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How Did The Great Depression Affect Black Minority Groups

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Elysia Laub May 8th, 2024 Dustin Hudak Dual Credit United States History The Extent to Which the Great Depression Affected Black Minority Groups The Great Depression was a period of economic disparity from 1929 to 1939. It followed World War I by about 11 years, but the war was the initial instigating factor of the depression. With money flying around to pay off war debts and reparations, stock markets abruptly crashed and chaos ensued, leading to astronomical unemployment, poverty, and hunger rates. While the Great Depression hit all American citizens tremendously, the effect it had on minority groups was more severe and different than most other groups. The Great Depression uniquely impacted black minority groups, causing economic discrepancy, …show more content…

All of the uproar and fighting for this case was caused by the strength and unity of the black community. By staying strong and sticking up for themselves, they were able to win more equality in court as well as contribute to the spark that began the Civil Rights Movement. During the Great Depression, the government tried to create plans to aid citizens through the hard times. While this somewhat helped most citizens, African Americans were neglected and not able to reap as many benefits from these plans. At the same time, they refused to outlaw popular hate crimes used against blacks. With the KKK at large again, this was detrimental to black communities. This showed the government’s ignorance of minority groups. A quote from a document about the Great Depression illustrates this neglection from President Roosevelt himself, “Roosevelt not only rejected such proposals as abolishing the poll tax and declaring lynching a federal crime, but he also refused to specifically target African American needs in any of his larger relief and reform packages.” With blacks finding themselves in such deep poverty in the

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But unfortunately the reality was that the minorities had much harder times than white Americans. In 1933, the general unemployment rate in the United States was over 25 percent; at the same time, unemployment rates for various American minorities ranged up to 50 percent or more (“Great Depression and the New Deal Reference Library”1). Racial discrimination was high and minorities were the first to loose their jobs during the Great Depression. They were denied to work. They were often denied employment in public works programs, they were sometimes threatened at relief centers when applying for work or assistance, and even some charities refused to provide food to needy minorities, especially to blacks in the South.

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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.

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During the 1930’s the great depression took place, while there was little to no work, there were laws being passed, and the African Americans were being separated not only in their work, but also their schooling, and the places they went while getting the leftovers from everything. While there was very little work during this time.1890-1980 is the only decade where the average earnings declined. Every white person that wanted to work had to have a job before any business where to hire an african american person. They were not allowed to work with the whites they often had to work in the fields, but were soon replaced by machines.

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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.

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These programs were put in place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and were intended to provide economic relief and recovery for all Americans. However, African Americans did not benefit from these programs to the same extent as white Americans. (Document 6) Furthermore, discriminatory practices by government officials and private employers meant that African Americans were often the last to be hired and the first to be laid off, even in New Deal-funded projects. Increasing job opportunities, in addition to establishing a fair work environment, would lower unemployment rates for African Americans and poverty rates in black communities during the Great Depression.

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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.

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This led to many hate crimes against the black population, little to no contact between the races, and a restricted lifestyle for

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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.

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The Great Depression affected almost all of America in the 1930s. This has caused many Americans to lose their jobs and livelihoods. “the American farmers went through the loss of their farms, ruined crops, and dust storms. (page 13)” farmers who were finally debt-free were hit with a drought that lasted 30 years, overproduced to the point where the price of crops hit an all-time low, and had to leave their jobs just to find work. Black Tuesday was the catalyst for the Great Depression, as major stock prices and the backbone of our economy crashed and failed.

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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.

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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.

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The Great Depression was a period of an economic disaster that lasted from 1929 to 1939. The effects of the depression varied across the nation and had a significant impact on all the different classes of the society. The following investigation will explore the impacts of Great Depression on the daily lives of middle-class Americans. Middle-class Americans were severely affected by the Depression mostly because they stood in the most convenient place of the societal ladder, they were neither poor nor wealthy. So, when Depression struck, the middle-class almost disappeared from the ladder because the economic crisis was massive and affected their lifestyles drastically.

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Have you ever think about how white people treat black people so badly during the great depression? White people seem black people as guilty because of their skin color, and because of the skin color, terrible things happen to a character in the story “To Kill A Mockingbird.” This sounds ridiculous, but this is what really happened in the great depression, people can do anything for their own benefits. At that time, racism was so common in the society, white people judge black people by their skin color, and white people even think about black people in a very distorted way. How can racism be so common during the time in the society?

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Jobs dropped like flies. In the article, “Amistad Digital Resource,” it states, “While white unemployment had hit an extraordinarily high rate of 31.7 percent in 1931, it was well over 50 percent for Black Americans” (The Great Depression 2). Many families lost everything they had, and suffered extremely. People’s lives were turned upside-down. Citizens that lost their job could not afford food or the basic needs to survive.

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For all Americans, the 1930s were dark and difficult times. Following the stock market crash of 1929, the United States entered a long period of economic recession, known as the Great Depression. Although all social groups were affected by this catastrophe, none was as acutely damaged as the African-American population, which had already been facing widespread racial discrimination at that time. At the same time, many basic rights such as black suffrage were incomplete, with laws in many southern states (where the majority of the African-Americans lived) made voting nearly impossible for the vast majority. This caused severe underrepresentation within the U.S. government for African-American and fueled the rampant segregation and racial

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