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29 reviews for:
The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt
Jill Watts
4.25 AVERAGE
29 reviews for:
The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt
Jill Watts
4.25 AVERAGE
Every once in a long while, a book comes along that pulls back the curtain on an unheralded time in America’s civil rights past and leaves one inspired and eager to learn more. The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt by Jill Watts is an invaluable historical contribution to an overlooked era of American history that had far-reaching impacts for African American civil rights movements still to be born.
Jill Watts is the author of several books, including Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood, and professor of history at California State University San Marcos. Investing 12 years of research into The Black Cabinet, she documents a largely forgotten and clandestine unofficial council of African American economists, educators, journalists, and lawyers who advised the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration on racial affairs during the Depression Era and, eventually, beyond. This “Black Cabinet” of experts were the vanguard of a new movement that fought not only to improve the economic plight of African Americans under FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s, but to secure equality and justice for an oppressed and often persecuted and terrorized minority.
Under the indomitable leadership of the accomplished, confident, and determined African American educator, Mary McLeod Bethune, the Black Cabinet contained a bustling and often bristling coterie of the best and brightest. While bitter rivalries were often rife among the mostly male Cabinet, the shared belief and commitment to achieving black equality under the law was the glue cementing this diverse set of backgrounds and personalities.
Watts brings to life these fascinating and inspiring lives, such as Robert Weaver, economist and longest living member of the Black Cabinet, whose perseverance would result in the first appointment of an African American to the “white” cabinet of President Lyndon B. Johnson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Robert Vann, prominent newspaper editor essential in shifting black votes and political loyalties away from the Republican Party and to the Democrats; William “Bill” Hastie, lawyer and civil rights advocate who went on to become the first African American governor of the Virgin Islands, in addition to being named as a federal appellate judge later in life. To be sure, the Black Cabinet contained many other, slightly less prominent—but no less important—members throughout its existence, and Watts includes them and their contributions with exhaustive research (the bibliography and notes are must reads, as well). She also does yeoman’s work describing the often tedious work these sterling minds were given as early federal appointees in FDR’s new administration, the discrimination they fought and suffered, and ultimately, the groundwork they laid for future generations of civil rights warriors, both within and outside the government.
However, the biggest star of Watt’s book is the “star-led” woman who acted as the sun to the orbiting male minds who displayed little of the contemporary misogyny of the time. Mary McLeod Bethune was a force that kept the Black Cabinet on point and united even when its internecine quarrels threatened to end it, time and again. Bethune rightly deserves her own full-length biography. Born to former slaves in 1875, the fifteenth of seventeen children, she was an excellent student with huge ambitions that led to her founding her own school that eventually became Bethune-Cookman College (now University) in Daytona, Florida, in 1929. A lifelong Republican up until Roosevelt’s candidacy, Bethune grew disgusted with the continued lip service of the increasingly discriminatory Republicans and encouraged the black community give the Democrat Party and Roosevelt a chance. The enduring friendship of Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt mark some of the warmest passages in the book, at the same time highlighting the influence Bethune exercised within the Roosevelt administration and her own Black Cabinet circle.
The Black Cabinet also explores the inner workings of New Deal governmental agencies and the many obstructions the racial affairs advisers ran into over and over. Watts shows how the Black Cabinet seized the unique opportunity as Federal workers to not only advocate and build financial relief programs for Depression-era blacks, they believed the New Deal offered the chance to fight discrimination and injustice at all levels of society. Their work consisted of building coalitions and advocating for equal employment opportunities, fair wages, as well as the urgent appeals for passing anti-lynching legislation, to name only a few of their long list of civil rights demands. Many were not achieved during their lifetimes, but the seeds were planted.
Watts’s elegant and understated writing never leads the reader by the nose, but rather lets these vanguard civil rights leaders speak for themselves. The Black Cabinet is essential reading, now more than ever, to remind Americans of how long and hard the road to achieving civil rights was and still often is for African Americans. The courage, dignity, and fortitude of the men and women of the Black Cabinet serve as a continuing inspiration for all of us.
- Peggy
Also check out my video review at my BookTube channel: https://youtu.be/FvOlm2xrOvY
Jill Watts is the author of several books, including Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood, and professor of history at California State University San Marcos. Investing 12 years of research into The Black Cabinet, she documents a largely forgotten and clandestine unofficial council of African American economists, educators, journalists, and lawyers who advised the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration on racial affairs during the Depression Era and, eventually, beyond. This “Black Cabinet” of experts were the vanguard of a new movement that fought not only to improve the economic plight of African Americans under FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s, but to secure equality and justice for an oppressed and often persecuted and terrorized minority.
Under the indomitable leadership of the accomplished, confident, and determined African American educator, Mary McLeod Bethune, the Black Cabinet contained a bustling and often bristling coterie of the best and brightest. While bitter rivalries were often rife among the mostly male Cabinet, the shared belief and commitment to achieving black equality under the law was the glue cementing this diverse set of backgrounds and personalities.
Watts brings to life these fascinating and inspiring lives, such as Robert Weaver, economist and longest living member of the Black Cabinet, whose perseverance would result in the first appointment of an African American to the “white” cabinet of President Lyndon B. Johnson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Robert Vann, prominent newspaper editor essential in shifting black votes and political loyalties away from the Republican Party and to the Democrats; William “Bill” Hastie, lawyer and civil rights advocate who went on to become the first African American governor of the Virgin Islands, in addition to being named as a federal appellate judge later in life. To be sure, the Black Cabinet contained many other, slightly less prominent—but no less important—members throughout its existence, and Watts includes them and their contributions with exhaustive research (the bibliography and notes are must reads, as well). She also does yeoman’s work describing the often tedious work these sterling minds were given as early federal appointees in FDR’s new administration, the discrimination they fought and suffered, and ultimately, the groundwork they laid for future generations of civil rights warriors, both within and outside the government.
However, the biggest star of Watt’s book is the “star-led” woman who acted as the sun to the orbiting male minds who displayed little of the contemporary misogyny of the time. Mary McLeod Bethune was a force that kept the Black Cabinet on point and united even when its internecine quarrels threatened to end it, time and again. Bethune rightly deserves her own full-length biography. Born to former slaves in 1875, the fifteenth of seventeen children, she was an excellent student with huge ambitions that led to her founding her own school that eventually became Bethune-Cookman College (now University) in Daytona, Florida, in 1929. A lifelong Republican up until Roosevelt’s candidacy, Bethune grew disgusted with the continued lip service of the increasingly discriminatory Republicans and encouraged the black community give the Democrat Party and Roosevelt a chance. The enduring friendship of Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt mark some of the warmest passages in the book, at the same time highlighting the influence Bethune exercised within the Roosevelt administration and her own Black Cabinet circle.
The Black Cabinet also explores the inner workings of New Deal governmental agencies and the many obstructions the racial affairs advisers ran into over and over. Watts shows how the Black Cabinet seized the unique opportunity as Federal workers to not only advocate and build financial relief programs for Depression-era blacks, they believed the New Deal offered the chance to fight discrimination and injustice at all levels of society. Their work consisted of building coalitions and advocating for equal employment opportunities, fair wages, as well as the urgent appeals for passing anti-lynching legislation, to name only a few of their long list of civil rights demands. Many were not achieved during their lifetimes, but the seeds were planted.
Watts’s elegant and understated writing never leads the reader by the nose, but rather lets these vanguard civil rights leaders speak for themselves. The Black Cabinet is essential reading, now more than ever, to remind Americans of how long and hard the road to achieving civil rights was and still often is for African Americans. The courage, dignity, and fortitude of the men and women of the Black Cabinet serve as a continuing inspiration for all of us.
- Peggy
Also check out my video review at my BookTube channel: https://youtu.be/FvOlm2xrOvY
4.5 stars - a very comprehensive yet readable history of a fascinating period of American history that I knew very little about. The facts themselves are at times deeply frustrating or saddening, but the book does a great job of conveying the complexity of the struggle for equal rights in this period.
I had no idea that there were such powerhouses back in the background that tried to help move Blacks from Slavery to equality sooner than what I was taught in school — that of the 1960s.
I could tell that this book was well researched, it was presented not as a dry history book, but as a well conversational topic that fits the situation of the last few months. It helped me see that we have hidden too much history from our students, we have hushed discussions but don't really still talk about what is important and what is the problem. I hope that this book opens more people's eyes to how hard the Black leaders have worked to reach a day where equality isn't about lighter skin color, but a place we can all reside as the people that we are whether we are black, white, brown, or tan, Everyone wants the American dream, some people have just had to work harder to get even close to reaching it.
4 stars!
Thank you Netgalley, Grove Atlantic, and Jill Watts for allowing me the opportunity to read this book in lieu of my honest review.
I could tell that this book was well researched, it was presented not as a dry history book, but as a well conversational topic that fits the situation of the last few months. It helped me see that we have hidden too much history from our students, we have hushed discussions but don't really still talk about what is important and what is the problem. I hope that this book opens more people's eyes to how hard the Black leaders have worked to reach a day where equality isn't about lighter skin color, but a place we can all reside as the people that we are whether we are black, white, brown, or tan, Everyone wants the American dream, some people have just had to work harder to get even close to reaching it.
4 stars!
Thank you Netgalley, Grove Atlantic, and Jill Watts for allowing me the opportunity to read this book in lieu of my honest review.
Fascinating account of Black history that we never covered in school. Profiling the African Americans that laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement during the New Deal years of the FDR administration, this book was engaging and informative about the progress and setbacks for racial justice in the 1930s and 40s.
You don't know what you don't know.
This book illuminated a part of American history that I just didn't know. I didn't know about this group of African American men and women who worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of black people in America. Mary McLeod Bethune's story should be taught in history classes in school. I learned so much about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and how his "black cabinet" influenced racial justice issues.
This is a powerful read for the America we have today. Jill Watts wrote a book about our history that we all should have known already. She points us back to our history so that we just might be able to move forward a little better than we currently are.
The publisher made this book available via netgalley. This is my honest review.
This book illuminated a part of American history that I just didn't know. I didn't know about this group of African American men and women who worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of black people in America. Mary McLeod Bethune's story should be taught in history classes in school. I learned so much about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and how his "black cabinet" influenced racial justice issues.
This is a powerful read for the America we have today. Jill Watts wrote a book about our history that we all should have known already. She points us back to our history so that we just might be able to move forward a little better than we currently are.
The publisher made this book available via netgalley. This is my honest review.
Very competent historical overview of the African American shadow cabinet in the Roosevelt administration. Naturally this overlaps with the general history of African Americans in the US in the 30’s and 40’s. It’s not a slim volume so there really is quite a lot of depth here, although the story is spread among a host of characters so there is not a huge amount of depth to any of the individuals that are covered.
If you have ever taken an American History course, the topic of the Black Cabinet usually gets a cursory overview. The Black Cabinet is usually described as a group of African American leaders and intellectuals who President Franklin Roosevelt assembled to advise him on issues important to the African American community. That well known description is FALSE. In Jill Watts’ new book, she tells the true story of how the Black Cabinet formed in the FDR years and the successes and failures that the group faced.
The Black Cabinet is a well-researched book on the history of national African American politics from the early 20th Century through the age of Franklin Roosevelt. Readers will be amazed to learn about the Black Cabinet’s roots and its battles with Presidents of both parties in the first three decades of the 20th Century. However, things began to change during the Depression years and the African American vote which had been reliably Republican since the time of Lincoln was now up for grabs. Lifelong Black Republicans began to flirt with voting for the Democrats and in 1932 Franklin Roosevelt is elected president, with the help of Black votes, promising a New Deal for the American people. However the New Deal was not beneficial to African Americans at the very beginning and throughout FDR’s tenure; progress for African Americans came in fits and starts. The Black Cabinet was influential in pushing and advocating for policies that would help African Americans. Watts’ unveils that the Black Cabinet consisted of over 100 members but had five core influential members: Mary McLeod Bethune, the titular leader of the Cabinet, Robert Weaver, Bill Hastie, Al Smith, and Robert Vann. Many students of African American history may be familiar with Bethune but may not be familiar with her “boys” as they were affectionately called. Watts does a great job covering their lives, their successes and the challenges they faced as Black Cabinet members. All five core members had to fight to be heard and were strong advocates for their causes, all at the risk of losing their jobs, being transferred to other agencies, or being labeled a Communist by Members of Congress.
Many American historical books put the president as the focal point of the story; however Watts’ book does not do that. FDR is of course an important figure but this book is about the bureaucratic figures behind the scenes that pushed for change. The members of the Black Cabinet were not officially appointed by FDR, neither were they confirmed by the Senate, but these informal leaders and scholars had a major impact on civil rights and economic policies affecting African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s. They were also precursors to the modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the policies that they advocated for did not come into fruition during their time in the Roosevelt administration but were enacted in the decades to come. Watts’ phenomenal book sheds light on these figures; they need to be known by more people. Students of history and politics will enjoy reading this groundbreaking work.
Thanks to NetGalley, Grove Press, and Jill Watts for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
My review can also be found on Medium: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-mind/review-the-black-cabinet-the-untold-story-of-african-americans-and-politics-during-the-age-of-2ea322603c81?source=friends_link&sk=7ffa2b02830151358493405e5cd2b5da
I also hosted a book discussion with the author on May 17, 2020. You can read the highlights here: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-mind/highlights-from-a-book-discussion-with-jill-watts-on-her-new-book-the-black-cabinet-5a57b8334ae2?source=friends_link&sk=1f31c114ac1a41702dcc7cb9a8176a4c
The Black Cabinet is a well-researched book on the history of national African American politics from the early 20th Century through the age of Franklin Roosevelt. Readers will be amazed to learn about the Black Cabinet’s roots and its battles with Presidents of both parties in the first three decades of the 20th Century. However, things began to change during the Depression years and the African American vote which had been reliably Republican since the time of Lincoln was now up for grabs. Lifelong Black Republicans began to flirt with voting for the Democrats and in 1932 Franklin Roosevelt is elected president, with the help of Black votes, promising a New Deal for the American people. However the New Deal was not beneficial to African Americans at the very beginning and throughout FDR’s tenure; progress for African Americans came in fits and starts. The Black Cabinet was influential in pushing and advocating for policies that would help African Americans. Watts’ unveils that the Black Cabinet consisted of over 100 members but had five core influential members: Mary McLeod Bethune, the titular leader of the Cabinet, Robert Weaver, Bill Hastie, Al Smith, and Robert Vann. Many students of African American history may be familiar with Bethune but may not be familiar with her “boys” as they were affectionately called. Watts does a great job covering their lives, their successes and the challenges they faced as Black Cabinet members. All five core members had to fight to be heard and were strong advocates for their causes, all at the risk of losing their jobs, being transferred to other agencies, or being labeled a Communist by Members of Congress.
Many American historical books put the president as the focal point of the story; however Watts’ book does not do that. FDR is of course an important figure but this book is about the bureaucratic figures behind the scenes that pushed for change. The members of the Black Cabinet were not officially appointed by FDR, neither were they confirmed by the Senate, but these informal leaders and scholars had a major impact on civil rights and economic policies affecting African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s. They were also precursors to the modern Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the policies that they advocated for did not come into fruition during their time in the Roosevelt administration but were enacted in the decades to come. Watts’ phenomenal book sheds light on these figures; they need to be known by more people. Students of history and politics will enjoy reading this groundbreaking work.
Thanks to NetGalley, Grove Press, and Jill Watts for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
My review can also be found on Medium: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-mind/review-the-black-cabinet-the-untold-story-of-african-americans-and-politics-during-the-age-of-2ea322603c81?source=friends_link&sk=7ffa2b02830151358493405e5cd2b5da
I also hosted a book discussion with the author on May 17, 2020. You can read the highlights here: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-mind/highlights-from-a-book-discussion-with-jill-watts-on-her-new-book-the-black-cabinet-5a57b8334ae2?source=friends_link&sk=1f31c114ac1a41702dcc7cb9a8176a4c
Watts has written an extensive history of the Black Cabinet. While much has been written about the Black Cabinet and its role during the New Deal, Watts dispels many myths and describes the Black Cabinet not as a collection of individuals but as a long-term efforts over the course of decades to advance Black interests. This book is well-written and filled with a in-depth look at behind-the-scenes events that may not make it into the narrative of American history. I recommend that anyone who wants to understand American politics during the time of the New Deal read this book.
I leaned a a alot! Sometimes the chapters were very long though and I had almost too information presented at one time.
We joined Mocha Girls Read in discussing The Black Cabinet. The group chat followed by the author chat gave value to this gem. Well written and thoroughly researched, this book gives depth to the phenomenal role of Mary McLeod Bethune, Robert C. Weaver,Walter White, and William Henry Hastie in Roosevelt's administration.
The Black Cabinet should be added to the reading lists of political science classes and woven into reading groups hosted by civil rights advocates.
Jill Watts presents the nuiances and strategic leadership this cabinet had to maneuver in order to move impactful policy that helped rebuild communities post the Great Depression.There is exception to the importance of this work when we look to find this historical account within the social context of Black life during the New Deal and after. We celebrate the instances where Watts presents the role and work ot the Black Press in this era.
The Black Cabinet is not historical fiction nor biographical therefore the time commitment to complete the book may extend beyond expectation. But it's worth completing.
3.5-star.
@mochagirlsread
#theBlackCabinet
#JozefBookandBrew
#netgalleyreview
The Black Cabinet should be added to the reading lists of political science classes and woven into reading groups hosted by civil rights advocates.
Jill Watts presents the nuiances and strategic leadership this cabinet had to maneuver in order to move impactful policy that helped rebuild communities post the Great Depression.There is exception to the importance of this work when we look to find this historical account within the social context of Black life during the New Deal and after. We celebrate the instances where Watts presents the role and work ot the Black Press in this era.
The Black Cabinet is not historical fiction nor biographical therefore the time commitment to complete the book may extend beyond expectation. But it's worth completing.
3.5-star.
@mochagirlsread
#theBlackCabinet
#JozefBookandBrew
#netgalleyreview