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Great depression impact on african americans
African American Life During The Great Depression
Impact of great depression on black people in America
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1930’s The Great Depression The Great Depression was the largest economic depression of the 20th century, and is commonly used today as a measure of how far the world’s economy can decline. The depression started in the U.S in 1929 with the Wall Street stock market crash (known as Black Tuesday). This eventually spread globally and affected the economy of many other nations throughout the 1930s. Canada was greatly affected by this as Canadian industrial production fell to 58%, the second lowest level after the United States.
During the time of the Great Depression, African Americans struggled the most already being the poorest people in America, but this changed with The Second World War which brought jobs and more rights to African Americans. In Chapters 10 and 11 of the book Creating Black Americans: African-American History and its meanings, 1619 to the present by Nell Irvin Painter, the author outlines the struggle for African Americans during the Great Depression, and even after during the New Deal era, then shows how they came out of it and became more successful and powerful during The Second World War. The Great Depression started with the crash of the stock market, and led to 25% of all American workers losing their jobs, most of which were African Americans.
The Great Depression hit African American groups extreme hard. It was often said they were the last to get hired and the first to get fired. With little to no jobs avaible across the board for them. African-Americans found extremely hard to get jobs that their racial groups regularly held before.
Women were often seen as secondary earners or homemakers, and their participation in the workforce was undervalued. African Americans faced racial discrimination, which limited their access to employment opportunities and government assistance. While the Great Depression ended, the racial discrimination and perspectives that women were less than men
The socioeconomic condition of African Americans underwent many superficial transformations from 1910 to 1930. Even though phenomena such as the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance cannot be discredited; the actual experience of the majority of African Americans remained stagnant. In other words, although the African American population experienced a notable shift from rural to urban and a subsequent cultural awakening in the time period between 1910 and 1930, they remained second-class citizens: confined to racial enclaves resulting from housing segregation and barred from the economic opportunities available to whites. African Americans were universally excluded from the social changes that the rest of the nation experienced during
The experience that the majority of urban and rural Americans shared together during the depression was a flat out lack of income. The differences were very few, but in the cities, the depression was more prominently visible because of a higher percentage of the population (Schultz 2014). Besides the lack of income and employment, most Americans underwent periods of time being extremely hungry. In the cities, people spent hours waiting in breadlines and were losing their homes to only end up living on the streets in communities referred to as "Hoovervilles" nicknamed after the president (Schultz 2014). In the country, families suffered because of unusual droughts of the 1930 's that caused crops to fail miserably meant the already indebted farmers commonly lost their properties.
The percentage of Americans that were losing jobs was outrageous “25 percent of all workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers were completely out of work. ”(Great Depression) and that only increased. The people moved and were kicked out of their lands feed to find work elsewhere but work was scarce and was no where to be found. The african americans also had a harder time finding work as the whites were given unfair priority. Their was a substantial gap between the rich and the poor and the poor was the lowest percentage of people in the Americas.
The movie, "Bonnie and Clyde", was based on a true story in 1930, one year after the great depression begun. The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn of America, it left many people homeless and unemployed during the 1930s. The stock market crash of 1929 extremely affected life in the 1930s. Before 1929, the economy was starting to prosper and families bought cars and homes in record numbers, often on credit. After the market crash, almost half of America's banks failed, and unemployment 30 percent of the workforce nationwide.
The 1900’s was an outlet for change, whether that was positive or negative is debatable. The Age of Imperialism led to taking advantage and suppressing the minority population. The Great War exposed new opportunities for diverse populations. The Jazz Age allowed African Americans to thrive, but resulted in exploitation and discrimination. Finally, the New Deal, which resulted because of the Great Depression, had a multifaceted impact on the underrepresented groups.
By Nevaeh Gray 7A. Do you know about the Great Depression and how it affected African Americans? This event affected people crucially and especially African Americans. At this time the economy was already very bleak, but when this terrible event happened it just made it worse for African Americans. For example, black people were the first to get laid off and some people even excluded black people from their soup kitchens. Black people would shop at stores but they would only hire white people.
Most people are aware about the great economic recession in the early 2000’s and a fewer people know about the great depression in the early 1930’s. They had a big effect on our economy, and when the economy was still young when a depression occurred. Formerly known as the great depression until the 1930’s, renamed the long depression. The panic of 1873 which is what it is called now, and it lasted up to 6 years in American and even longer in some other countries such as germany britain During the time of the 1930 post American Civil War the bank firm Jay Cooke and Company had stopped receiving money from foreign investor (Due to a depression over there as well) , who were investing in them. At the time Jay Cooke bank was a huge investor and
In contrast to the glamorous Roaring Twenties, “more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the workforce) became unemployed.” Businesses were shut down, and many were losing hope. Families learned to be very frugal, because every penny counted. African Americans struggled even more during this time. “In 1930, 50 percent of blacks were unemployed.”
In what ways did the Great Depression affect the American people? After a decade of economic prosperity, what seemed like an era that defined the concept of the American dream, quickly came to an end when the stock market on Wall Street collapsed in 1929. The aftermath of the events that occurred on Wall Street would put its heavy mark on the years to follow among the citizens of the United States. Banks closed down, unemployment rose and homelessness increased. It was a widespread national catastrophe that had its impacts on both poor and rich.
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).
The new technologies and forms of production affected African American and women. Some industries were just white women. The industries did the double of work that people labor, when that happened the people get less jobs, and opportunities, the industries take off the achievements that the African Americans achieve, so some machineries accept just white people, and African American get less money per labor. African Americans and immigrants women were looking for employment that were least affected by technological advances one of the employment were domestic service.it was good for African Americans women. The company of cigarettes just white women worked there.
