This was a key condition the racists put before FDR. They said they would not support FDR's New Deal programs unless FDR supported their effort to block Republican anti-lynching bills. So FDR convinced even northern Democrats and progressives to back their southern counterparts in keeping these bills from coming to the floor for a vote.40 This is one of the most disgraceful legacies of the FDR presidency and it goes virtually unmentioned in progressive FDR biographies. In