Remembering the New Deal during Black History Month: FDR appoints the first African American federal judge

Above: William Hastie (1904-1976), left, was "one of the first African American members of the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. He was appointed the President's race relations advisor. Later he was given the post of assistant solicitor for the Department of Interior" ("Hastie, William Henry," BlackPast.org). "In 1937 Hastie became the first African-American federal judge when President Roosevelt appointed him to the bench of the Federal District Court in the Virgin Islands" ("William Henry Hastie," Howard University School of Law). Hastie later become the dean of Howard University's School of Law, the governor of the Virgin Islands, and an appellate judge on the U.S. 3rd Circuit (the 3rd Circuit covers Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands). Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.