It is mostly forgotten now but it was President Richard Nixon, not earlier Presidents John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, who launched affirmative action. Prior to the Nixon administration, the whole thrust of legal and political action had been to remove legal barriers to equal opportunity rather than constructing a system setting aside actual or de facto quotas favoring one group or another.

Nixon Presidency

undertook an initiative to break notorious discrimination in the construction industry and unions. The so-called Philadelphia Plan was established which set aside a certain percentage of jobs for African Americans in construction trades. The practice soon spread elsewhere and became called affirmative action.

National liberals most active in leading the drive toward the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were suspicious of affirmative action.