Cio's Impact On African Americans

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Recommended: Describe the impact of the Great Depression on African Americans

Maintaining a job was difficult for African Americans, and it did not help that they received no support from national labor unions. Unions were being made to help stimulate the economy, as well as protect workers from low wages, protect jobs, and increase promotion opportunities. Even though unions were there to help, they were discriminating against African Americans. Organizations such as the Works Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the National Recovery Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority were all against aiding African American equal employment, until the CIO came in to assist them. The CIO, or Congress of Industrial organizations, was the first union to really take in African Americans, but not because they wanted to. The CIO stated that it would be almost impossible to get the steel industry on …show more content…

When the Great Depression hit, the poor became poorer and living on a daily basis was tough. A lot of African Americans could not afford basic essentials such as health care. In 1932, a total of 600 African American males were offered free health care and a cure for “bad blood” if they participated in a study, which none of them knew the purpose of. The deal was enticing because the African Americans were promised free meals and transportation, which were things they were not used to. The problem is that they were using these African Americans as guinea pigs to find out more about the sexually transmitted disease syphilis. This was a government sponsored study and the government knew how unethical it was because “It was said that the reason for the deception was that it would be the only way the men would stay in the study and the researchers wanted to closely observe the course of the disease over a large sample-size to see the effects as the disease progressed,

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