The Political “left”
These New Deal flaws have led modern civil rights commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates to argue that modern liberalism is intrinsically racist, but many civil rights leaders have been leftists or liberals and even the New Deal helped minorities in important ways. There is no lasting causal connection between liberal politics and racism. After all, the 1960s civil rights movement’s biggest gains happened during America’s most liberal phase: LBJ’s Great Society. In the 1930s, African Americans and Hispanics still did better than they had under Hoover because many New Deal programs covered all workers. Notably, the few Blacks who could vote migrated to the Democratic Party in the 1930s. But civil rights were not on the New Deal agenda despite the wishes of FDR’s wife, Eleanor (his 5th cousin), at least for the most part. But she successfully insisted that African Americans be included in the National Youth Administration (NYA) that focused on job creation for 16-25 year-olds. Eleanor, or ER, also worked tirelessly with the NAACP and the KKK once put a $25k bounty on her head. Anyone the KKK wanted to kill that badly is someone we should all take note of. Eleanor Roosevelt was the most political First Lady in American history and had earned her reputation advocating for the rights and good treatment of wounded Doughboys during WWI when she worked with the Red Cross. When WWII broke out, she defended the rights of African-American soldiers like the Tuskegee Airmen. By taking the lead on civil rights, ER served as a lightning rod for FDR, diverting attention onto herself so as to spare him the career-killing, coalition-busting, bad publicity of being an anti-racist.