Executives

• Abraham Lincoln 1960

  Campaigned against slavery

  No Southern states supporting him

  Led Union into war

  abolished slavery in all states in Union in 1862

  Persuaded Congress to pass the Emancipation Proclamation 1865
• Andrew Johnson 1865-1869

  Southerner

  Opposed abolition of slavery
• Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921

  Took stance of white supremacy
• Franklin D Roosevelt 1933-1945

  New Deal - 1930s - aid for black people and white people

  Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933, gave work for unemployed people demanded by a black Republican Congressman

  Fair Labour Standards Act - didn't cover agriculture/ domestic service

  Sympathetic towards AA

  Did little to directly help them - depended on Southern Democrats for passing legislation

  Executive Order 8587 = prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, colour or creed

  His wife campaigned for AA civil rights publicly
• Harry S Truman 1945-1953

  Executive order against segregation in the military - after pressure from AA organisations

  Appointed a committee in 1946 on civil rights

  Praised by AA activists
• Dwight D Eisenhower 1953-1961

  Against separate but equal principle but never gave federal support

  1957- Civil Rights Act became law

  Justice Department now had a civil rights department
• John F Kennedy 1961-1963

  Modernising government

  General civil rights bill 1963 - forced due to ongoing violence and increasingly effective campaign by civil rights organisations
• Lyndon B Johnson 1963-1969

  Southerner

  Got together a pro civil rights coalition of Republicans and Democrats

  Civil Rights Act 1964

  Voting Rights Act 1965
• Richard Nixon 1969-1974

  Affirmative action- Executive Order 11578 required all employers with federal contracts to draft affirmative action policies to actively promote AA

  Civil Rights Act = put burden on business to show that any discrimination in employment
• Ronald Reagan 1981-1989

  Promised a colour blind administration

  Appointed fewer blacks to federal administration than any president

  Economic slowdown - welfare payments being cut - hit poor black families hard

  Congress was more liberal than President