BEFORE "BEFORE THE STORM" THERE WAS THE NEW DEAL

Many Southern Democrats were upset that FDR treated "Negroes" almost as if they were full-fledged American citizens, as this quote of Sen. Josiah W. Bailey (D-NC):

"The catering by out National Party to the Negro vote...is not only extremely distasteful, but very alarming to m," Bailey wrote [to R. G. Cherry, 3/1/1938] "Southern people know what this means and you would have to be in Washington only about three weeks to realize what it is meaning to our Party in the Northern states. It is bringing it down to the lowest depths of degradation."

SOURCE: Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933-1939, P.257.