""Many leading New Dealers, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, Aubrey Williams, and John Flores Sr. worked to ensure blacks received at least 10% of welfare assistance payments.[42] There was no attempt whatever to end segregation, or to increase black rights in the South. Roosevelt appointed an unprecedented number of blacks to second-level positions in his administration; these appointees were collectively called the Black Cabinet. Roosevelt and Hopkins worked with several big city mayors to encourage the transition of black political organizations from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party from 1934-36, most notably in Chicago. The black community responded favorably, so that by 1936 the majority who voted (usually in the North) were voting Democratic. This was a sharp realignment from 1932, when most African Americans voted the Republican ticket. New Deal policies helped establish a political alliance between blacks and the Democratic Party that survives into the 21st century.""

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_deal)