Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal created many controversies where some were optimistic about the new programs and others were left in doubt. One particular cartoon artist L. Rogers expressed his stance of the latter by publishing a series of political cartoon that direct towards anti-New Deal sentiments. As a prominent writer for a black Chicago newspaper he published the cartoon above, in 1934, conveying his discern of the first New Deal establishment, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which was created to abolish corrupt business practices and to induce rights for workers by setting standards of minimum wage and maximum hours.
The cartoon above displays a joyful family where the father is telling his wife news about his company becoming a member of the NRA, and his presumptions about better wages and better hours. On the second half of the cartoon it shows that the father later learns that the company has cut his job and his fellow workers by exclusively hiring whites only. The factory discriminated blacks because they did not want to promote more black rights. The cartoon shows that white racists were using the New Deal as a way of furthering discrimination against the blacks. Lynching and wage discrimination were still very much prevalent in the 1930s, and eventually the NRA was even referred to as “Negroes Ruined Again.” L. Rogers created this cartoon to illustrate Roosevelt’s fail recognition of the blacks and his sentiments that the New Deal was only created to aid the whites.
Although Roosevelt did decrease the rate of unemployment with his various programs, many blacks did not gain any benefits and some were even hurt from it. The minimum wage act cause many employers to hired only people who were worth the pay and many blacks lacked the skills; discrimination was also a huge problem just like the post above has mentioned. In the end, around 500,000 blacks were estimated to have lost their jobs. This should be on the exam because it sheds light on the negative impacts of the New Deal where often these issues become overshadowed by its accomplishments.