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The great depression and its impact on african americans
Effects of great depression on black people
Economic impact of the great depression
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No matter if a country was considered rich or poor, the Great Depression had devastating effects. The unemployment rate increased dramatically, going from 3% to 25%. For the people who were lucky enough to still be employed during this horrible time, their wages fell 42%. However, the crash of the stock market is not the only thing that caused the Great Depression. In the middle of the 1930’s, a severe drought struck and it ruined much of the agriculture of the United States, which was known as the Dust Bowl.
Having no money, Americans had to borrow money from the bank, which did not help Americans with their debt. Overall, the Great Depression affected everyone in America in some way shape or form. Furthermore, due to the Great Depression the Braddock family was forced to make adjustments. Like most Americans at the time, Jimmy Braddock lost his job. Boxing was his only income of money along with jobs he got on the docks once in a while.
Regardless of location, the American people suffered during the Great Depression. It all started with the Stock Market Crash of 1929. People used credit too often and didn’t have the money to pay for what they were buying. Levels of unemployment started to drop as companies started to laid off workers. From 1929 to 1933, one in every seven businesses failed.
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.
Evidence proves that the Great depression took a huge economic toll on the lives American citizens. . On October 29, 1929 the stock market crashed leaving many bankrupt and others to go as far as to committing suicide. During the following months over 9,000 banks failed eventually leading to a depression. The great depression left many homeless and in extreme poverty; African-Americans were doing the worst. Similarly on September 16, 2008 the stock market crashed owing to the exposure of subprime mortgages and credit default swaps.
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).
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.
As the stock market plummeted and banks failed, millions of Americans found themselves out of work and struggling. Mexican Americans especially felt this era of economic struggle. The Great Depression negatively impacted Mexican Americans in several ways, as they faced increased discrimination which limited economic opportunities, furthermore worsening economic hardships, compounded by the vulnerability of migrant workers to deportation and exclusion from New Deal benefits. Mexican Americans faced increased discrimination which limited economic opportunities and worsened financial struggles during the Great Depression, when many businesses failed and less work was available. Since everyone in the U.S. was looking for work, it was seen as
The years prior to World War II little hope or improvements for Blacks. It was a time characterized by the realities of Jim Crow and poverty. The Great Depression of the 1930's had double the impact on many Blacks, who were already living below the poverty level before it began. For Southern Blacks, the burden of day-to-day struggle to survive in a society of sanctioned racism had gotten heavier.
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.
In the 1930s, race was a very important issue. People with white skin were at the top of the “racial totem pole”, while people with darker skin, such as African-Americans, were viewed at the bottom. They were viewed like that by almost every white person in those times, but thanks to Martin Luther King Jr and Franklin Roosevelt, the view of African-Americans today has changed completely. In the great depression, all Americans were affected, but the people who were affected the most were African-Americans. The amount of lynchings increased by 20 in a year alone, and they were fired from jobs if they worked in a town or city.
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.
In the 1930s, something extremely unexpected occurred and caught everyone off guard. The Great Depression made the southern residents have to face many difficult challenges in addition to the other worries they might've had. The Great Depression caused many southern citizens to lose their jobs and be neglected based on the color of their skin, which resulted in a variation of different living conditions and lifestyles. The Great Depression made it extremely burdensome and harsh on African Americans, jobs and wages were often cut, and there was always a constant need of finding new ways to survive. First, the African American race probably faced the most challenges and difficulties during the Great Depression.
Reconstruction Had Long Effects On African Americans In the mid-19th century, most black people in the South were slaves, and they were treated like goods. They were discriminated, were punished because of disobedience, and were not protected by the laws.(Treatment of Slaves, 2016) Since the American Civil War broke out-- a war fought between the northern Unions and the southern Confederates--the United States had unprecedented costs in the history. When the Civil War ended, parts of the South lay in ruins--homes were burned, businesses were closed, many properties were abandoned.
The great depression affected a lot of people, especially the farmers due to price drops. The great depression caused one of the biggest unemployment rates in the World. This depression caused a lot of countries like France and Britain to collapse. The great depression caused a lot of businesses and banks to get closed due to the inability to not pay their workers or because or bankruptcy.
