He had earlier earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. From 1937 to 1940, he served as special assistant for the U.S. Housing Authority. Weaver became the first black cabinet member in U.S. history in 1966 when President Lyndon B. Johnson named him secretary of housing and urban development. In 1969 he became president of Bernard M. Baruch College.
Walter White (1893-1956)
After establishing the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), White became executive secretary of the organization from 1931 to 1955. During the 1930s White spent considerable effort seeking passage of an anti-lynching law, but without success. He also lobbied for voting rights, school desegregation, and many other civil rights issues. White kept ongoing communications with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. As a national spokesman for black issues, White was successful in raising public awareness of the plight of black Americans and laying the foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Racial Discrimination during the New Deal
During the Great Depression, black Americans not only faced racial discrimination in employment, but in economic relief programs as well. They often received inferior food and goods, if any at all. Evelyn Finn of Louisiana reminisced a number of years later, after the end of the New Deal. Finn’s memories are recounted in Studs Terkel’s oral history volume on the Great Depression, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (1986, p. 319).
Suggested Research Topics
- Imagine being a black American living in the early twentieth century in the United States. Describe the benefits you might expect from the New Deal programs.
- What were the lasting effects of the New Deal for black Americans and the dream of social justice?
- Conduct more research on people like William H. Hastie, Marian Anderson, and Mary McLeod Bethune to find more out about their lives during the Great Depression and beyond. What types of struggles were unique to them because of their race?