By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
The New Deal’s social safety net legislation was introduced in order to redress some of the grievances of the African American communities. In response to the Depression and high unemployment, New Deal jobs programs offered African Americans a lifeline. But, did it effectively alleviate the prevailing condition of poverty?
The Civilian Conservation Corps
Between 1933 and 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps employed 3 million unskilled young men between the ages of 18 and 25. That number included 250,000 African Americans.
The Corps focused on environmental work—planting trees, constructing trails, and building shelters in national parks and forests. Representative Oscar De Priest of Illinois, the only Black member of Congress, inserted into the law that created the Corps a provision forbidding racial discrimination. But Plessy was still the precedent-setting case on racial segregation, so the Corps set up 150 separate Black camps. A couple of these camps had a handful of whites, but officials made sure to locate them outside the South or in remote areas.
The Works Progress Administration
In 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) took the lead in providing public sector work to unemployed Americans. Over eight years, the WPA gave jobs to 8.5 million people. They worked on major infrastructure projects, building roads, bridges, schools, and airfields. The WPA also employed artists, activists, and educators.
A young Ella Baker, who would become one of the most influential grassroots civil rights organizers of the 1950s and 1960s, found work in New York City with the Workers Education Project, a division of the WPA. The project trained people in urban night schools and residential labor colleges to become community activists and leaders.
Empowering Black Communities
The WPA did more for Baker than simply provide a paycheck. The work transformed the way she saw the world. It taught her that organizing was a process that changed people by empowering them to fight for a say in the decisions that affected their lives. It showed her that organizers had to be patient, to allow people to grow. It also made clear that organizers had to be teachers, committed to educating people about the solutions to the problems they faced. Baker’s experience was not unique. The WPA was transformational for quite a few Black artists and intellectuals.
The public works programs did not end the unemployment crisis for African Americans. But it did put enough people back to work to make conditions in Black communities better. The same cannot be said for New Deal policies related to the housing crisis, which made it harder, not easier, for African Americans to purchase homes and build wealth.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Chaos in the Housing Market
The Depression had also created chaos in the housing market. Millions faced eviction. And because unemployed homeowners couldn’t afford to pay their mortgages, banks couldn’t afford to make new loans, and cities couldn’t collect property taxes to fund municipal services, including relief programs.
To resuscitate the economy, the administration stimulated the housing sector. To help homeowners, Roosevelt signed the Home Owners’ Loan Act, which provided emergency relief to homeowners, including opportunities to refinance mortgages at lower interest rates and for longer terms, for up to 25 years instead of 5 to 10.
Expanding Homeownership
To help the banking industry, the federal government incentivized lending by guaranteeing home mortgages, essentially making them risk-free. Banks responded by issuing loans again, and this time with more favorable terms, including lower down payments.
These radical reforms solved the housing crisis. They also greatly expanded homeownership, driving up household wealth and creating the American middle class. But the practical application of the new housing policies had a devastating impact on Black communities because they reinforced racially segregated housing patterns.
Institutional Preference for Whiteness
The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation issued guidance on mortgage lending by surveying neighborhoods in every metropolitan area and rating their risk either A, B, C, or D. The key factor in receiving an ‘A’ rating, for ‘Best’, was white racial homogeneity. And the leading factor for receiving a ‘D’ rating, for ‘Hazardous’, was Black racial homogeneity. If a neighborhood was lily white, the government would buy the loan from the lender—the loan was guaranteed. But if the neighborhood was Black—outlined on their survey maps in red ink, hence the term redlining—the government would not buy the loan.
Faced with assuming all the risk, banks opted not to issue loans to residents of Black communities. This institutional preference for whiteness informed decisions in the housing industry for decades. It trapped African Americans in dilapidated and deteriorating urban housing that had very little wealth-generating capacity.
A Safety Net
The New Deal did not end the Depression for African Americans. But it did mitigate its most harmful effects, and established a social safety net that African Americans, in time, would be allowed to tap into. Unfortunately, it also reinforced old barriers to economic equality, while simultaneously creating new ones.
Despite its shortcomings, the New Deal impressed African Americans enough for them to switch parties; they left Lincoln and joined Roosevelt. It also better positioned African Americans to take advantage of the new economic and political opportunities that would arise as the nation once again mobilized for war.
Common Questions about African Americans and the New Deal
The Civilian Conservation Corps focused on environmental work—planting trees, constructing trails, and building shelters in national parks and forests.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked on major infrastructure projects, building roads, bridges, schools, and airfields. The WPA also employed artists, activists, and educators.
Faced with assuming all the risk, banks opted not to issue loans to residents of Black communities. This institutional preference for whiteness informed decisions in the housing industry for decades. It trapped African Americans in dilapidated and deteriorating urban housing that had very little wealth-generating capacity.
