The 1930’s started off with a huge economic crash which left the U.S. startled and in the Great Depression. The stock market had just crashed on October 24, 1929, also known as the Wall Street Crash. The “Jazz Age” had just ended and new musicians and artists were slowly rising up to their fame. African American’s were being discriminated against in the south. Many African Americans were farmers who had to suffer from the Great Depression as well as the Dust Bowl. As a result of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl many African Americans had to go through the struggles of losing their jobs and having to move north in search for a new life. Many Americans had this problem as well, but the racism that was used against Africans, added to the severeness of the situation. African Americans weren’t able to get jobs, homes, or opportunities as easily as African Americans. Many African Americans were in terrible condition and most of it was because of the way that African Americans were treated. After President Roosevelt was elected a new hope had arisen through the country and Africans Americans were given another chance.
African American farmers worked hard and hoped that the harvest turned out well when the drought began. The prices of their crops had dropped and they were all slowly losing money.
The drought of the 1903s covered almost the entire decade. Many of the crops were destroyed because of the high winds insect infestations, high temperatures, dust storms and the
In this essay I will analyze the hardships of African American women and their hopeless life full of desperation and eagerness to survive. African American took responsibility for their families, sacrificed their pride, and learned how to survive without support. The Great Depression brought along many setbacks in human rights. The decades previous to the Great Depression brought along liberation to many groups but even in times of freedom, African Americans found themselves begging for work and accepting inhumane working conditions due to the devastating effects of the great
The Dust Bowl, battering the Midwest for nearly a decade with high winds, bad farming techniques, and drought, became a pivotal point in American history. The wind storm that seemed relentless beginning in the early 1930’s until its spell ended in 1939, affected the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and the broader agriculture industry. The catastrophic effects of the Dust Bowl took place most prominently around the Great Plains, otherwise known as the farming belt, including states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, which were hit extraordinarily hard. Millions of farming acres destroyed by poor farming techniques was a major contributor to what is considered to be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in American history. This period resulted in almost a decade of unstable farming and economic despair. Thousands of families sought government assistance in order to survive. Luckily, government aid to farmers and new agriculture programs that were introduced to help save the nation’s agriculture industry benefited families and helped the Great Plains recover from the Dust Bowl. Furthermore, the poor conditions in the farm belt were also compounded by the Great Depression as it was in full swing as the Dust Bowl began to worsen. In addition, World War I was also underway which caused a high demand for agricultural products, such as wheat, corn, and potatoes to be at its peak, which lured many people to the farm belt with the false expectation that farming
In the 1930’s black people were highly discriminated against. This was mainly because many black people started to migrate form the south to the north in order to find employment. Many
Racism was a larger issue back in the 1930’s than it is today. During the 1930’s many Black Americans were unable to find jobs. With the Great Depression came the “last hired first fired” mindset. Many African Americans felt that this was targeted towards them (Racial 5). This along with Jim Crow laws kept most blacks in a level of poverty, which added to the discrimination (Racial 7). Throughout this time, all the way up into the 1960’s and 1970’s African Americans were under great segregation. During this thirty years, great strides toward social equality were made, but at the cost of numerous racial driven incidents. Many great African American icons were assassinated during this time. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 because he stood up against racial oppression as well as Martin Luther King Jr. who was assassinated in 1968. Both of these two men were part of the leading force in the desegregation of America (Rosenberg 1). This movement led to great tension between the African American culture and white culture, which led to many very violent cases between the races. A great
The Great depression caused many problems for black people and they were greatly affected by it. Problems of the Great Depression affected every American, however, African Americans were the most affected. By 1932 half of Black Americans were out of work. In some Northern cities, blacks were fired so that a white person could take their job. But yet again, racial violence became more common, especially in the South. Even when President Roosevelt was trying to end the Great Depression there was still a conflict between the blacks and whites in the New Deal Housing and employment projects. This just goes to show that once everything has been set in motion that it can't really become a non-normal thing. Everyone was mostly worrying about themselves and their own people that they didn't bother
The life of African Americans in the 1800 was so harsh and unfair. Their owners would treat them cruelly and made them work long hours. They were not fed and had no sanitation which led to malnutrition and disease. Many young girls also went through sexual abuse and owners wouldn’t even get prosecuted because they were the ones who ruled everything. They separated many families from husbands, wife’s, and children. Those who were not prepared suffered every day because they were not with their families. Many of them never saw their family again.
What is segregation? Segregation is set apart or separation of people or things from others or from the main body or group. (dictionary.com) In the 1930s African Americans did not have the right to vote. The policy of segregation meant that blacks had their own churches, schools, football teams, and even their own cemeteries. The Great Depression also took place in the 1930s. The economic crisis of the 1930s, the Great Depression, is one of the most studied periods in American history. Racism was at a high point in the 1930s.
African Americans lifestyle did not see much change from before the depression and during the depression in the sense of the capital dollar. They assumed the New Deal brought up by president Roosevelt at the time would bring change to their life, but the white public would not stand to be on equal terms with a person of color. “Unemployment was rampant, and many whites felt that any available jobs belonged to the whites first.”i Many white Americans did not want African Americans to be paid minimum wage, but be paid lower than minimum wage. Industry’s also wanted to pay their employers a different wage depending on the color of their skin. “Negro unskilled labor,
After World War I ended, the 1920’s brought on dramatic political and social changes. For most people, the 1920’s brought them more conflict. They did not like the new changes and were trying to keep them from happening. However, for a small group of young people the 1920’s was a great time to make progress and move forward from the conservative norm. After women got suffrage, they pushed through the double standards and tried and got jobs in factories and offices, instead of only doing domestic work. African Americans pushed through the discrimination they were facing and moved to the northern states, where they got better jobs and better opportunities to pursue their dreams in literature, art, music, and stage performance.
The 1930's was a time of change for the blacks of the United States of America. However, this change was not all for the better. The main change for blacks during this period was that many of them migrated to the North, which in turn, caused many other situations, which included
The book starts out addressing the problem with the New deal and Great Depression. Black Americans suffered the most because they were mostly in agriculture and would be hit the hardest. Black urban unemployment reached well over 50 percent, more than twice the rate of whites. In my own opinion that wasn’t a coincidence. In southern cities, white workers rallied around such slogan “back to the cotton fields city jobs are for white folks." The most violent times took place on southern railroads, as unionized white workers intimidated, attacked, and murdered black firemen in order to take their jobs. Throughout African Americans lost their jobs in various parts of the South. Ku Klux Klan practices were being resumed and it became more and more dangerous for Blacks to live daily lives.
The Great Depression. The worst financial crisis to ever hit America. Unemployment rates of over 25%. A 50% decrease in national income. Billions of dollars lost in a single day. (Trotter, pg.8) The Depression affected everyone in America. Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, none were spared. However, for America’s 12 million African Americans (Encyclopedia of Race and Racism) the Depression didn’t just start in 1929.(Africa to America: From the Middle Passage Through the 1930s) African Americans were a subjugated minority. Racism wasn’t only present in America, it was accepted by many. In the South, Democrats fought to keep African Americans under harsh segregation and oppressive laws. (Trotter, pg. 9) Efforts to relieve
African Americans in America in history have gone through many hard times trying to just progress out of slavery and obtain freedom and have equal rights. In this paper I will attempt to explain what some of the important events of the time revealed about the role of African Americans in broader American society in, respectively, the 1920s and the late 1960s. I will explain how and why the roles of African Americans in the 1920s differed from their roles in the late 1960s, and explain how events in the 1920s may have contributed to
.African Americans were treated terrible in the 1930’s due to segregation. They were getting their rights taken away from them. One of the biggest rights they had was there vote. They had a terrible education because the white school board thought they were unable to learn at an advanced level. They had a terrible schools because people thought they were not worth the money. African Americans had it the worse during segregation because people still didn't like them because of their
In the 1930’s being in the black community was a disadvantage because of racism. In the 1930’s the income was about $20 every week so instead of paying for food or movies with money they would pay with actions(Gilderlehrman.org, 2017). Being in the black community in the 1930’s was hard not only because of the disadvantages women had but also the disadvantages black people had all together. Woman were already looked down on, but being a black woman was looked down on more because of skin color. “African American women in the north had approximately the same literacy rate as white women their age and were just as likely to send their children to school. But the payoff was much lower for black students. Even those with high school degrees were shut out of clerical and sales jobs in white neighborhoods. Employers refused to hire black women, even though they were better educated and worked for less than the pool of available whites”(Gilderlehrman.org, 2017). The women who had degrees and could work to help their family got turned away because of skin color even if they were more qualified. The women we forced to stay home and do house work even of they wanted to work. The Business owners did not care about anything except the color of their skin. Being in the black community in the 1930’s had many disadvantages, and was hard.