Black Cabinet

In his twelve years in office, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not appoint or nominate a single African American to be either a secretary or undersecretary in his presidential cabinet. Denied such an outlet, African American federal employees in the executive branch began to meet informally in an unofficial Federal Council of Negro Affairs to try to influence federal policy on race issues. By mid-1935, there were 45 African Americans working in federal executive departments and New Deal agencies. Referred to as the Black Cabinet, Roosevelt did not officially recognize it as such, nor make appointments to it. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt encouraged the group. Although many have ascribed the term to Mary McLeod Bethune, African American newspapers had earlier used it to describe key black advisors of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.