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While no group escaped the economic devastation of the Great Depression, few suffered more than African Americans, who experienced the highest unemployment rate during the 1930s.
Lasting from 1929 to 1939, the Great Depression was the worst economic downtown in the industrialized world. While no group escaped the economic devastation of the Great Depression, few suffered more than African Americans. Said to be “last hired, first fired,” African Americans were the first to see hours and jobs cut, and they experienced the highest unemployment rate during the 1930s. Since they were already relegated to lower-paying professions, African Americans had less of a financial cushion to fall back on when the economy collapsed.
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The Great Depression and Its Affect on African Americans – 700 Word Long Essay
The Great Depression impacted African Americans for decades to come. It spurred the rise of African-American activism, which laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The popularity of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal program also saw African Americans switch their political allegiances to become a core part of the Democratic Party’s voting bloc.
African-American Unemployment
Prior to the Great Depression, African Americans worked primarily in unskilled jobs. After the stock market crash of 1929, those entry-level, low-paying jobs either disappeared or were filled by whites in need of employment. According to the Library of Congress, the African-American unemployment rate in 1932 climbed to approximately 50 percent.
As historian Cheryl Lynn Greenberg writes in To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression, black unemployment rates in the South were double or even triple that of the white population. In Atlanta, nearly 70 percent of black workers were jobless in 1934.
This intensified economic plight sparked major political developments among African Americans. Beginning in 1929, the St. Louis Urban League launched a national “jobs for Negroes” movement by boycotting chain stores that had mostly Black customers but hired only white employees. Efforts to unify African American organizations and youth groups later led to the founding of the National Negro Congress in 1936 and the Southern Negro Youth Congress in 1937.
Forced Migrations
In cities across the North, approximately 25 percent of white workers were unemployed in 1932, while the jobless rates among African Americans topped 50 percent in Chicago and Pittsburgh and 60 percent in Philadelphia and Detroit.
During the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of African-American sharecroppers who fell into debt joined the Great Migration from the rural South to the urban North. According to Greenberg, by 1940 1.75 million African Americans had moved from the South to cities in the North and West.
From the Great Depression’s earliest days, African Americans mobilized to protest for greater economic, social, and political rights. In 1929, Chicago Whip editor Joseph Bibb organized boycotts of city department stores that refused to hire African Americans. The grassroots protests against racially discriminatory hiring practices worked, resulting in the employment of 2,000 African Americans. The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” boycotts and pickets soon spread to other cities across the North.
The decade of the 1930s saw the growth of African American activism that presaged the Civil Rights Movement. In 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune organized the National Council of Negro Women, and the following year saw the first meeting of the National Negro Congress, an umbrella movement of diverse African-American organizations that fought for anti-lynching legislation, the elimination of the poll tax, and the eligibility of agricultural and domestic workers for Social Security. Young African Americans 1937 formed the Southern Negro Youth Congress registered voters and organized boycotts.
Discrimination Against African Americans
Although New Deal programs provided African Americans with badly needed economic assistance, they were administered at a state level where racial segregation was still widespread, and systemically, enforced. The New Deal did little to challenge existing racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws prevalent during the 1930s.
The Civilian Conservation Corps established racially segregated camps, while the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages in African-American neighborhoods. The Agricultural Adjustment Association gave white landowners money for keeping their fields fallow, but they were not required to pass any money to African-American sharecroppers and tenant farmers who farmed the land and were not eligible for Social Security benefits.
World War II
The industrial boom that began with the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939 ended the Depression. However, unemployed whites were generally the first to be given jobs.
President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 banning “discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government” and establishing a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to investigate violations. Although discrimination remained widespread, during the war African Americans secured more jobs at better wages in a greater range of occupations than ever before.
Affect of Great Depression on African Americans – 300 Word Short Essay
The Great Depression of the 1930s worsened the already bleak economic situation of African Americans. They were the first to be laid off from their jobs, and they suffered from an unemployment rate two to three times that of whites. In early public assistance programs, African Americans often received substantially less aid than whites, and some charitable organizations even excluded Blacks from their soup kitchens.
The voter registration drives that intensified during the 1960s began to show results by the end of the decade. In 1960 only about 28 percent of the African American voting-age population in the South was registered, and there were perhaps a hundred African American elected officials. By 1969, with the number of registrants more than doubled, up to 1,185 African Americans had been elected to state and local offices.
Although most African Americans traditionally voted Republican, the election of President Franklin Roosevelt began to change voting patterns. Roosevelt entertained African American visitors at the White House and was known to have a number of black advisors. According to historian John Hope Franklin, many African Americans were excited by the energy with which Roosevelt began tackling the problems of the Depression and gained “a sense of belonging they had never experienced before” from his fireside.
FAQs
How great depression affected black people living in the United States?
The great depression created havoc problems for the poor African Americans. They suffered physically, mentally, and economically. The great depression added to their miserable situation by creating a ton of problems for them.
What was the black cabinet and what was its Role?
The black cabinet that is also known as Federal Council for Negro Affairs was an informal team of African Americans who served as advisors to President Franklin. They were the ones who briefed the government about the crisis situation faced by the African Americans.
What was the role of the democratic party in helping African Americans?
Democratic party ensured that they will work for the right of African Americans and they tried their best to bring reforms for African Americans who were suffering at that time.