Black jackhammer operator at the Tennessee Valley Authority, June 1942.Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
DOCUMENT B: AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE NEW DEAL
Most New Deal programs discriminated against blacks. The NRA (National Recovery Administration), for example, not only offered whites the first crack at jobs but allowed separate and lower wages for blacks.
The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) refused to guarantee
mortgages for blacks who tried to buy in white neighborhoods, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) maintained segregated camps.Furthermore, the Social Security Act did not include most jobs blacks historically held.
The story in agriculture was particularly grim. Since 40 percent of all black workers made their living as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, the Agricultural Adjustment Association (AAA) land reduction hit blacks hard. White landlords could make more money by leaving land unplanted than by planting it. As a result, the AAA's policies forced more than 100,000 blacks off the land in 1933 and 1934.
Even more upsetting to black leaders, the president failed to support an anti-lynching law and a law to abolish the poll tax. Roosevelt feared that conservative southern Democrats, would block his bills if he tried to fight them on this issue.
Link to original text: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module18/intro_pop19.html
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