THE BLACK CABINET by Jill Watts - BookPage Review

BookPage | May 14, 2020

“When Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945, he was praised for the significant advances African Americans made during his administration. One editorial said black Americans had ‘lost the best friend they ever had in the White House.’ The New Deal did provide African Americans with substantial assistance and more reason to hope, but FDR needed the support of Southern Democrats in Congress to advance his agenda, and he was reluctant to take actions on race that would upset them. What he was able to achieve came largely thanks to the efforts of an informal group of black activists, intellectuals and scholars working within the government. As historian Jill Watts shows in her meticulously researched and beautifully written The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt, these ‘black cabinet’ members succeeded in stopping or modifying many policies that would have made institutionalized racism even worse than it was.”

Follow the link above to read the full BookPage review of The Black Cabinet by Jill Watts!

---