Segregation was a way of life for almost all southerners from the period between the end of Reconstruction (1876) to the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964). This covers the period known as The Great Depression (1929-1939). During this period banks lost billions of dollars and everyone was affected, even the wealthiest people. However, the effects of The Great Depression were felt the greatest for the poor. These people did not have any money, nor did they have a job to make money. There are stories of people standing out in long lines just to receive a little bit of food or perhaps have the opportunity to apply for a job that they would most likely not receive. The south's main industry was farming, and it was this industry that was hit first. The agricultural industry had been experiencing a recession prior to other communities. The agricultural Depression of the 1920's came on quick at the end of the World War I. Once the European countries supply increased, the United States supply decreased even more (Parrish 83). A lot of farmers in the south found themselves out of work and in serious need of extra income.
One piece of literature that shows segregation and discrimination during The Great Depression and discusses the plight farmers were in was "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry." The book addresses the issue of unequal rights that African-Americans had to endure in the segregated south. Mildred Taylor wrote, “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in 1976, in the immediate aftermath of the civil rights movement. During this time racial discrimination was still going on, however, the movement towards normalcy was starting up. While “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” fits into the mold of African-American literature in that it...
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Burg, David F.. The Great Depression . Updated ed. New York: Facts on File, 2005. Print.
Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn. To ask for an equal chance: African Americans in the Great Depression. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 20112009. Print.
Parrish, Michael E.. Anxious decades: America in prosperity and depression, 1920-1941. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. Print.
"Sharecropper | Define Sharecropper at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Free Online Dictionary for English Definitions. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2011. .
Taylor, Mildred D.. Let the Circle be unbroken . New York, N.Y.: Puffin Books, 1991. Print.
Taylor, Mildred D.. Roll of thunder, hear my cry . NEW YORK: PUFFIN BOOKS , 2004. Print.
Warren, Kenneth W.. What was African American literature? . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011. Print.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers."The Great Depression." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003). http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/great-depression.htm [Accessed March 10, 2010].
Pindar, Ian. "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes." The Guardian, August 9, 2009.
The Great Depression, beginning in the last few months of 1929, impacted the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide. With millions of Americans unemployed and many in danger of losing their homes, they could no longer support their families. Children, if they were lucky, wore torn up ragged clothing to school and those who were not lucky remained without clothes. The food supply was scarce, and bread was the most that families could afford. Households would receive very limited rations of food, or small amounts of money to buy food. This led to the starvation of families, including children. African-americans faced tougher challenges than most during the Depression due to discrimination. The classes hit hardest were middle-class
"America's Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal."DPLA. Digital Public Library of America. Web. 20 Nov 2013. .
McElvaine, Robert S, ed. Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
American minorities made up a significant amount of America’s population in the 1920s and 1930s, estimated to be around 11.9 million people, according to . However, even with all those people, there still was harsh segregation going on. Caucasians made African-Americans work for them as slaves, farmers, babysitters, and many other things in that line. Then when World War II came, “World War II required the reunification and mobilization of Americans as never before” (Module2). They needed to cooperate on many things, even if they didn’t want to. These minorities mainly refer to African, Asian, and Mexican-Americans. They all suffered much pain as they were treated as if they weren’t even human beings. They were separated, looked down upon, and wasn’t given much respect because they had a different culture or their skin color was different. However, the lives of American minorities changed forever as World War 2 impacted them significantly with segregation problems, socially, and in their working lives, both at that time and for generations after.
zShmoop Editorial Team. "Politics in The Great Depression." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Watkins, T.H.. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993.
The 1930’s were a decade plagued by the colossus economic downturn known as the Great Depression. With unemployment levels surpassing 20%, people did anything to earn money. This included riding the rail lines in order to look for work in other cities. In the American South, the problems of economic downturn and the problems of racial tension met in 1931 during the court case of the Scottsboro Boys.
Folsom, Burton. "Which Strategy Really Ended the Great Depression?" : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education. N.p., 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 12 May 2014.
Levine, Linda. “The Labor Market During the Great Depression and the Current Recession”. 19 June 2009. 6 March 2010. < http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40655_20090619.pdf>.
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945. Oxford History of the United States: Oxford University Press. Davidson, J. W., Delay, B., et al. (2005). The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary'.
Mildred Taylor, the author of 'Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry' clearly depicts racism in her novel. She skillfully uses the characters and events in the novel to show prejudice in Mississippi in the 1930s, when the book was set. At the time Mississippi was renowned as one of the worst states for racism. Taylor has created many situations in her novel were several of the characters are victimized as well as discriminated against. Throughout the novel white people form an irrational judgment on the black race, innocent people are burnt and lynched. 'Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry' is a novel which ventures on how hatred, humiliation and degradation fill the gap between the two races that are separate from each other, the races of the black and white.
"Great Depression in the United States." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001. CD-ROM. 2001 ed. Microsoft Corporation. 2001