Aubrey Williams, MaryBethune believed in the fundamental commitment of the NewDeal to Line assist the blackAmerican’s struggle and in the (5) need for blacks to assume responsibilities to help win that struggle. Unlike those Of her white liberal associates, however,Bethune’s ideas had evolved out of a long experience as a "race leader." Founder of a small black college in (10) Florida, she had become widely known by 1935 as an organizer of black women’s groups and as a civil and political rights activist.Deeply religious, certain of her own capabilities, she held a rela- tively uncluttered view of what she felt were the (15) NewDeal’s and her own people’s obligations to the cause of racial justice. Unafraid to speak her mind to powerful whites, including the President, or to differing black factions, she combined faith in the ultimate willingness of whites to discard (20) their prejudice and bigotry with a strong sense of racial pride and commitment to Negro self-help. More than her liberal white friends,Bethune argued for a strong and direct black voice in initi- ating and shaping government policy. She pur- (25) sued this in her conversations with President Roosevelt, in numerous memoranda toAubrey Williams, and in her administrative work as head of the National YouthAdministration’s Office of NegroAffairs. With the assistance of Williams, (30) she was successful in having blacks selected to NYA、posts at the national, state, and local levels. But she also wanted a black presence throughout the federal government.At the beginning of the war she joined other black leaders in demanding (35) appointments to the Selective ServiceBoard and to theDepartment of theArmy; and she was instrumental in 1941 in securingEarlDickerson’s membership on the FairEmployment Practices Committee.By 1944, she was still making (40) appeals for black representation in "all public pro- grams, federal, state, and local," and "in policy- making posts as well as rank and file jobs." Though recognizing the weakness in the Roosevelt administration’s response to Negro (45) needs, MaryBethune remained in essence a black partisan champion of the NewDeal during the 1930s and 1940s. Her strong advocacy of admin- istration policies and programs was predicated on a number of factors: her assessment of the low (50) status of blackAmericans during theDepression; her faith in the willingness of some liberal whites to work for the inclusion of blacks in the govern- ment’s reform and recovery measures; her convic- tion that only massive federal aidCould elevate (55) the Negro economically; and her belief that the thirties and forties were producing a more self- aware and self-assured black population. Like a number of her white friends in government, Bethune assumed that the preservation of democ- (60) racy and black people’s "full integration into the benefits and the responsibilities" ofAmerican life were inextricably tied together. She was con- vinced that, with the help of a friendly govern- ment, a militant, aggressive "New Negro" would (65) emerge out of the devastation of depression and war, a "New Negro" who would "saveAmerica from itself," who would leadAmerica toward the full reali