How Did The Great Depression Affect African Americans In The 1930's

The middle class consisted of people who worked 9 to 5 jobs, and were able to afford entertainment. Meaning that this was the first time children were able to start actually living what we consider today as childhood, now that they don’t have to work in factories (“Impact of the Great Depression on Family and Home”1). However, during the great depression many middle class workers lost their jobs or had to work more hours for less money. Robbing these children of the freedoms they were previously given. Unfortunately, many children were pulled from school so they could get jobs to help provide for the family, some were sent away to live with other relatives, and many ran away (“What Were the Effects on the Children of the Great Depression?” 1).

The content enhances the value of this primary source, as it is predominately about changes in African-American employment from the Second World War to 1947, and policies to be implemented in the immediate future. This makes the source extremely relevant to my investigation, being valuable for identifying how Second World War affected governmental policies towards African-Americans. The value of the source is further magnified through its origin. As a document released to the public by the authoritative United States president, the source is likely to be genuine and credible. Truman’s office also enables him to have a direct influence on United States affairs such as African-American employment, making this report that he supervised

In the words of Robert Frost, “Nothing gold can stay.” Such is a true story for the American economy from the height of the roaring 20s, to the depths of the Great Depression. Since the overuse of credit, the farm crisis, and several other factors brought on the Great Depression, the nation was in desperate need of a leader and a way out of their economic crisis. Americans, in their desperation, sought change to end the suffering of the Great Depression in Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his New Deal. In the 1930’s, FDR enacted a series of laws in the U.S. known as the New Deal which were ineffective in dealing with the Great Depression, since the New Deal wasted deficit dollars into the economy, neglected the suffering of both women and minorities, and

During the 1920s, the American economy boomed. Ford was mass producing motors, people were buying more goods (mostly on hire) and there was even an increase in people investing in the stock market. The boom meant incomes rose and living standards improved for a lot of people, but, not all. Source 21 quotes Herbert Hoover saying ‘We are nearer today to the ideal of ending poverty and fear than ever before in any land’. The Republican government reduced income tax, meaning more money could be spent on goods; this coupled with low interest rates, meant people had more money to spend.

Crop production dried up during this time due to lack of rain and the dust storms that would plow through their cities. Without any crops farmers struggled to try and keep their farms. The African Americans’ experienced the great depression before the stock market crashed, when it did crash, they were hit much harder

Amidst the nationwide economic insecurity of the 1929 Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the New Deal for all Americans, policies whose general success yet uncomprehensive nature created lasting disparities that are visible today. Broken into three legislative periods, the New Deal Order was comprised of the New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society plans, all of which were intended to hinder the drastic effects of the depression and improve the lives of those in the larger impoverished classes. With Black Americans being most affected by the skyrocketing unemployment and poverty rates, the policies’ effectivity can be partially measured by how much aid was provided to them. During the first two parts of the New Deal,

African Americans faced even greater discrimination during the 1930s. African Americans faced “inevitable discriminations” (Document I) and the Roosevelt administration took very little action to defend them. Roosevelt was worried about losing white southern democratic voters and did not take a heavy stance on discrimination in the United States during the 1930s. African Americans were seen as competition for jobs and people believed that they deserved a job more than the African Americans did. Both African Americans

On October 29, 1929 the Stock Market crashed in the United States. The years to follow were full of desperation and despair. Most Americans suffered greatly but two groups that were hit in similar and very different ways were African Americans and white people in America. Although the Great Depression may have brought some people together that was not the case for these two groups. African Americans and white people experienced the Great Depression in similar ways but also in different ways because of racial inequalities partly to do with everyone’s desperation to find work, this caused a divide in America.

When FDR was elected into office, there were 13,000,000 people unemployed and most banks were closed and he still managed to pull through using the New Deal. That being said, the problem of racial discrimination was still prevalent. A letter sent by an anonymous person to the president said that, “it is to believe the relief officials here are using up most everything that you send for themselves and their friends. They give out the relief supplies here on Wednesday of this week and give us black folks, each one, nothing but a few cans of pickled meat and to white folks they give blankets, bolts of cloth and things like that.” (Document 16)

No one grieved more than African Americans. By 1932, approximately half of black Americans experienced unemployment. (Race During the Great Depression) African Americans were the first to be fired from jobs when the economy lolled and was the last to be hired. (Women

Despite how there was technically a very small amount of people that were financially stable, there was an even larger amount of underclass in the U.S. that had practically no money. " During the worst years of the Depression, 1933-34, the overall jobless rate was twenty-five percent with another twenty-five percent of breadwinners having their wages and hours

The top 1% of the population held more wealth than the bottom 42%, and many Americans struggled to make ends meet. The high unemployment rates and low wages were major problems. Additionally, agricultural prices were low, leading to rural poverty. This inequality was further exacerbated by policies such as the Tax Cuts of 1921, which favored the wealthy and contributed to the growth of the stock market bubble. As a result, many Americans did not experience the economic prosperity often associated with the Roaring Twenties.

One of the problems that they faced was discrimination in finding employment which caused African Americans to have unemployment rates that doubled or tripled that of whites. These rates were largely due to the government ignoring African Americans during Hoover’s presidency, but this was changed with Roosevelt’s New Deal. A newspaper called The Crisis commented on the New Deal’s affects on African Americans when they stated, “[The] most important contribution of the Roosevelt administration is teh age-old color line problem in America…government has taken on meaning and substance for the Negro masses. ”(Doc I).

In some areas, the unemployment rate for minorities was 50% of the population! Some charities would even go as far as to refuse to serve African and Mexican Americans. Jobs were first given to the white men, then if spots were left, to the white women. Jobs were rare and valuable during the Great Depression, especially to minorities. Black women found themselves at an advantage as they could find jobs in the house easier than men could in the factories.

Even thought the New Deal programs provided thousands of job across America, African Ameicans were still underpaid and underemployed by employers. In addition, and as a corollary of the hiring situation, African Americans,