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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 22. Political Practices Today - 5. What the Negro Gets Out of Politics
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Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 503
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Once in a while, a new ^^traditional^*
Negro position is created: when William Hastie, the Roosevelt-appointed
Federal Judge in the Virgin Islands, resigned, another Negro was ap-
pointed in his place. There are only about a dozen of these traditional
top-rank Negro positions in the federal government.
More important since the beginning of the Roosevelt administration are
the positions created in various governmental bureaus to advise or direct
the application of federal policies to Negroes. The Negroes selected to fill
these positions usually have a superior educational background and only
one or two have participated in party politics. The powers of these persons
have depended mainly on the liberality of their chiefs, although their own
activity has been important. When their function has been to direct the
application of their respective bureau^s policy toward Negroes—as is the
case in the National Youth Administration and the United States Housing
Authority—they have been able to exert a good deal of influence and have
sometimes succeeded in getting a ‘‘fair share” of the government’s benefits
for Negroes. Where they merely advise their chiefs or are regarded as
“trouble shooters” to soothe Negro protests of discrimination—as in the
Civilian Conservation Corps—their influence is limited. Some of the New
Deal agencies have not had Negro advisors—such as the Federal Housing
Administration—^and several of these agencies have notoriously discrim-
inated against Negroes.
Between 1933 and 1940 there were 103 Negroes appointed by President
Roosevelt to positions in the federal government, including 23 who had
resigned by 1940 and 3 who had lost their positions because their functions
were abolished. Under the leadership of Mary McLeod Bethune—^Direc-
tor of the Division of Negro Affairs of the N.Y.A. and nationally known
educator and leader of Negro women-r-the most important of these have
organized an informal group, the Federal Council, popularly known as
“the Black Cabinet.” The purpose of this group is to discuss common
problems and to encourage coordinated activity, although it never takes
public action as a group.®® The great weaknesses of the holders of these
positions are that many of them are in agencies which are not considered to
be permanent, and that they are completely subordinated to the white
heads of the respective bureaus. Although many Negroes have condemned
the appointments to these positions as representing an effort to keep
Negroes satisfied, there are important achievements to their credit, and
they are the first significant step, in recent years, toward the participation
of Negroes in federal government activity.
In addition to the full-time Negro advisors and section chiefs, there are
several official part-time advisors who do not live in Washington but only
visit there occasionally and upon request. For example, in March, 1942,
F. D. Patterson, President of Tuskegee Institute, and Claude A. Barnett,
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