Affirmative Action from the New Deal through Civil Rights Era.

Who benefitted from Affirmative Action during the New Deal? Primarily White Americans and the definition of “White” was expanded to include impoverished immigrant communities such as Irish and Italian Americans. This changed after the Civil Rights Era when affirmative action programs started to benefit Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Thereafter, affirmative action programs were mismanaged, demonized and became less effective at pulling poor Americans into the middle class..