The Black Cabinet

February 15, 2020
A history of how Franklin Roosevelt's policies were decisively influenced by a group of African American advisers. Drawing on government documents, newspapers, and an extensive number of archives, historian Watts vividly recounts an important chapter in black American history: the place of black advisers in Roosevelt's administration. Among the many ambitious, well-educated men and women who took up government roles during the New Deal were Robert Clifton Weaver, a Harvard-educated economist; William H. Hastie, the first African American to hold a federal judgeship; Alfred Edgar Smith, the leader of the Works Progress Administration; Eugene Kinckle Jones, who had a position at the Department of Commerce; newspaper publisher Robert Vann; and, prominent among them, the outspoken, tireless mover and shaker Mary McLeod Bethune, celebrated by African Americans as the "First Lady of Our Negro Nation." The Black Cabinet--never officially acknowledged as such by Roosevelt--came to be knowns as "her boys." Roosevelt could be ambivalent about advancing the cause of African Americans, fearing to alienate Southern voters, and his administration, Watts reveals, "was often explicitly hostile." Eleanor Roosevelt, however, "awakened to the brutalities of American racism" through her close friendship with Bethune, became a stalwart supporter of equality and justice for blacks. The Democratic Party saw the advantage of courting black voters once it seemed likely that they would defect from Republicans, which looked to many blacks less like the party of Lincoln than heirs of the old Confederacy. Watts chronicles rivalries, frustrations, and disillusionments among the Black Cabinet but also considerable achievements: a growing voice within the federal government; better New Deal relief for many African Americans; nondiscrimination clauses in Interior Department contracts; and documentation of the impact of racism on the black community. As much as possible, they raised Roosevelt's awareness of the reality of life for blacks in 1930s and '40s America. After Roosevelt's death, his group of black advisers "came to be celebrated as yet another one of FDR's accomplishments." A thoroughly researched history of important black activists.

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Starred review from February 24, 2020
Watts (Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood), a professor of history at California State University, San Marcos, delivers a unique and enlightening portrait of “the informal group of black federal employees” who sought to advance African-American interests during the New Deal. Led by Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune-Cookman College and a friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the “Black Cabinet” included housing expert Robert C. Weaver, attorney William H. Hastie, and Robert Vann, editor of the Pittsburgh Courier and a leading advocate for shifting black votes from Republicans to Democrats. Watts details the group’s internecine political quarrels as well as their efforts to integrate the federal workplace, end “race-based wage differentials,” and rally support for antilynching legislation, among other objectives. Lesser-known civil servants such as Lucia Mae Pitts, “the first African American woman to serve as a secretary to a white federal administrator in Washington, D.C.,” receive overdue attention, as does the influence of the black press on Roosevelt’s staffing decisions. Watts finds drama in committee meetings and unemployment surveys, and expertly tracks her subjects across the maze of federal bureaucracy. The result is a groundbreaking reappraisal of an unheralded chapter in the battle for civil rights. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates.

June 1, 2020

In this thoroughly researched history, Watts (Hattie McDaniel) traces the birth of the relationship between the Democratic Party and Black America through the influence of African Americans on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. Thanks to the tireless work of Mary McLeod Bethune, a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, along with an informal group of Black federal employees in Washington, DC, the concerns of Black citizens were added to Roosevelt's agenda. Consisting of lawyers, educators, teachers, and politicians, the team informally advised the president on social issues in the midst of the Great Depression. In the author's telling, this led to the start of a political change that would help define the civil rights movement and American politics for the 20th century. This sweeping history looks at how a core group took on the racist machinations of post-Reconstruction government to give Black communities a chance to influence one of the most powerful men in the world. Though they never achieved official recognition, they still helped change the course of history. VERDICT A dramatic piece of nonfiction that recovers the history of a generation of leaders that helped create the environment for the civil rights battles in decades that followed Roosevelt's death.--John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2019

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president, a group of African American intellectuals sought to promote the concerns of their community, though they served only as an unofficial advisory board owing to the unfortunate sway of the white Southern vote. Known as the Black Cabinet, they included educator Mary McLeod Bethune, close to Eleanor Roosevelt; Harvard-educated economist Robert Weaver, eventually the first African American Cabinet secretary; and more. Watts (God, Harlem U.S.A.) seeks to highlight their contributions.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.