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African Americans and The New Deal - Coggle Diagram
African Americans and The New Deal
African American Limitations
The National Recovery Administration (NRA) attempted to establish fair rates of pay and better conditions, but did not encourage similar requirements in the industrial north. Its regulations were evaded by many employers in the south.
The strengthening of the unions by the Wagner Act tended to ensure that big employers used unionised labour ~ which acted against the interests of African Americans, who were often merely casual workers and were not members of unions in large numbers.
The attempts to improve working conditions excluded groups where African American labour was most common ~ agricultural work and domestic service.
Social Security Act provisions did not apply to the bulk of the work done by African Americans.
African Americans suffered disproportionately from unemployment.
Segregation remained prevalent in most institutions and in the armed forces throughout WW2.
Many poor sharecroppers could no pay rents. Little was done for the 200,000 who were evicted. When federal programs reduced crop production and paid farmers for not producing crops to maintain prices with reduced supply, there was often no money paid directly to the poorer African American tenants.
The provision of work by the Civilian Conservation Corps to help the unemployed did offer some relief to the African Americans, but the labor camps were segregated and the type of work offered was not the same ~ African American workers received the worst and most poorly paid work. Where African American and white workers were employed in federal projects like the Tennesse Valley Dam, they were segregated to avoid racial tensions.
Many gains were countered with setbacks to the progress of Civil rights during this period.
Roosevelt did not increase African American voting rights.
African American Gains
Farm Security Administrators gave help to southern African Americans who were hit particularly hard by the drop in food and raw material prices after 1929.
Roosevelt spoke out against lynchings, though no law was passed against them. there were some appointments of African Americans to New Deal offices.
African Americans benefited from poor relief and job creation projects administered by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration from 1933~35 and then the World Progress Administration, which followed in 1936. Over a 1/4 of 1 million African Americans were given literacy help via federal aid progects. Employment training was also provided by the National Youth Administration, which was advised by the influential African American reformer, Mary McLeod Bethune.
Eleanor Roosevelt supported African American organisations and openly disapproved of segregation.
African American Robert Weaver became special advisor on the economic status of the Negro in 1934 and later the head of the influential Public Works Administration. His appointment led to grants of $45 million to build schools, hospitals and homes for African Americans. Unusually, there was provision made for a certain number of African American workers in federal projects for house building.
Context
The Great Depression had particularly affected the rural South and its associated industries. African Americans benefited from general measures of President Roosevelt's New Deal and some specific reforms aimed at ending racial discrimination.