Franklin D. Roosevelt's record on civil rights
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Franklin D. Roosevelt's relationship with Civil Rights was a complicated one. While he was popular among African Americans, Catholics and
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, he has in retrospect received heavy criticism for the ethnic cleansing of Mexican Americans in the 1930s known as the
Mexican Repatriation The Mexican Repatriation ( es, link=no, Repatriación mexicana) was the repatriation and deportation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many we ...
and his internment of
Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
during the
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. From its creation under the
National Housing Act of 1934 The National Housing Act of 1934, , , also called the Capehart Act and the Better Housing Program, was part of the New Deal passed during the Great Depression in order to make housing and home mortgages more affordable. It created the Federal ...
signed into law by Roosevelt, official
Federal Housing Administration The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), also known as the Office of Housing within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is a United States government agency founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, created in part by ...
(FHA) property appraisal
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standards to qualify for
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had a whites-only requirement excluding all racially mixed neighborhoods or white neighborhoods in proximity to black neighborhoods, and the FHA used its official mortgage insurance underwriting policy explicitly to prevent
school desegregation School integration in the United States is the process (also known as desegregation) of ending race-based segregation within American public and private schools. Racial segregation in schools existed throughout most of American history and rema ...
.


Mexican Repatriation

From his first term until 1939, the
Mexican Repatriation The Mexican Repatriation ( es, link=no, Repatriación mexicana) was the repatriation and deportation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many we ...
started by President
Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
continued under Roosevelt, which some scholars today contend was a form of ethnic cleansing towards Mexican Americans. Roosevelt ended federal involvement in the deportations. After 1934, the number of deportations fell by approximately 50 percent. However, Roosevelt did not attempt to suppress the deportations on a local or state level. Mexican Americans were the only group within the United States explicitly excluded from New Deal benefits.


Executive Order 8802

In June 1941, Roosevelt issued
Executive Order 8802 Executive Order 8802 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to prohibit ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation's defense industry. It also set up the Fair Employment Practice Committee. It was the first federal ac ...
, which created the Fair Employment Practice Committee ( FEPC). It was the most important federal move in support of the rights of African-Americans between
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and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The President's order stated that the federal government would not hire any person based on their race, color, creed, or national origin in the federal government or defense-related administration. The FEPC enforced the order to ban discriminatory hiring within the federal government and in corporations that received federal contracts. Millions of black men and women achieved better jobs and better pay as a result. The war brought the race issue to the forefront. The Army had been segregated since the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, and the Navy since the Wilson administration. But by 1940, the African-American vote had largely shifted from Republican to Democrat, and African-American leaders like
Walter Francis White Walter Francis White (July 1, 1893 – March 21, 1955) was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, 1929–1955, after joining the organi ...
of the NAACP and T. Arnold Hill of the
Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...
had become recognized as part of the Roosevelt coalition. In June 1941, at the urging of A. Philip Randolph, the leading African-American trade unionist, Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the
Fair Employment Practice Committee The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to implement Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and com ...
and prohibiting discrimination by any government agency, including the armed forces. In practice, the services, particularly the Navy and the Marines, found ways to evade this order, and the Marine Corps remained all-white until 1942. In September 1942, at Eleanor's instigation, Roosevelt met with a delegation of African-American leaders, who demanded full integration into the forces, including the right to serve in combat roles and in the Navy, the Marine Corps and the
United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
. Roosevelt agreed, but did nothing to implement his promise; it was left to his successor,
Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
, to fully desegregate the armed forces.


Executive Order 9066

Following the outbreak of the Pacific War, the War Department demanded that all enemy nationals and Japanese American citizens be removed from war zones on the West Coast. The question became how to imprison the estimated 120,000 people of Japanese and American citizenship living in
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. On February 11, 1942, Roosevelt met with Secretary of War Stimson, who persuaded him to approve an immediate forced evacuation. Roosevelt looked at the secret evidence available to him: the Japanese in the Philippines had collaborated with the Japanese invasion troops; the Japanese in California had been strong supporters of Japan in the war against China. There was evidence of espionage compiled by code-breakers that decrypted messages to Japan from agents in North America and
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before and after
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. These
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cables were kept secret from all but those with the highest clearance, such as Roosevelt, lest the Japanese discover the decryption and change their code. On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which ordered
Secretary of War The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...
, and military commanders to designate military areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." Roosevelt released the imprisoned Japanese in 1944. On February 1, 1943, when activating the
442nd Regimental Combat Team The 442nd Infantry Regiment ( ja, 第442歩兵連隊) was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment is best known as the most decorated in U.S. military history and as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-gene ...
—a unit composed mostly of American citizens of Japanese descent living in Hawaii, he said, "No loyal citizen of the United States should be denied the democratic right to exercise the responsibilities of his citizenship, regardless of his ancestry. The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry." Interior Secretary Ickes lobbied Roosevelt through 1944 to release the Japanese American internees, but Roosevelt did not act until after the November presidential election. A fight for Japanese American civil rights meant a fight with influential Democrats, the Army, and the Hearst press and would have endangered Roosevelt's chances of winning California in 1944. Critics of Roosevelt's actions believe they were motivated in part by
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
. In 1925 Roosevelt had written about Japanese immigration: "Californians have properly objected on the sound basic grounds that Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population... Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European and American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results". In 1944, the
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upheld the legality of the executive order in the '' Korematsu v. United States'' case. The executive order remained in force until December of that year.


The Holocaust and attitudes toward Jews


Persecuted Jews outside the US

During his first term, Roosevelt condemned Hitler's persecution of German Jews. However, in the years leading up to US entry in World War II, the Roosevelt administration "ruled out political protest on behalf of Jews facing mounting persecution in Germany". Even in 1944, when US public opinion was strongly in favor of admitting an unlimited number of Jewish refugees, Roosevelt prevented even the existing immigration quotas from being filled by Jews. Roosevelt also undermined plans to resettle Jewish refugees in the
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and U.S. Virgin Islands, viewing these countries as too close to the US. In practice very few Jewish refugees came to the U.S.—only 22,000 German refugees were admitted in 1940, not all of them Jewish. The State Department official in charge of refugee issues,
Breckinridge Long Samuel Miller Breckinridge Long (May 16, 1881 – September 26, 1958) was an American diplomat and politician. He served in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is infamous among Holocaust historians for makin ...
, insisted on following the highly restrictive immigration laws to the letter. As one example, in 1939, the State Department under Roosevelt did not allow a boat of Jews fleeing from the Nazis into the United States. When the passenger ship ''
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'' approached the coast of Florida with nearly a thousand German Jews fleeing persecution by Hitler, Roosevelt did not respond to telegrams from passengers requesting asylum, and the State Department refused entry to the ship. Forced to return to Antwerp, many of the passengers eventually died in concentration camps. After the Allied conquest of North Africa in 1942, Roosevelt chose to retain the antisemitic Vichy leadership in power there, with some Jews remaining held in concentration camps, and discriminatory laws against Jews remaining in effect. In private Roosevelt argued that Jews did not need the right to vote since no elections were expected to be held soon, and that Jewish participation in the professions should be limited via a quota system. Only after an outcry from Jewish organizations in the US did Roosevelt change its policy regarding North African Jews, with anti-Jewish laws remaining in effect for 10 months after the US conquest.


Attitudes to Jews in the US

Some of his closest political associates, such as
Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...
, Bernard Baruch and Samuel I. Rosenman, were Jewish. He appointed
Henry Morgenthau Jr. Henry Morgenthau Jr. (; May 11, 1891February 6, 1967) was the United States Secretary of the Treasury during most of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal. After 1937, while ...
as the first Jewish
Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
and appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court. Historian
Doris Kearns Goodwin Doris Helen Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943) is an American biographer, historian, former sports journalist, and political commentator. She has written biographies of several U.S. presidents, including ''Lyndon Johnson and the American Drea ...
cites statistics showing that FDR's high level executive appointments favored Jews (15% of his top appointments at a time when Jews represented 3% of the U.S. population) which subjected Roosevelt to frequent criticism. The August, 1936 edition of "The White Knight" published an article referring to the New Deal as the "Jew Deal." Pamphlets appeared such as "What Every Congressman Should Know" in 1940 (featuring a sketch of the Capitol building with a Star of David atop its dome) that proclaimed that the Jews were in control of the American government. Financier and FDR confidant Bernard Baruch was called the "Unofficial President" in the anti-Semitic literature of the time. The periodical Liberation, for example, accused FDR of loading his government with Jews. At the same time, Roosevelt expressed racist attitudes towards Jews, both in public and private. As a Harvard administrator in 1923, he helped institute a quota for Jewish students. According to historian Rafael Medoff, "Roosevelt’s unflattering statements about Jews consistently reflected one of several interrelated notions: that it was undesirable to have too many Jews in any single profession, institution, or geographic locale; that America was by nature, and should remain, an overwhelmingly white, Protestant country; and that Jews on the whole possessed certain innate and distasteful characteristics." Medoff also noted in a 2016 article for the Jewish Lecter that as a child, Roosevelt's grandson
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would often hear his grandfather telling anti-Semitic stories in the White House, with the Jewish characters being Lower East Side people with heavy accents.A grandson who exposed the president's antisemitism; Rafael Medoff, Jewish Ledger, October 13, 2016


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Franklin D. Roosevelt's Record On Civil Rights History of civil rights in the United States
Civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...