Wilson Administration Segregates Federal Government: Jim Crow Comes to Washington

Within months of taking office, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration began systematically segregating the federal government, reversing decades of relative integration in civil service employment. Postmaster General Albert Burleson proposed segregation at an April 11, 1913 cabinet meeting, and Wilson approved, beginning a transformation that would institutionalize racism throughout the executive branch.

The Treasury and Post Office departments led the segregation effort, installing separate bathrooms, cafeterias, and work areas. Black employees were demoted or fired, photographs were required with civil service applications to facilitate racial screening, and previously integrated offices became whites-only. William Monroe Trotter, a Black newspaper editor, confronted Wilson at the White House, leading Wilson to declare that “segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit” and have Trotter removed. Wilson’s private views were clear: he had praised the Ku Klux Klan in his historical writings and arranged a White House screening of “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915.

The NAACP and Black leaders who had supported Wilson in 1912, hoping a Democrat would be better than the Republican status quo, were devastated. W.E.B. Du Bois, who had endorsed Wilson, spent years fighting the segregation policies. The federal workforce segregation represented a major setback for civil rights, establishing precedent that would persist for decades and demonstrating that “Progressive” reform could coexist comfortably with systemic racism. Wilson’s actions showed how political capture by white supremacy could reverse civil rights gains even during an era of supposed reform.