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How Did The Great Depression Affect African Americans

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The Great Depression was a very life changing time for all of the people who were affected by this. Everyone during this time went through a lot of suffering just to be able to survive. Although everyone was affected African Americans were greatly affected the any other race. The color of their skin and because they were not American led them to fighting difficulty for survival during the Great Depression. Unemployment, food and shelter were all the things that African Americans suffered from the most. They not only had to deal with all of this because they were different they had to deal with the violence that came with it. Through this hard time African Americans had to deal with the violence, but they also had to fight back and fight for …show more content…

The unemployment rate was increasing more and more. The conflict that started between the blacks and white was because of the loss of jobs. Since African Americans were not Americans, Americans felt as though they had a lot of the power during this time. The color of their skin is what made them looked at like they were lower than everyone else. A lot of Americans did not see them as being equal, and they felt as though if jobs were available it should be for the Americans first. “By 1932, approximately half of black Americans were out of work. In some Northern cities, whites called for blacks to be fired from any jobs as long as there were whites out of work” (Race During the Great Depression). African Americans had an awful experience during this time not only were they losing jobs, white Americans were making sure they did not have a job at all. This lead to a lot of black Americans to not have a job since they had a different color of skin. “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.” (Life during Great Depression). This shows that they were hit worse than any other race. It was not fair at all, they suffered from losing their jobs more than anyone. During this time they had to find every way they could to make some money whether it be to send their children to …show more content…

Violence started occurring more and more between the whites and blacks. The blacks started to see the whites as a threat because they started to take everything away from them. The whites would fight with them about anything because they wanted to make sure the blacks did not get anything of what they had. African Americans knew that they needed to put a stop to this so there could be change. “This led to riots and mobs demanding food for their families especially African Americans who were farmers in the south” (Life during Great Depression). It started to get really violent between the blacks and the whites because blacks started to realize that it really was not fair what they were doing. “As mentioned earlier African Americans did not just sit there, they fought back with protests and Riots and marches.” (Life during Great Depression). This shows that African Americans wanted this all to stop and get the rights that should have been put in place before that. Once everyone saw the riots going on they knew there needed to be a change. “Lynchings, which had declined to eight in 1932, surged to 28 in 1933” (Race During the Great Depression). When lynchings started to happen it got more serious, because people were getting killed over this. It started to get scary for a lot of black Americans because there life became at risk when all they wanted was

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