"The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC) was established by Franklin Roosevelt in response to an intense lobbying campaign led by black leaders who challenged his administration to eliminate racial discrimination in U.S. defense plants. In this examination of the FEPC's work, focusing on the pivotal Midwest, Andrew Edmund Kersten shows how this tiny government agency influenced the course of civil rights reform and moved the United States closer to a national fair employment policy.". "Race, Jobs and the War looks across the Midwest at the accomplishments and failures of a New Deal organization that laid the foundation for today's contested affirmative action practices. Rejecting claims that black advancement during the war was due primarily to shortages of labor, Kersten contends that the FEPC made significant strides in allaying discrimination, especially when local authorities cooperated. Efforts to foster racial equality in the southern region of the Midwest suffered from managerial stonewalling and white hostility, Kersten finds, while areas farther north saw more support from government officials and community and union activists and correspondingly greater success in reversing discriminatory patterns."--BOOK JACKET.