Black Cabinet

Examples of Black Cabinet in the following topics:

• Neglected Americans and the New Deal

  • Many of them belonged to would be known as the Black Cabinet - a group of black experts and professionals who, analogically to Roosevelt's white advisers who formed his Brain Trust, gathered to advise the president on matters relevant to black communities. 
  • The Black Cabinet as a body segregated from their white counterparts demonstrates a tragic ambiguity in Roosevelt's approach to African Americans: he did make some effort to improve their situation but the effort was hardly radical and always curbed by racism existing in the American society.
  • Around 10% of the youth program beneficiaries were black.
  • Despite Roosevelt's refusal to support the black civil rights struggle and the mixed results that the New Deal programs produced for black Americans, many black voters changed their political loyalty and shifted towards Democrats.
  • The latter were mostly women, both black and white.  

• Woodrow Wilson and Race

  • Despite promises made to black voters during the election of 1912, Woodrow Wilson gave into the demands of white Southern Democrats, fired a number of black Republican politicians, and supported racial segregation.
  • While President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, Wilson discouraged black people from applying for admission, preferring to keep the peace among white students rather than face an outcry if black students were admitted.
  • Black leaders who supported Wilson were angered when segregationist white Southerners took control of Congress and Wilson appointed many Southerners to his cabinet; Wilson and his cabinet members fired a large number of black Republican office holders in political-appointee positions, though they also appointed a few black Democrats to such posts.
  • Wilson’s Southern cabinet members pressed for segregated workplaces, even though federal offices had been integrated since 1863.
  • Wilson ignored complaints when his cabinet officials established official segregation in many federal government departments, such as the post office, because of his own firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interests of black and white Americans alike.

• Roosevelt, Wilson, and Race

  • After the Brownsville Affair, blacks began to turn against Roosevelt.
  • A renewed investigation in the early 1970s exonerated the discharged black troops.
  • While president of Princeton University, Wilson discouraged blacks from applying for admission, preferring to keep the peace among white students than have black students admitted.
  • Wilson ignored complaints that his cabinet officials had established official segregation in most federal government offices and in some departments, for the first time since 1863.
  • Wilson and his cabinet members fired many black Republican office holders in political-appointee positions, but also appointed a few black Democrats to such posts.

• Scandals

  • Grant's standards in many of his cabinet appointments were low, leading to widespread charges of corruption.
  • Beginning with the Black Friday gold speculation ring in 1869, corruption was uncovered during Grant's two presidential terms in seven federal departments.
  • Then, on September 23, 1869 (known infamously as "Black Friday"), the price of gold soared to $160 dollars an ounce.
  • He was reluctant to prosecute cabinet members and appointees viewed as "honest" friends, and those who were convicted were set free with presidential pardons after serving a brief time in prison.
  • Despite the scandals, by the end of Grant's second term the corruption in the Departments of Interior, Treasury, and Justice were cleaned up by his new cabinet members.

• Progressivism for Whites Only

  • Cabinet heads appointed by President Wilson re-segregated restrooms and cafeterias in their buildings.
  • All the Southern states (and Oklahoma) used devices to disenfranchise black voters during the Progressive Era.
  • A major reason given was that whites routinely purchased black votes to control elections, and it was easier to disenfranchise blacks than to go after powerful white men.
  • The new provisions of the state constitutions eliminated black voting by law.
  • He benefited by the disenfranchisement of blacks and crippling of the Republican Party in the South.

• Women in American Politics

  • Cabinet, and Supreme Court justices.
  • Cabinet officials.
  • The first woman to hold a Cabinet position was Frances Perkins, who was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Franklin D.
  • Despite the fact that elements of the Black Power Movement had some views centered on misogyny, African-American women quickly found a voice in the movement.
  • "In the age of rights, antipoverty, and power campaigns, black women in community-based and often women-centered organizations, like their female counterparts in nationally known organizations, harnessed and engendered Black Power through their speech and iconography as participants of tenant councils, welfare rights groups, and a black female religious order."

• Jim Crow Laws

  • Blacks were still elected to local offices in the 1880s, but the Democrats were passing laws to make voter registration and electoral rules more restrictive, with the result that political participation by most blacks and many poor whites began to decrease.
  • In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of black Americans.
  • Most blacks still lived in the South, where they had been effectively disenfranchised, so they could not vote at all.
  • White Americans were effectively excluded from the literacy testing, whereas black Americans were effectively singled out by the law.
  • Woodrow Wilson, a southern Democrat and the first southern-born president of the post-Civil War period, appointed southerners to his Cabinet.

• The Cabinet

  • The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government.
  • In other words, the Cabinet may help shape policy, but they do not typically drive or direct policy.
  • There is no explicit definition of the term "Cabinet" in either the U.S.
  • They include members of the President's Cabinet as well as other subcabinet policy makers.
  • Discuss the shape of the Cabinet of the United States and its role in government

• Cabinet Departments

  • The attorney general is an example of a cabinet member, and oversees the executive Department of Justice.
  • These Cabinet members preside over bureaucratic operations and serve as advisors to the president.
  • Each of the Cabinet departments is organized with a similar hierarchical structure.
  • The attorney general is the head of the Department of Justice, and is a prominent cabinet member.
  • Describe the constitutional origin of the Cabinet and the shape of its growth Washington's presidency

• The Compromise of 1877

  • Black Republicans felt betrayed as they lost power and were disenfranchised in the coming decades.
  • The appointment of at least one southern Democrat to Hayes's cabinet.
  • In exchange, Democrats would peacefully accept Hayes's presidency and respect the civil rights of black Americans.
  • It was also not unusual, nor unexpected, for a president, especially one so narrowly elected, to select a cabinet member favored by the other party.
  • Blacks remained involved in Southern politics, particularly in Virginia, which was run by the biracial Readjuster Party.