This group, which became informally known as the "Black
Cabinet," included such prominent Afro-American leaders as
Robert L. Vann of The Pittsburgh Courier, William H. Hastie of
the Harvard Law School, Eugene Kinckle Jones of the Urban League,
Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune of the National Council of Negro Women,
Robert C. Weaver, and Ralph Bunche, who later became the first
Negro to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The number of
Afro-Americans hired by the Federal Government mushroomed
rapidly.
Between 1933 and 1946 the number rose from 50,000 to
almost 200,000. Most, however, were employed in the lower,
unskilled and semi-skilled, brackets. It was also during this
period that the civil service terminated its policy of requiring
applicants to state their race and to include photographs.
Individual personnel officers, nevertheless, could and did
continue to discriminate.
In spite of the attempt of the Roosevelt Administration to
elevate the status of the Afro-American, the New Deal itself
became enmeshed in racial discrimination in three ways:
through discriminatory practice within government bureaus,
through exclusion carried on by unions, and also as an indirect
by-product of the success of the New Deal programs.
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