FDR created the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) in 1941 to ban discriminatory employment practices by federal agencies, unions, and companies engaged in war-related work. FEPC was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in home-front industries during WWII, and contributed to substantial economic improvements among black men during the 1940s. Analyses showed that blacks who gained entree into the defense industry benefitted from higher wages and retained their jobs through 1950, after which discriminatory practices returned. While the minority unemployment rate today is twice that of whites, the federal government still employs more minorities than industry as a whole. Read more about labor laws over the last century in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
