Eric S. Yellin. Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America.

Abstract

In 1913, a decade after W. E. B. Du Bois declared that the problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the color line, Woodrow Wilson's administration redrew that line, expanding its boundaries through processes that institutionalized racism at the highest levels of government. Although this new system targeted the Republican patronage system that had opened up opportunities for African Americans in the federal bureaucracy, it was about more than separate bathrooms and separate eating facilities within government buildings. As Eric S. Yellin's powerful narrative argues, its aim was to limit opportunities for African Americans by “channeling civil servants into a racially tiered system with less mobility” (p. 2), lower wages, and fewer political and social rights. Since 1883, the most secure avenue for upward mobility for educated black Americans had been through employment as civil servants in the federal government. Within the context of the late nineteenth century, black civil servants in Washington, D.C. had been treated nearly equal with whites in terms of access to job opportunities and decent pay, earning nearly double that of most Americans. In 1912, over 1,800 black men and women worked in D.C.'s federal offices, some in supervisory positions over whites. As Wilson's administration cut positions for African Americans, reduced wages, and denied promotions, Washington, once a beacon of hope, turned into a city whose politics made a mockery of black citizenship rights. Yellin's story about how this world of opportunity and upward mobility for black America was “snuffed out” (p. 1) is also the story of how Wilsonians defined good government in terms that linked segregation and racial discrimination as necessary traits for achieving government efficiency.