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How Did The Great Depression Affect African Americans In The 1930's

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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. At one time in 1932, there were near to 250,000 homeless children throughout America. By far the ones who fared much worse off were African Americans owing to the fact that they were already impoverished anyway. The fact was white Americans were preferable as employees at that day and age, so black Americans were considered the first to be fired in …show more content…

Strangely enough, the hopes of Americans stayed alive primarily through the leisure activities that they had adopted so readily in the 1920 's, movies and radio. The entertainment industry made humongous strides in the 1930 's and was a place the public could escape to which allowed the "American Dream" to stay alive (Schultz 2014). The major themes of the movie industry were to either made the situation comical or to make it a story to encourage the average Joe. The American writers also saw a climb in popularity, especially when they wrote about why the country was suffering. During all of this, the political world was shifting to the left, trying to find a way to change without changing for the

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