N.C. turns away federal dollars for poor (1933 version)

“North Carolina’s Senator Josiah Bailey, who voted against the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the National Recovery Administration in 1933, publicly worried about the burden on his poor state to meet the act’s one-third matching funds requirement….

“When the act passed, $40 million was distributed over three years in the state for public projects and relief, including direct aid to blacks from the federal government for the first time since Reconstruction — another thorn in the side of Southern politicians. The state’s contribution of $700,000, far below the required match, and its stalling with on complying with various other conditions denied North Carolinians the full benefit of the programs….”

— From “Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights” by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett (2015)