Editing Franklin D. Roosevelt (section)

===Lynching and civil rights===
In contrast to Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Roosevelt stopped short of joining [[NAACP]] leaders in pushing for federal anti-[[lynching]] legislation. He asserted that such legislation was unlikely to pass and that his support for it would alienate Southern congressmen, though by 1940 even his conservative Texan vice-president, Garner, supported federal action against lynching.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Magness |first=Phillip W.  |title=How FDR Killed Federal Anti-Lynching Legislation|url= https://www.aier.org/article/how-fdr-killed-federal-anti-lynching-legislation/|journal=American Institute for Economic Research |date=July 31, 2020}}</ref>

Roosevelt did not appoint or nominate a single African American as secretary or assistant secretary to his cabinet. About one hundred African Americans met informally, however, to provide the administration with advice on issues related to African Americans. Although sometimes described as a "[[Black Cabinet]]", Roosevelt never officially acknowledged it as such nor did he make "appointments" to it.{{sfn|McJimsey|2000|pp=162–63}}

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt vocally supported efforts designed to aid the African American community, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped boost wages for nonwhite workers in the South.{{Sfn|Dallek|2017|pp=307–08}} In 1941, Roosevelt established the [[Fair Employment Practices Committee]] (FEPC) to implement [[Executive Order 8802]], which prohibited racial and religious discrimination in employment among defense contractors. The FEPC was the first national program directed against [[employment discrimination]], and it played a major role in opening up new employment opportunities to nonwhite workers. During World War II, the proportion of African American men employed in manufacturing positions rose significantly.<ref name="collins">{{cite journal|first=William J.|last=Collins|jstor=2677909|title=Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets|journal=[[The American Economic Review]]|volume=91|issue=1|pages=272–86|date=March 2001|doi=10.1257/aer.91.1.272}}</ref> In response to Roosevelt's policies, African Americans increasingly defected from the Republican Party during the 1930s and 1940s, becoming an important Democratic [[voting bloc]] in several Northern states.{{sfn|McJimsey|2000|pp=162–63}}