African Americans in the New Deal evidence

Question 1

Evidence supporting political progress in the ND. 3 main points.

Answer 1

• The ‘Black Cabinet’ formed during the Roosevelt administration, with 40 AA advisors including Mary McLeod Bethune, who headed the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration.
• Increased political appointments; Roosevelt appointed William H Hastie as the first AA federal judge in 1937.
• Shift in AA voting patterns, by 1936 approx 75% of AAs had switched from Republican to Democratic Party, showing increased political engagement.

Question 2

Evidence supporting economic progress in the ND. 4 main points.

Answer 2

• The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed approximately 200,000 African Americans by 1940, representing 10% of total participants.
• The Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided jobs to approximately 350,000 AAs annually, about 15-20% of its workforce.
• Median African income increased from approximately $460 in 1929 to $595 in 1939, a 29% increase despite the depression.
• Federal minimum wage laws from the Fair Labour Standards Act (1938) benefitted many African American workers previously subject to extremely low wages.

Question 3

Evidence supporting social progress in the New Deal for African Americans. 3 main points

Answer 3

`- The Federal Arts Project employed African American Artists, writers and musicians, providing opportunities.
- Educational opportunities expanded through the National Youth Administration (NYA) which employed roughly 300,000 African American students.
- Eleanor Roosevelt’s public advocacy: she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when they refused to let an AA singer perform at constitution hall.

Question 4

Evidence AGAINST political progress in the ND. 3 main points

Answer 4

• Roosevelt refused to support anti-lynching legislation fearing loss of Southern support.
• No significant civil rights legislation passed.
• African Americans remain largely disenfranchised in the South with less than 5% registered to vote in many Southern states.

Question 5

Evidence AGAINST economic progress in the ND. 4 main points

Answer 5

• Many ND programs were administered locally, allowing for systematic discrimination.
• The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) policies led to approximately 200,000 African American share croppers and tenant farmers being replaced.
• National Recovery Administration (NRA) codes set lower wages for “Negro jobs”
• AA unemployment remained disproportionately high, reaching nearly 50% in some urban areas compared to a national peak of about 25%.

Question 6

Evidence AGAINST social progress in the ND. 4 main points

Answer 6

• Federal Housing Administration (FHA) policies institutionalised housing segregation through “redlining”. This insitutionalised segregation set the scene for decades to come.
• Persistent segregation in CCC camps, with only about 150 integrated camps out of several thousand. Uneven and modest.
• Continued racial violence, 90 lynchings between 1933-39.
• Social Security Act initially excluded agricultural and domestic workers, occupations that employed approximately 65% of AAs.

Question 7

STATS SUPPORTING PROGRESS. 3 points

Answer 7

• AA infant mortality rates fell from 81 per 1,000 in 1933 to 64 by 1941.
• AA literacy rates improve from 83.7% in 1930 to 89.1% in 1940.
• WPA employment of African Americans (15-20%) exceeded their population of the general population (9.8%)

Question 8

STATS OPPOSING PROGRESS. 3 main

Answer 8

• Wage disparities remain severe. AAs earn on average 41% of what white workers earn in 1939.
• In 1940 about 49% of housing considered substandard compared to whites. (this remains the same for generations to come)
• Unemployment rates for AAs remained nearly twice of that of whites throughout the ND.