Dealing With Legislation: How Efforts to Strengthen the Economy Fueled Racial Inequality in Postwar America

Abstract

The end of the Second World War set the stage for the rest of the century not only in terms of foreign policy, but also in terms of our domestic policy with sweeping reform through legislation. In particular, the legislation during the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations (the New Deal and the Fair Deal respectively) set the stage for social reform, though the underlying consequences would soon manifest in a way that would continue the repression of the nation’s most marginalized citizens, black Americans. These consequences are important to evaluate as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and are also important for understanding race relations today. The goal of this paper is to address how these policies intended to improve the lives of Americans, how and for whom it did or did not, and how those negatively affected responded to the policies.