Civil Rights for African-Americans during the Great Depression

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Civil Rights for African-Americans during the
Great Depression
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A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes

• What happens to a dream deferred?
• Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
• Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
• Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and
  sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
• Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
• Or does it explode?
• From http//famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/langsto
  n_hughes/poems/16947

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The Great Depression

• A worldwide economic downturn starting in 1929
  and ending during the early 1940s
• Started in 1929 with the October 29, 1929, Stock
  Market crash known as Black Tuesday.

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General Effects

• Construction halted
• Crop prices fell by 40 to 60 percent
• 13 million people became unemployed
• About 5000 banks went out of business
• 50 of the children did not have adequate food,
  shelter, clothing, or medical care
• Dust was everywhere lungs, food, drinks, houses,
  furniture, bodies.
• The New Deal

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Hoover Soup

• Some people would go into restaurants and pretend
  they were going to order when the waitress went
  back into the kitchen they would poor all the
  stuff on the table like ketchup, salt, pepper,
  etc into their water.
• They would drink it down before the waitress came
  back and then they would tell her that they
  changed their minds and they didn't see anything
  on the menu they wanted. This drink mixture was
  called "Hoover soup."

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Effects on African Americans

• Last hired, first fired."
• African Americans were hit hardest during the
  depression. Companies laid off African Americans
  before others.
• Segregation prevented many from finding options
  for housing.
• Racial tensions grew as economic tensions
  mounted, lynching's in the south saw a huge
  resurgence.
• Black women especially found it easier to obtain
  work than Black men.

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Man HorseResettlement Administration Rural
Rehabilitation "Alvin Sharpe" Iredell Co., N.C.
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SquatterFarm Security Administration Arkansas
squatter for three years in California near
Bakersfield, California. Photo by D. Lange.
(Circa 1935)
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NYC Bank RunCrowd at New York's American Union
Bank during a bank run early in the Great
Depression. The Bank opened in 1917 and went out
of business on June 30, 1931.
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Dust Storm"One of South Dakota's Black
Blizzards, 1934"
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Foreclosure
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The Mayberry FamilyResettlement Administration
Rural Rehabilitation "Dave Mayberry" Iredell
Co., N.C. (Circa November 1933)
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Christmas DinnerFarm Security Administration
Christmas dinner in the home of Earl Pauley near
Smithland, Iowa. (Circa 1935)