1929: The Great Depression

Depression’s Impact on Black Americans

The Great Depression began in 1929, and the resulting financial crash caused the American economy to crumble. As with all economic downturns, those closest to subsistence living suffer the most, leaving African Americans disproportionately effected. Feagin (2014) found that “By 1932, half of [B]lack workers in cities were unemployed. Extreme hunger or starvation was often their lot” (p. 58).

In Baltimore, it was much the same: “Blacks suffered from devastatingly high rates of poverty, crime, and disease; low life expectancy; and high rates of infant mortality and illegitimacy… [and] relatively few could afford to own homes” (Skotnes, 2013, p. 31; Greenberg 2009). By cutting African Americans off from the economy, even a depressed and struggling one, whites created the fulfillment of their eugenics arguments that Black people were lazy, sickly, and immoral.

Baltimore, Maryland. Shoe shine boy. Marjory Collins, April 1943

Source: Baltimore Sun