Nationwide, 90 percent Black families endured poverty at some point during the Depression (compared with less than 50 percent of all white families). Hunger, homelessness, and a frightening sense of helplessness crept across the country. Droughts worsened the crisis. Racism worsened it even more. The Depression offered a painful reminder that Black Americans had not achieved anything approaching equality since the Civil War. Half of all Black Americans remained illiterate as of 1915, and three quarters lived as impoverished sharecroppers or tenants. The number of Black craftsmen had actually
...more
