Policy • History • ImpactPromise Tracker
Browse tracked promise records across presidents. The default view prioritizes promises with direct or meaningful downstream Black-community impact, with an option to show all records.
Filter by president, status, or topic, or search across titles, summaries, and promise text. Relevance reflects the degree to which a promise is tied to Black-community outcomes.
94 Promise Tracker records
Lyndon B. Johnson
Sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, creating the central federal anti-discrimination law of the era and reshaping the legal framework governing segregation and unequal treatment.
Kennedy issued Executive Order 11063, creating a federal administrative housing-rights precursor before the Fair Housing Act and acknowledging that federally assisted housing could not be administered on segregated terms.
John F. Kennedy
Issue Executive Order 10925 on equal employment opportunityKennedy issued Executive Order 10925, creating an early modern federal equal-employment enforcement framework and helping establish the administrative bridge to later affirmative-action enforcement.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Enforce school desegregation at Little RockEisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and deployed the 101st Airborne to enforce desegregation at Central High School, making this one of the clearest civil-rights enforcement actions of the era.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sign the Civil Rights Act of 1957Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, establishing a modern federal civil-rights law and helping create the institutional basis for later voting-rights enforcement.
Harry S. Truman
Desegregate the armed forcesTruman signed Executive Order 9981, formally committing the federal government to equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services and beginning the process of military desegregation.
In Shelley v. Kraemer, the Supreme Court held that while private parties could enter racially restrictive covenants, state-court enforcement of those covenants constituted state action and could not be reconciled with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Establish a federal minimum wage and maximum-hours standardRoosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, creating a federal minimum wage and maximum-hours framework even though important exclusions limited the law's reach for many Black workers at the time.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Create old-age insurance and unemployment protections through Social SecurityRoosevelt signed the Social Security Act, establishing a foundational federal social-insurance structure even though major exclusions initially left many Black workers outside full coverage.
In Corrigan v. Buckley, the Supreme Court declined to disturb the enforcement of a racially restrictive covenant in the District of Columbia, holding that the constitutional objections presented did not supply a substantial federal question for the appeal and leaving the covenant's enforcement intact.
In Buchanan v. Warley, the Supreme Court held that Louisville's ordinance restricting where Black and white residents could live violated the Fourteenth Amendment by interfering with the right to acquire, use, and dispose of property.
In Myers v. Anderson, the Supreme Court held that Maryland's grandfather-clause voting law was unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment and affirmed that election officials who denied registration under that law could be liable for damages in a civil action.
