Ira Katznelson overturns conventional narratives about affirmative action by revealing its origins not in 1960s civil rights legislation but in the New Deal programs of the 1930s and 1940s that systematically excluded African Americans. The Columbia University political scientist and historian demonstrates how Social Security, the GI Bill, and other landmark programs were designed with provisions that kept Black Americans from receiving benefits, creating what Katznelson calls 'affirmative action for whites.' Southern Democrats demanded that agricultural and domestic workers--the majority of Black workers--be excluded from Social Security. The GI Bill's benefits were administered locally, allowing Southern officials to deny Black veterans access to home loans, job training, and college education. Katznelson marshals extensive evidence showing how these policies widened the racial wealth gap even as they created the white middle class. The book traces consequences into the present, arguing that contemporary debates about affirmative action ignore this history of systematic preference for white Americans. Katznelson's research reveals that the same legislators who wrote racial exclusions into the New Deal later championed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, suggesting a continuity between seemingly progressive and reactionary moments. This reframing of American social policy challenges both left and right to reckon with how government action created the inequalities that subsequent policies attempted to address.