- promote initiatives to increase employment amongst minorities
- support minority-owned businesses
Civil rights issues proved trickier, as Nixon sought to pursue racial equality while still shoring up his position among Southern whites and blue-collar white workers. Rather than championing integration, Nixon offered economic encouragements to Black Americans by supporting minority-owned businesses and employment initiatives. His administration expanded a program to push companies that contracted with the federal government to employ Black and Hispanic workers. In 1969 Nixon's Revised Philadelphia Plan, which set goals for minority hiring by federal building contractors in Philadelphia marked an early milestone in the history of affirmative action. However, when the white workers he was trying to woo began protesting the plan, Nixon was quick to make the hiring guidelines voluntary.