Essay on African Americans in the Great Depression

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†¦show more content†¦35) As Hoovers administration continued its business backing policies African Americans drifted towards Democrats. This accompanied a rapid urbanization that rose the percentage of African Americans livin g in cities from forty four percent to fifty percent in just 9 years, from 1930 to 1939. (Trotter, pg. 11) Seventy five percent of African Americans lived in the South, where Southern Democrats had oppressed and opposed African Americans since the end of the Reconstruction in the early 1870’s. (Americans at War) Despite the bad blood between African Americans and Democrats, they drifted in large numbers towards ‘the left’ as Roosevelt and his administration began to administer the â€Å"New Deal†. The New Deal was a series of programs and agencies set up to help the United States recover from the Depression. Over 20 million Americans sought assistance from agencies and programs such as Social Service. (Trotter, pg. 8) Many of these were African Americans, but over sixty percent of African Americans received no benefits from the New Deal due to a propensity towards racism in many of the local distributers of aid. (Trotter, pg. 11) According to labor laws su pported by Roosevelt and the Democrats, it was not required to pay African Americans minimum wage. Roosevelt also refused to sign an anti-lynching bill into law, allowing lynching to remain legal in many Southern states, due to Roosevelts need of the Southern Democrats to maintain power in the Senate andShow MoreRelatedAfrican Americans : A Great Depression1282 Words   |  6 PagesAfrican Americans didn’t know that is was a Great Depression. African Americans have always been poor and knew how to survive. By 1932, approximately half of black Americans were unemployed, blacks always felt unemployed and under paid. Whites attempted to keep blacks out of work by not hiring African Americans. 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