Analyze The Effects Of The New Deal On African Americans

Furthermore, the New Deal seemingly had very little effect on the lives of African Americans during the 1930s. The New Deal provided more aid than before with almost 350,000 enrolled in CCC camps by 1942 and some receiving social housing after slum clearance projects. Moreover, Mary Macleod Bethune raised awareness of racism in America by exposing it as a national issue and the Federal Writing Project taught 1,000,000 illiterate African Americans to read and write which gave them far better job prospects in the hope of reducing the racial divide. Regardless of this, African Americans people continued to be segregated in public and within CCC camps and 30% were still dependent on relief by 1935. Moreover, with 40% of all African Americans workers being tenants or sharecroppers, at least 100,000 were forced off farms as part of AAA production cuts.

Even the state-run NRA was prejudiced against African Americans for at the time only 1 in 20 had a desk job in comparison to 1 in 3 white citizens.

It is worth highlighting that although FDR was presented as an advocate of civil rights, he crucially failed to pursue an anti-lynching act to avoid losing Southern democrat support. The New Deal itself had a negligible impact on African Americans as similarly to immigrants, there were no specific measures to help them. More importantly, the New Deal did not address the ubiquitous discrimination in America. On the one hand, segregation remained in use and albeit unintentional, AAA production cuts lost jobs for thousands. On the other hand, African Americans became more conspicuous and their predicament could no longer be ignored. However, visibility was all they achieved for no notable action was taken and they were not

supported.

The New Deal only had a slight effect on minority groups for their lives and position in society had barely changed since the depression. On the whole, the only positive impacts were provisional with the exception of the two Indian Acts in 1934 as the public work schemes only provided urgent relief. However the most significant problem facing minority groups was still racial prejudice, the fact that the New Deal did not attempt to solve these problems shows the New Deal was largely ineffectual.

To conclude, the New Deal had a definite impact on Americans during the 1930s. However, the extent of this impact differed for different groups living within America and even within these groups. For agricultural workers, the New Deal was very significant for both farmer owners and sharecroppers because of the FCA and AAA loans provided immediate relief however, this resulted in mechanical investments which accidentally lead to thousands of sharecroppers and tenants being evicted. Industrial changes were less profound but the Alphabet Agencies affected both the public and workers with its developments, the New deal created confidence and provided solidity in uncertain times. Workers rights were granted yet at the expense of employer relations with workers and therefore were no longer so influential. Finally, omitting the Native Americans, the positive impacts of the New Deal were minimal for ethnic communities because racial bias and inequality were rife and no measure was implemented to address this problem. Ultimately, Roosevelt’s New Deal was partially significant for Americans in the 1930s because considerable changes made by the Alphabet Agencies and other programs which reinstated public confidence through recovery, reform and relief yet the