The impact the great depression had on African Americans, women, and other minority groups

1. The impact the great depression had on African Americans, women, and other minority groups By : Andy Morris Ty Ellstrom Nick Carrier

2. Impact of great depression on African Americans • During the Great Depression, African Americans were the first group of people to be fired from their jobs • Blacks were discriminated against, receiving less financial aid than whites, shown by the redistribution of funds heavily favoring the whites over blacks • Most charitable organizations rejected blacks, excluding them from their homeless kitchens • Blacks unemployment rate was nearly three times as great as unemployment rate of whites

3. Saint Louis urban league • Founded in 1929, it was a political organization that launched “jobs for Negroes” movements across the United States • These movements by blacks boycotted chain stores across America that had mainly black customers, but only hired white employees

4. Impact (continued) • Due to many black organizations being formed, there was an effort to unify them • This effort to unify led to the founding of the National Negro Congress in 1936 and the Southern Negro Youth Congress in 1937 • The National Negro Congress was founded to pressure New Deal administrators for labor and civil rights for African Americans • The Southern Negro Youth Congress rallied workers such as tobacco workers into unions and launched anti-lynching campaigns

5. Impact on native Americans • Initially during the Great Depression, the Native Americans were effected the worse out of all minority groups, having suffered the worst poverty of any of the groups • They had a very high infant mortality rate, twice than that of whites • Native Americans also had a higher incidence of alcoholism compared to other minority groups • To help solve these problems, the Bureau of Indian affaires, led by commissioner John Collier, passed two key acts: • The Indian Reorganization Act • The Indian Emergency Conservation Program

6. Indian reorganization act • Known as the Indian New Deal, had 5 main points • Made to conserve and develop Indian lands and resources • Give right to Indians to form businesses and organizations • Establish a credit system for Indians • Give rights of home rule to Indians • Provide education rights to Indians • Most significant initiative of John Collier

7. Indian Emergency conservation program • Requested by John Collier • Program employed more than 85,000 Indians • Helped to make sure that businesses and other work organizations hired Indians • These two acts aided the Native Americans in bouncing back during the Great Depression • While mainly helping the Indians in getting jobs, these two acts also helped them have better living conditions by fixing up Indian reservations and also allowed the Indians to have more power in ruling over themselves

8. Impact of great depression on women • During the Great Depression, there were many aspects of the life of women that were changed • Women had to take on more important roles in their families in order to survive the difficult times • Women were mainly expected to hold their families together at home while their husbands did as best they could to provide for their families

9. Impact on women (continued) • Like most men, women in civil service jobs lost their jobs, and other women who kept theirs were encouraged to quit theirs, as they were seen as keeping jobs away from men • Other women with husbands who could not find jobs were left, they were known as “grass-widows” • Without a husband to support the family with the little income they had, women had to not only take care of their children at home, but also provide money to help take care of the family

10. Impact on Women (Continued) • Marriage, divorce and birth rates all dropped during the Great Depression • Most grass-widows were not financially stable to go through the divorce process with their husbands who left them • Women who wanted to get married or who were already engaged had to wait because they either had no money to get married, or they had to work in order to save money to get married • Birth rates dropped to families not being financially stable enough to support a bigger family, especially grass-widows who already had to work to support them and their children without the help of their husbands • Other women simply ended up becoming homeless, like the other 8,000 women during the time of the Great Depression