FEP Committee Gutted, Federal Employment Discrimination Enforcement Collapses

President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practice Committee, created 1941 to prohibit discrimination by federal contractors, is defunded by Congress in 1946 after Southern Democrats block its renewal. Black workers are systematically excluded from high-wage manufacturing, construction, and professional jobs through union segregation (AFL building trades maintain segregated locals), employer discrimination, and federal contractor non-enforcement. The median Black family income is 51 percent of white family income in 1947, reflecting structural exclusion from postwar prosperity.