Great Depression Dbq Essay

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. Although African Americans were the last to get jobs, shamed for writing letters to the president and other examples. The similarities

For white people it was more about their pride and as for African Americans they were afraid to write because there was a chance they could be killed. “Blacks expected to be jailed, killed, beaten or run out of their homes if their letters were discovered ”. They often left their letters anonymous so no one would be able to find out who was writing. They wrote about the discrimination they faced when they looked for work and other relief related issues. Even though African Americans and whites were writing for different reasons both groups did not want anyone to know they were writing. Both groups were hit hard by the Depression. In the letters from the African Americans it is clear that the nation was not coming together, it was being torn apart through racial inequalities. Whites were treated with more respect than African Americans. But through all the hate African Americans kept a strong faith

Dorothea Lange photographed some of the challenges that African Americans faced during this time. She was a photographer who always focused on individuals and wanted to portray a specific message . In June of 1937 she photographed an African American man down in Mississippi. The caption was, “Negro on the Aldridge Plantation, Mississippi. ‘We know our white folks (planters) and just what to say to please them ’”. The man in the picture was smiling almost as though he was being sarcastic. African Americans knew how to please the white people by saying what they wanted to hear, even if they did not agree with it. This showed another way in which African Americans and white people experienced the depression differently and that the country was divided racially. White people acted as though they were better or above African Americans during this time. The photograph’s caption helped explain the racial hierarchy that occurred during this