American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, D.C., 1941-1981
Contrary to the myth that black employees were welcomed in the federal sector in the latter half of the 20th century, Frederick W. Gooding, Jr.’s American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, DC, 1941-1981 shows that the struggle for equal treatment was just as steep in government workplaces as it was in everyday life.
Black workers had to suffer not only the low opinion of their white counterparts, but they had to contend with a federal bureaucracy that was slow to respond to their complaints over salaries, promotion, and casual bigotry. Agencies such as the EEOC were backlogged with so many complaints that workers had to wait years for redress. Whites stubbornly resisted measures that would advance the cause of black employees, particularly if it meant they would have to work under them. That this occurred in Washington D.C. underscores the title’s link to Langston Hughes’s famous poem about the crushed hopes of black people in this country. What Gooding, Jr. does well in this book is examine the tortoise pace of progress for black federal workers and how that progress was thwarted at nearly every turn.
