Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race

by McMahon, Kevin J.

• ISBN13: 9780226500881
• ISBN10: 0226500888
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Many have questioned FDR's record on race, suggesting that he had the opportunity but not the will to advance the civil rights of African Americans. Kevin J. McMahon challenges this view, arguing instead that Roosevelt's administration played a crucial role in the Supreme Court's increasing commitment to racial equalitywhich culminated in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.McMahon shows how FDR's attempt to strengthen the presidency and undermine the power of conservative Southern Democrats dovetailed with his efforts to seek racial equality through the federal courts. By appointing a majority of rights-based liberals deferential to presidential power, Roosevelt ensured that the Supreme Court would be receptive to civil rights claims, especially when those claims had the support of the executive branch.

Author Biography

Kevin J. McMahon is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the State University of New York, Fredonia.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
ONE Introduction: The Day They Drove Old Dixie Down	1	(23)
TWO The Incongruities of Re form: Rights-Centered Liberalism and Legal Realism in the Early New Deal Years	24	(37)
THREE FDR's Constitutional Vision and the Defeat of the Court-Packing Plan: The Modern Presidency and the Enemies of Institutional Reform	61	(36)
FOUR "Approving Legislation for the People, Preserving Liberties -Almost Rewriting Laws": The Politics of Creating the Roosevelt Court	97	(47)
FIVE A Constitutional Purge: Southern Democracy, Lynch Law, and the Roosevelt Justice Department	144	(33)
SIX The Commitment Continues: Truman, Eisenhower, and the Civil Rights Decisions	177	(26)
SEVEN Conclusion: The Road the Court Trod	203	(20)
NOTES	223	(46)
WORKS CITED	269	(18)
INDEX	287