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Fun fact: while the Civil Rights *Division* was created under Eisenhower, it took over the duties and records of the Civil Rights *Section*, a Roosevelt creation. https://twitter.com/sifill_ldf/status/1332375580470337536
The Civil Rights Section had begun life as the Civil Liberties Unit under Roosevelt attorney general Frank Murphy in 1939.
Murphy had lost his reelection campaign as Michigan governor in 1938, like a lot of liberal Democrats that fall. But soon afterward, he wrote Roosevelt to say that rather than back off the New Deal, now was the time to double down.
"The signs of the times here and abroad suggest to me that definite progress toward this end must soon be made if we are to prevent the election trend from becoming a reactionary sweep with possible disastrous results to our democratic institutions."
(as you know, New Dealers tended to regard the New Deal as a bulwark against fascism, as Murphy says here)
Murphy's creation of the Civil Liberties Unit represented a step in that direction—one he had been urged to take by the CIO, which thought it time for the administration "to effectively promote the exercise of civil rights in this country"—
(by which they meant all manner of civil rights, including labor rights)
Murphy charged the unit's seven attorneys "to make a study of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and Acts of Congress relating to civil rights with reference to present conditions…and to direct, supervise and conduct prosecutions"
The unit's creation inspired hope, especially among black Americans. The Chicago Defender reported, "The belief was expressed in several quarters that the new unit will ultimately prove of great value in the fight against lynching."
By the time the unit reported a comprehensive survey of statutes and clauses available for civil rights prosecutions, in May 1940, Murphy had gone on to the Supreme Court and was succeeded by Robert Jackson, who received this report.
It did argue that it was possible to bring civil rights charges under still-remaining reconstruction statutes if officials abetted lynchings or interfered with elections, as for example,
should "the state constable agree to be conveniently absent at the time when a meeting is to be broken up or the hooded knights are to ride"
But the unit was more keen on prosecuting "deprivation of negro voting rights at Federal elections."
The trick would be establishing that primary elections, which were all-white affairs in the South, were governed by federal election law. The civil rights lawyers were eager to bring a test case when they found the right set of facts.
It didn't take long; the Louisiana Democratic primary of 1940 offered them a chance. The case didn't have anything to do with black disfranchisement per se, just with elections officials trying to steal the election.
(This was during a moment of ascendancy for the anti-Long faction including T. Hale Boggs, on behalf of whom elections officials were caught changing vote totals.)
One of the corrupt officials was Patrick Classic, and the case against him became United States v. Classic.
The civil rights section ensured the case sped through lower courts. The judge even offered to craft his opinion to make it readily appealable.
The case thus arrived at the Supreme Court for the October Term of 1940.
In early 1941, the justices held that indeed, the primary election was part of the election, and thus subject to federal law.
Even though the framers had never contemplated a primary election; that was immaterial.
Neither had they "contemplated the application of the commerce clause to interstate telephone, telegraph and wireless communication, which are concededly within it."
Again, the letter of the case had nothing to do with black voting rights.
But its implications were clear. As the Miami Herald noted, if primaries were federal elections, then "interference with the rights of Negroes to vote in a primary to determine candidates for federal office violated the federal statutes."
Several black civil leaders and activists wrote the Civil Rights Section for clarification on this point—which the attorneys declined to provide.
They believed that, "as a policy question," they had better not take the argument further.
But the @NAACP_LDF did. Thurgood Marshall and William Hastie argued Smith v. Allwright three years later, successfully using the precedent of Classic to argue that the white primary was unconstitutional.
For me this is characteristic of the New Deal's relation to African American civil rights—keeping its distance, but not inimical and in some cases abetting the cause.
I talked a bit about that in this discussion of Robert Weaver's career, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-deal-stories/id1516673764
and yes, I'd like to go back and record some more of those but, you know, teaching, real job, etc.
