Frank Porter Graham and the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Graham Image courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress)
Ninety years ago, this month, the United States Congress passed the Social Security Act, a milestone piece of legislation designed to “provide for the general welfare” by establishing federal old-age benefits and enabling states to better support the elderly, blind, and disabled children, maternal and child welfare, and public health. Since its passage, Social Security has touched nearly every American life, offering a safety net that has kept millions of Americans out of poverty and enabled them to flourish well into old age.
Yet we forget just how monumental this legislative achievement was and the figures who helped make it possible. Here in North Carolina, few remember the vital advocacy of one of our own: Frank Porter Graham.
“Dr. Frank” stands among the greatest North Carolinians in history. Though he briefly served as a United States senator, his most enduring legacy lies in his tenure as president of the University of North Carolina and his tireless activism for a more just and humane South. Graham envisioned a “cleaner, nobler, and more beautiful America,” and spent his life advancing the causes of racial equality, labor rights, and economic justice. He was fearless in his pursuits, and along with his successor William Friday, Graham helped make Chapel Hill and the UNC System synonymous with the social, economic, and political progress of the 20th-century South.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew of Graham’s vision and commitment to justice. Through the auspices of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Roosevelt invited Graham to chair the Advisory Council on Economic Security, a group tasked with working in parallel to a committee of cabinet members in laying the groundwork for what would become the Social Security Act. The council met for just one month, from Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, but during that brief period, Graham poured himself into the effort.
As his biographer Warren Ashby observed, Graham’s work on the council reflected the culmination of his lifelong concerns: “sympathy for the underdog, the consequences of the industrial revolution, the plight of the worker, the feeling for the dispossessed and despised, the awareness of the downward pull of poverty.” For Graham, economic security for the elderly, unemployed, children, and mothers was not just a policy goal but a moral imperative. He believed that such security would help America live up to its ideals of liberty and opportunity at a time when the totalitarian regimes of Europe threatened those values.
Speaking at a White House conference on economic security in the fall of 1934, Graham captured the essence of Social Security’s mission in the face the negative consequences of the Industrial Revolution, which had manifested dramatically in the Great Depression:
“The human casualty of an industrial society is unable alone to provide for his own security. Labor unions, fraternal organizations, and cooperative societies are necessary. Social legislation is required for minimum wages and maximum hours. But social insurance is indispensable to security against unemployment, sickness, and old age. These millions of human beings provide the life and labor necessary to industrial civilization, but our modern civilization with its fragmentary view of human beings, and human society, makes but little provision for the security of their labor, sickness, and old age.”
As Ashby notes, Graham’s influence on the final legislation was modest. The Social Security Act was passed in a form weaker than his committee had envisioned or hoped. Yet, upon signing the bill into law, President Roosevelt declared it “the cornerstone in a structure which is being built, but which is by no means complete.”
Why recall Frank Porter Graham’s role today, 90 years after the passage of Social Security?
First, he should remind us of the importance of Social Security and that it emerged from a world of problems, especially in the American South, that most of us have never known or have forgotten, but to which none would want to return. In 1920, the only bulwark against old age poverty or the poor house in North Carolina was the generosity of relatives, good luck, or a Confederate pension, which amounted to no more than $72 ($1,205 in 2025) annually and, of course, was not available to the nearly one-third of North Carolinians who were Black. Recent reports indicate that Social Security will face a $25 trillion shortfall before the end of the century, and there has been little action from Congress to address the impending crisis that will affect us all, middle class and poor alike.
Graham’s work also reminds us of a tradition of humane, energetic progress unique to North Carolina, particularly among Southern states. This tradition, rooted in democratic liberalism, reflects a belief in our shared responsibility to alleviate suffering, improve human relations, and build a better future not solely for our own quality of life, but for the good of others.
Frank Porter Graham exemplified this noble tradition in North Carolina. Indeed, some might even say he inaugurated it. His life and service are a powerful reminder of what is possible when we combine sound learning with action, compassion with energy, a deep commitment to a particular place and people alongside unpretentious cosmopolitanism, and his legacy offers lessons that are as relevant today as they were in 1934. At a time when our nation faces deep divisions and pressing challenges — particularly from a new wave of human problems generated by the AI-dominated Fourth Industrial Revolution — we would do well to remember his example, and, despite the challenges, to renew our commitment to building a more just and equitable society for all North Carolinians.
Hence then, the article about frank porter graham and the legacy of social security was published today ( ) and is available on NC news line ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Frank Porter Graham and the legacy of Social Security )
Also on site :
- Aurora man arrested on suspicion of starting massive Leetsdale Drive fire
- Indiana Toll Road shut down after pileup crash involving around 29 vehicles
- '80s Thrash Metal Band Teases New Song From First Album in 5 Years