Question

According to Jesse Thomas, why was the NRA not a suitable measure to address racial inequalities? What factors, besides economic, inhibited efforts to provide African Americans a “square deal?”

Answer 1

The perplexing question for the working class in all parts of America is, "Can the National Recovery Act function in such a way as to keep the Negro from competing equally with other wage earners?" It is the most important element in the overall recovery set-up for the industrial leaders in the South. In this field, it has created a sharp division in the white world alliance. Most white people in the South are dogmatically opposed to Negroes engaging in any positive action on equality with white people; and they maintain that there must be an exception to the general rule when it comes to Negroes in the administration of relief and in the implementation of the minimum wage scale.

Speakers for this school of thought insist that only by making exceptions wherever it is applied to Negroes ' status can the NRA be made a success. There is still another party that argues that this is the chance for the South to be raised above the point of poverty by paying the minimum wage given to all workers irrespective of race by the various codes. We also forecast that the NRA will struggle to the degree that it tries to establish a race-based differential pay.

When the laundry code was submitted by the laundries, the female colored assistance wages were set at 14 cents per hour for a 45-hour week, an increase of 86%. The NRA first approved this wage scale and then revoked the NRA offering a minimum of 20 cents, or $9 per week. It was pointed out that the President's $13.50 weekly agreement was prohibitive and would deprive colored women of this class of employment and replace white labor. The NRA administration recognized the danger of the situation and permitted a differential in favor of this type of manual labor.

The American industry, both agricultural and manufacturing, is being revolutionized through the various channels of the New Deal's recovery program as a mobilizing slogan. The author of the New Deal, President Roosevelt, is trying to lift the nation out of this widespread and prolonged depression that has been so devastating to our social and economic life over the past three years, by reducing unemployment and increasing the purchasing power of wage earners. The New Deal included new banking industry constraints and safeguards and efforts to re-inflate the economy after a sharp drop in prices. New Deal programs included both Congress-approved legislation and presidential executive orders during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term as president. The Republicans were divided, with conservatives in support of the whole New Deal as hostile to business and economic growth as well as liberals. The realignment crystallized into the New Deal coalition, which dominated presidential elections in the 1960s, while the opposition conservative coalition largely controlled Congress in domestic affairs between 1937 and 1964.