Latina/os. Blacks. Commingling. 3
MBDA) on March 5, 1969. Nixon was a member of the more recalcitrant
Republican Party, but he believed that he could further the civil rights
cause by putting in place laws to encourage “Blacks, Mexican-Americans,
Puerto Ricans, Indians and others . . . to enter the field of business, both in
the areas where they now live and in the larger commercial community—
not only as workers, but also as managers and owners.”3 Black and Latino
business owners wanted to utilize the agencies’ networks, which were de-
signed to provide technical assistance and access to capital and contracts,
but its programs were not always fully functional. Presidents elected after
Nixon have lowered their budget allocations for the MBDA: under Nixon
it was set at $60 million but the annual budget has been set at around $30
million since at least 2009. Under the presidency of the Democratic Party’s
Jimmy Carter, more blacks and Latinos were appointed to serve in the fed-
eral administration than at any previous time in history. By 1980, Carter’s
administration had published a 14-page “Directory of Hispanic Appoin-
tees in the Carter Administration,” which featured a listing of Hispanics
who were working at high levels in the administration. Carter famously
named Andrew Young—a former activist who had worked with Rev. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr.—to serve as the first African American U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations, and Patricia Roberts Harris became the first African
American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet when she was named
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In 1977, Carter signed the
Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law that forced banks to create
greater access to loans and other financial services in the middle- and low-
income communities they operated in or face regulations when they
wanted to expand their businesses. The CRA was instrumental in helping
to promote home ownership and further economic progress for blacks and
Latinos who traditionally were denied access to investment finances. In
1998, President Bill Clinton announced a Racial and Ethnic Health Dis-
parities Initiative to end the sharp disparities in health care that blacks,
Latinos, and Native Americans had been faced with as compared to white
Americans. In this same vein, in 2014 the nation’s first African American
president, Barack Obama, launched a federal program aimed at improving
the economic and educational status of young black and Hispanic
men. Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” program (https://obamawhitehouse
.archives.gov/my-brothers-keeper) directed $200 million in foundation
money toward programs intended to close the racial achievement gap in
schools and reduce the disproportionate unemployment rate that has beset
black and Latino communities since the 1960s.
Since the 1960s, U.S. presidents and politicians have made it part of
their platform to talk about policies they would put in place to aid—and,
