Status Updates From When Affirmative Action Was...

"Southern members of congress feared that labor rights organizing would blend with + fuel civil rights activism, + they were frightened that an active federal government might level wages across racial lines- creating a national labor market, causing blacks to leave the south, diminish the southern establishment's control over those who stayed, + directly challenge Jim Crow practices."

"(1940s) Faced with the surprising rise of labor in the region, + a continuing attempt by members of The New Deal Coalition to create a more expansive federal administration to control labor that might not yield where issues of race intersected with those of employment, southern lawmakers feared that labor rights organizing would blend with civil rights activism."

"...equal opportunity is essential, but not enough." -LBJ