Throughout this period, African American civil rights made a massive progress. Although for any progress to be made, federal government needed to implement new laws and legislations, but usually, government were not keen to act and in some cases actually made little impact on the civil rights movement. The African Americans themselves pushed the government to make changes through the leadership of the organisations set up, that led to the change in the civil rights that they eventually gained.
The presidents themselves never really showed any support towards the African American civil rights movement, because many had changing views about what to do about African American civil rights. Many of the presidents during the beginning of the period such as Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover were against the idea of African Americans gaining civil rights so didn't make any new laws to help advance the cause. Warren Harding even went as far to allow new laws about segregation to be developed even further from the Jim Crow laws. This showed just how strongly they wanted to keep the whites as the superior race and keep them in control. However the presidents change their views over time and were more lenient towards the advancement of civil rights for African Americans; for example Democrat Franklin. D Roosevelt (1932) introduced the new deal in 1933, which re-stimulated the economic growth and employment, but he did little else to directly help the African American civil rights because he was dependent on support from Southern Democrats to pass other laws, who were obviously not so keen to allow blacks their civil rights. Even approaching the end of the period presidents such as Nixon and Bush, were still not supporters of civil rights advancement for African Americans, and were still vetoing civil rights bills that would allow blacks equal