Elinor Williams Hooker Tea Talks 2024

The Great Depression of the 1930s worsened the already bleak situation of African Americans:  Jim Crow in the South forced many Black people to migrate elsewhere only to face intense discrimination in jobs, housing, education, finance, and the courts.

In 1933 during the worst moments of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced programs designed to provide jobs and revive the economy. His New Deal tried to protect the destitute and put America back to work. But Black Americans, often left out, had to continue to seek justice in the courts and in the streets.

Responding to these efforts, in 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson tried again. His Great Society envisioned an America without poverty or discrimination where all could enjoy education, housing, and job opportunities. But the Great Society led to a white backlash that still plays out today.

Looking at the social and civic environment in New Hampshire, this season’s Elinor William Hooker Tea Talk series will explore how these federal programs geared toward building a more just society played out in New Hampshire. We will ask what impact these programs had on our state and what happens when changing demographics encounter programs designed during the New Deal and Great Society? Is it time for “A New Deal for a Greater Society?” 

The winter tea talk series presented by BHTNH is a series of participatory panel-led conversations about how New Hampshire’s past helps us envision a more equitable future.