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African Americans In The 1940s

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Prior to segregated societies in the 1940s, our economy after World War II was prospering. Marriage rates increased, as did the availability of jobs for white men, leading to the cult of domesticity—meaning that men are the breadwinners of the family while women stay home and do laundry. Due to discrimination, like “red lining,” against minorities within the workplace and the creation of suburbia, African Americans were continuously left poor and at the bottom of society. Over time, black positions at the bottom of society and women’s household roles remained, mainly due to the creation of suburbia and the discriminatory acts that maintained racial and gender inequality. As wealthy whites moved to the booming suburbs, many African Americans …show more content…

Even since the 1600s, blacks have been thought of as less than white people. When chattel slavery emerged, blacks were born into a low societal class that couldn’t be changed, similar to generational wealth in 1970s suburbia. Generational wealth that kept blacks from moving up in society was secured by southerners through the exclusion of blacks from the booming suburbs. It was especially difficult to potentially move up in society when blacks were excluded from college-level education. The Selective Service Readjustment Act of 1944 entailed that blacks weren’t eligible to get mortgage loans from banks, or in other words, red lining (Document 1). Blacks being excluded from housing opportunities greatly impacted how they remained left behind and below whites in society. This led to the wage gap increasing due to the fact that blacks were no longer hired in high level job positions because of their lack of education and skill sets. Due to the fact that blacks were not allowed to buy homes because of unsupported loans from the government, they were prohibited from owning property in the suburbs (Document 2). As the …show more content…

For a long time, activists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton have attempted to organize movements to stand up for the rights of women. Especially during the Great Depression, women who worked were vilified for taking jobs away from unemployed men. As the economy grew, men were still hired over women for industrial jobs, and women remained in charge of the household and their children. The bad living conditions and lack of space within cities drove people to suburbia, where there was more room and opportunity, particularly for women (Document 3). Opportunities of education were offered to many women and laborers to help productivity increase. As the number of industrial workers increased, the amount being produced increased, helping the economy grow. Women are strictly ordered to be managers of the household, so they were never offered higher education or job opportunities. Men are going to be making money within their families, which then leads them to buy a car (Document 4). Automobile culture boomed after World War II and supported economic expansion. Moving to the suburbs relies on buying a car for transportation so that you are able to use the new highway system. The highway system depended on people buying cars and allowing them to travel long

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Following his presidency, President Truman’s “Fair Society” and President Johnson’s “Great Society” programs continued to seek economic security and successfully raised the middle class of all groups, yet Liberals had limited political power, making discrimination and poverty still weighing on the backs of Black men and women. Though generally successful in ending the Depression and offering aid for most Americans, in the face of conservatism, sexism, and racism, Black men and women were disproportionately held back from reaping the benefits of the New Deal

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When slavery was abolished, Jim Crow laws were put into effect to keep African Americans and Whites separated. During these times black slaves were to receive 4 acres of land and a mule from the slave owner to repay them for the incarceration as slaves. Due to the split labor market, blacks had a harder time retaining their jobs, and the jobs that were approved for blacks were low paying. Despite the these societal disadvantages against the African American people, some slaves like my great, great, great grandfather, Wesley A. Settles who built the first school in Edgefield, SC where he taught African American children how to read and write, were able to rise and prosper. With his rise and prosperity, he became a victim of racism.

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More job opportunities began to open up therefore, there was an increased need for skilled workers. Companies thought it was a great idea to hire African Americans who would be more than willing to work, grant them a smaller pay and have their business continue to thrive in the prosperous decade. The white leaders of the industry often took advantage of policies to ensure that African Americans would be confined to the least desirable jobs with the lowest wages (Phillips 33). Within the jobs, workers would also be faced with discrimination. The African Americans would receive death threats in their place of work almost daily and were made to feel as if they were only there to benefit the economy (Phillips 39) For many years in American History, African Americans only received training to be skilled workers, as it didn 't seem necessary for them to receive any further education (Blanton 1).

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The term redlining, Reskin describes, explains how blacks are segregated into neighborhoods, aren’t as likely as whites to own a home, and how their home’s net worth is of far less value than whites. The first effect redlining has on blacks is

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Reagan’s campaign against poor Black people was successful in sharpening discrimination at a national level, even after the Civil Rights Movement worked to end discrimination within the system. Tillotson strongly argues that conservative ideology is “anti-African American agency and as an ideology it poses a significant threat to the internal security of African Americans” (51). Also that it has “destroyed to a large degree any efforts at an equal playing field for poverty stricken citizens of African ancestry in America” (Tillotson 50). Tillotson includes W.D. Wright’s argument that welfare segregates African Americans in ghettos by acting as a “substitution for educating masses of Black people” (40), and failing to properly train them for good paying jobs. Furthermore, even if they were skilled, they are already closed out of the job market based on skin color, the only place available for Black folks to remain is as an exploited underpaid cheap labor

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The fundamental idea of black economics is under investigation in this research to explain the gaps that exist in the community in terms of unemployment, poverty, income, wealth, assets, and education compared to the leading racial group. According to the article, Learning Race, Socializing Blackness: A Cross-Generational Analysis of Black Americans’ Racial Socialization Experiences, “The contemporary discourse that is prevalent in the African American community has been documented for many years since the post-Civil Rights Movement Era” (Nunnally). Fueling this discourse is a working assumption that somehow African Americans are equal to other racial groups and the economic barriers that exist in their community are caused by their lack of

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