New Deal impact on AAs - social, political and economic gains and limitations

Question 1

What were the social gains African Americans had from the New Deal?

Answer 1

-literacy help and unemployment training
-change in atmosphere on civil rights

Question 2

How did the New Deal help with literacy and unemployment training?

Answer 2

-benefited from poor relief and job creation projects administered by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration from 1933-1935 and then the World progress Administration which followed in 1936->over 1/4 of a million AAs were given literacy help via federal aid projects->employment training was also provided by the National Youth Administration which was advised by the influential AA reformer Mary McLeod Bethune

Question 3

How did the New Deal help with a change in atmosphere on civil rights?

Answer 3

-defenders of the New Deal’s contribution to better race relations point to more of a change in atmosphere towards civil rights than very dramatic civil rights legislation

Question 4

How did Eleanor Roosevelt help change the atmosphere on civil rights?

Answer 4

-Eleanor Roosevelt supported AA organisations and openly disapproved of segregation

Question 5

How did the NAACP membership change? When?

Answer 5

-grew in the late 1930s

Question 6

What were the social limitations African Americans had from the New Deal?

Answer 6

-Social Security Act
-Segregation

Question 7

How did the New Deal limit African Americans with the Social Security Act?

Answer 7

-Social Security Act provisions did not apply to the bulk of the work done by AAs

Question 8

How did the New Deal limit African Americans with segregation?

Answer 8

-segregation remained prevalent in most institutions and in the armed forces throughout WW2

Question 9

How were there political gains with lynching’s?

Answer 9

-FDRs spoke out against lynching’s though no law was passed against them

Question 10

What political gains did African Americans have as a result of the New Deal?

Answer 10

-some appointments of AAs to New Deal offices

Question 11

What voting limitations did African Americans face as a result of the New Deal?

Answer 11

-FDR didn’t increase AA voting rights

Question 12

What was Robert Weaver’s role?

Answer 12

-became special advisor on the Economic Status of the Negro in 1934 and later the head of the influential Public Works Administration

Question 13

How did Robert Weaver’s appointment lead to provision made for African Americans (gain)?

Answer 13

-grants of $45 million to build schools, hospitals and homes for AAs-> unusually there was provision made for AA workers in federal projects for house building

Question 14

What was a gained from African Americans due to the drop in food and raw materials? What was set up?

Answer 14

-Farm Security Administrators gave help to Southern AAs who were hit particularly hard by the drop in food and raw material prices after 1929

Question 15

How did Sharecropping limit African Americans due to economy?

Answer 15

-many poor sharecroppers would not pay rents-> little was done for the 200,000 who were evicted->when federal programmes reduced crops to maintain prices with reduced supply there was often no money paid directly to poorer AA tenants

Question 16

How did African Americans suffer from unemployment?

Answer 16

disproportionately

Question 17

How were African Americans limited from the attempts to improve working conditions?

Answer 17

-the attempts to improve working conditions excluded groups where AA labour was most common->agricultural work and domestic service

Question 18

How were African Americans limited with fair pay and conditions? (NRA)

Answer 18

-the National Recovery Administration (NRA) attempted to establish fair rates of pay and better conditions but didn’t encourage similar requirements in the industrial North->its regulations were evaded by many employers in the South

Question 19

How were African Americans limited due to the strengthening of unions by the Wagner Act?

Answer 19

-the strengthening of the unions by the Wagner Act tended to ensure that big employers used unionised labour which acted against the interest of AAs who were often merely casual workers and were not members of unions in large numbers

Question 20

How did the offerings of work limit African Americans?

Answer 20

-the provision of work by the Civilian Conservation Corps to help the unemployed did offer some relief to AAs but the labour campers were segregated and the type of work offered was not the same->AA workers received worse and most poorly paid work->where AA and white workers were employed in federal projects like the Tennessee Valley Dam they were segregated to avoid racial tensions