In 1778 Congress passed a law which was promoted by General Washington that recognized human health care as a basic right to black Americans who master’s gave them freedom to fight in the Revolutionary War: ““in Case such Slave shall, by Sickness or otherwise, be rendered unable to maintain himself, he shall not be chargeable to his Master or Mistress, but shall be supported at the Expense of the State.” At the expense of the state. Think about that. The government agrees by law to pay for health care of black humans who are freed to fight in the war. Nuts.
In the picture in your story in 1934, surrounded only by white people, FDR is signing a bill to enact a program only for white people. The Social Security Act only provided a type of pension to professionals, who were white. A black woman later sued and lost when her white husband died and she couldn’t get his social security.
Often times I feel deceived in thinking that “things get better” over time. Today people think “George Washington was racist” and “FDR helped people.” The truth is the reverse, for black Americans. Washington struggled to accept anti-slavery issues, sharing his blanket on the battlefield with a black man at camp during the winter, promoting this law, and reversing his decision to allow blacks to fight in the Revolution two months after he said he wouldn’t. FDR signed acts written by the most racist senators of the twentieth century who carved out black Americans from every single bill he signed, but benefited all white in every single bill he signed. He struggle against supporting the human rights of blacks. I call these bills The New White Deals after studying them, as spread the worst national segregation perhaps ever. The senators who wrote them were horrible segregationists and said the nastiest things about black Americans.
You’re right in showing this picture, even though it “triggered me.” I felt so deceived in growing up thinking the opposite of what those bills actually did. Of course we were told the opposite and of course whites loved the bills since all the benefits went to whites, giving them social security, cheap mortgages for homes, unions to unite for better wages and working conditions—the things black Americans didn’t get.