Black Cabinet

The Black Cabinet was an organized but unofficial group of African-American advisors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. African-American federal employees in the executive branch formed what they called the Federal Council of Negro Affairs to work to influence federal policy. In his years as president (1933-1945), Roosevelt, like all presidents before him, did not nominate African Americans to be secretary nor undersecretary in his official presidential cabinet, but by mid-1935, there were 45 African Americans working in executive roles in federal departments and New Deal agencies, and as presidential advisers. Roosevelt gave no formal recognition to the ad hoc council, although he used members as advisers and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt encouraged the council. Although many have ascribed the term "Black Cabinet" to Mary McLeod Bethune, who, during the Roosevelt administration, was the first Black person to lead a federal agency, African American newspapers had earlier used it to describe some informal Black advisors to earlier presidents.