Unit 4 - The New Deal and race relations, 1933-41

Question 1

When did Franklin D. Roosevelt become president?

Answer 1

1933.

Question 2

How many terms did FDR serve?

Answer 2

3

Question 3

Why was the economic situation inherited by FDR difficult?

Answer 3

25% of the workforce was unemployed and the country was on the brink of economic collapse.

Question 4

What was gerrymandering?

Answer 4

Where state governments decided the boundaries of state constituencies and congressional district boundaries to ensure that Democrats won as many seats as possible.

Question 5

What party did FDR belong to?

Answer 5

The Democratic party.

Question 6

Why did FDR pick John Nance Garner as his running mate?

Answer 6

Because he was a southern democrat, and he wanted to ensure southern votes.

Question 7

What was the conservative manifesto?

Answer 7

A position statement drafted in 1937 by a bipartisan coalition of conservative politicians in the United States. Those involved in its creation included longtime opponents of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as well as former supporters who had come to believe its programs were proving ineffective.

Question 8

What is the NAACP?

Answer 8

National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.

Question 9

What is the ASWPL?

Answer 9

Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching.

Question 10

Which organisations spearheaded attempts at anti-lynching legislation?

Answer 10

The NAACP and the ASWPL.

Question 11

Which bills containing anti-lynching legislation were tried to be passed but failed?

Answer 11

The Dyer Bill, 1922
The Gavagan Bill, 1932

Question 12

Why did the northern Democrats not try harder to get anti-lynching legislation passed?

Answer 12

Because they feared that the southern Democrats would boycott the New Deal and economic reform was a bigger priority at the time.

Question 13

Why was FDR reluctant to deal with lynching prevention?

Answer 13

He didn’t want to alienate the southern Democrats because he needed them for the New Deal.

Question 14

What is de facto segregation?

Answer 14

Segregation done by individuals.

Question 15

What is du jure segregation?

Answer 15

Segregation through legislation e.g. separate facilities. Discrimination by the government.

Question 16

When was the US military desegregated?

Answer 16

1948.

Question 17

When did the Supreme Court rule to end segregation in public schools?

Answer 17

1954.

Question 18

Where was Jim Crow the most widespread?

Answer 18

The former Confederate states.

Question 19

What other restrictions did black Americans face aside from legal segregation?

Answer 19

Restrictions on what houses and flats they could buy or rent.
Restrictions on which clubs and social organisations they could join.

Question 20

Why were black voter numbers so low?

Answer 20

Poll taxes, literacy tests, property taxes.
Intimidation by white supremacist groups.
Lack of representation, who would they vote for?
Legislation like the Louisiana Grandfather Clause.

Question 21

When was the Louisiana Grandfather Clause deemed unconstitutional?

Answer 21

1915

Question 22

What did the Louisiana Grandfather Clause entail?

Answer 22

Any person who had been registered to vote as of 1/1/1867 did not need to pay taxes or take a literacy test to vote. This excluded all black people because they only got the right to vote in 1870.

Question 23

When was Franklin D Roosevelt elected president?

Answer 23

1932, he started serving in 1933.

Question 24

When was the New Deal passed?

Answer 24

1933.

Question 25

Describe the economic situation that FDR inherited.

Answer 25

Democrats were the dominant party. Southern Democrats still held a lot of power.
25% of the workforce was unemployed.
1/3 of employed people were working part-time or making less money.
Bank deposits were not guaranteed by the government.

Question 26

What is the AAA?

Answer 26

Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.
It compensated farmers for voluntary cutbacks in agricultural production, but most black farmers were sharecroppers so black people didn’t get compensation.

Question 27

When and why was the AAA declared unconstitutional?

Answer 27

1936 because the federal government had abused its power.

Question 28

What was the CCC?

Answer 28

Civilian Conservation Corps.
Camps where young men learned skills, the majority of their salary was sent back to their families.
Black men made up less than 10% of the people and they were discriminated against.
The Camps became segregated due to Jim Crow being applied.

Question 29

What was the NRA?
(Not guns)

Answer 29

National Recovery Administration.
Created to make more jobs available and increase base salaries.
Congress deliberately excluded low-level jobs, which were predominantly worked by black people, so they wouldn’t get funding.

Question 30

How did state governments limit benefits from the New Deal for African Americans?

Answer 30

The AAA, the CCC and the NRA.

Question 31

What argument did Southern Democrats use to take away New Deal funding from African Americans?

Answer 31

That their living conditions were cheaper so they didn’t need as many additional funds because they were ‘proportional to their living costs’.
This goes directly against the ‘separate but equal claim’ that segregation was built on.

Question 32

What was the Social Security Act of 1935 and why didn’t it benefit black people?

Answer 32

It gave federal funding to old-age pensions but excluded domestic servants and agricultural workers. These areas were where 65% of African Americans worked.

Question 33

How did the New Deal help/benefit black Americans?

Answer 33

-Robert Weaver was appointed as FDR’s special advisor on the economic status of the Negro
-US Housing Authority introduced racial quotas, but buildings were still segregated and conditions were often bad
-The Work Progress Administration provided work for 350k black Americans every year.
-The Resettlement Administration, established 1935

Question 34

What did the Resettlement Administration do?

Answer 34

It aimed to coordinate various New Deal programmes and help the rural poor. It attempted to do this in a colourblind way.
It was renamed the Farm Security Administration.
It was shut down due to loss of its government funding in 1938.

Question 35

How did FDR defy Jim Crow?

Question 36

How did FDR try to influence the Supreme Court?

Answer 36

He tried to change the composition but didn’t succeed. His failure led to the publication of the Conservative Manifesto.

Question 37

Which Supreme Court cases set a strong precedent for legal attacks on segregation?

Answer 37

Mitchell v the US
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v Canada
Vote to reverse its support for the white primary.