with national security” (Louis Menand, The New Yorker).

Printed in color. U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.

A renowned historian recounts how President Roosevelt inspired the country and changed forever the political, social, economic, and even the physical landscape of the United States--Cover.

Alan Brinkley, Melvin Urofsky, Harvard Sitkoff, and other leading scholars explore the liberal tradition in American politics, culture, and social relations.

Ever since introducing the concept in the late 1980s, historians have been debating the origins, nature, scope, and limitations of the New Deal order—the combination of ideas, electoral and governing strategies, redistributive social policies, and full employment economics that became the standard-bearer for political liberalism in the wake of the Great Depression and commanded Democratic majorities for decades. In the decline and break-up of the New Deal coalition historians found keys to understanding the transformations that, by the late twentieth century, were shifting American politics to the right. In Beyond the New Deal Order, contributors bring fresh perspective to the historic meaning and significance of New Deal liberalism while identifying the elements of a distinctively "neoliberal" politics that emerged in its wake. Part I offers contemporary interpretations of the New Deal with essays that focus on its approach to economic security and inequality, its view of participatory governance, and its impact on the Republican party as well as Congressional politics. Part II features essays that examine how intersectional inequities of class, race, and gender were embedded in New Deal labor law, labor standards, and economic policy and brought demands for employment, economic justice, and collective bargaining protections to the forefront of civil rights and social movement agendas throughout the postwar decades. Part III considers the precepts and defining narratives of a "post" New Deal political structure, while the closing essay contemplates the extent to which we may now be witnessing the end of a neoliberal system anchored in free-market ideology, neo-Victorian moral aspirations, and post-Communist global politics. Contributors: Eileen Boris, Angus Burgin, Gary Gerstle, Romain Huret, Meg Jacobs, Michael Kazin, Sophia Lee, Nelson Lichtenstein, Joe McCartin, Alice O'Connor, Paul Sabin, Reuel Schiller, Kit Smemo, David Stein, Jean-Christian Vinel, Julian Zelizer.