Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown

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University of Chicago Press, 2004 - 298 páginas
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 equality—which 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.

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Introduction The Day They Drove Old Dixie Down
1
The Incongruities of Reform RightsCentered Liberalism and Legal Realism in the Early New Deal Years
24
FDRs Constitutional Vision and the Defeat of the CourtPacking Plan The Modern Presidency and the Enemies of Institutional Reform
61
Approving Legislation for the People Preserving Liberties Almost Rewriting Laws The Politics of Creating the Roosevelt Court
97
A Constitutional Purge Southern Democracy Lynch Law and the Roosevelt Justice Department
144
The Commitment Continues Truman Eisenhower and the Civil Rights Decision
177
Conclusion The Road The Court Trod
203
NOTES
223
WORKS CITED
269
INDEX
287
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Kevin J. McMahon is the John R. Reitemeyer Professor of Political Science at Trinity College. He is also the author of Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race (winner of the Richard E. Neustadt Award), and, most recently, Nixon's Court (winner of the Erwin N. Griswold Prize).

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