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The decade of change brought about by the New Deal began & ended in the age of Jim Crow apartheid. Yet by its end Black American's had significantly shifted their political allegiances from the party of Abraham Lincoln to the Democratic party of F.D.R. as many found their lives altered by a raft of initiatives.

Abject poverty, discrimination & lack of representation was something millions of black Americans had experienced well before the Depression began, especially in the South. And in the first years of the New Deal little changed. Southern Democrats, a crucial part of FDR's New Deal coalition, benefited enormously from New Deal programmes but were insistent that nothing would affect the racial order of the South. Consistently blocking relief & excluding black workers from key pieces of legislation.

But by the time of Roosevelt's second election some 75% of black voters, those who could actually vote, backed the New Deal. Black representation in Federal departments had increased & many found in the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, an enthusiastic supporter and listener in the struggle for equality New flagship schemes like the W.P.A. were to be free from discrimination; a million black Americans would go to work for it. The Federal One Arts project gave black artists, writers, actors and musicians recognition & a degree of autonomy as never before. But repeated The New Deal was full of moral compromise over the issue of race, indeed it was never central to its aims, yet the future of American politics had begun to change.

With the voices of Tony Badger, Kate Dossett, Gary Gerstle, Eric Rauchway Edgar Tidwell, Joe Trotter & Jill Watts.
Reader Cornelius Eady.
Producer Mark Burman