t characterized that period. An award-winning movie was later adapted from the book.
Depression in the Rural South
In 1930 over two million males worked in agriculture. Of these over 835,000 black farmers and laborers faced particularly difficult times in the rural South. Less than 13 percent of black farmers owned their own land. The rest worked as sharecroppers and tenant farmers on farms of large landowners. Approximately 40 percent of black workers in the nation in the 1930s were farm laborers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers. Not only was a declining economy a threat to their employment, new machines, such as mechanical cotton pickers, displaced many farm workers. For those black sharecroppers still working, discrimination in pay was common. White sharecroppers received an average income of $417 a year compared to $295 for blacks. Not surprisingly with such low wages, living conditions were deplorable. Many black families lived in one-or two-bedroom shacks with no electricity, insulation from the winter cold, or running water. Relief through private organizations in the South was rarely available to needy blacks. Sharecropper families would often drift from one farm to another every three years or so in search of better living conditions.
Some sharecropper unions formed to seek better conditions. But these groups often met harsh resistance from the large white landowners and local law authorities. The Croppers’ and Farm Workers’ Union and the Share Croppers’ Union were formed in 1931. Both met with violence. In Alabama just before Christmas in 1931 a force of vigilantes and authorities attacked an entire black population in Reeltown, Alabama, to break up union activities. Hundreds were injured and two killed. The incident did bring increased public sympathy to the plight of black sharecroppers.
As the economy struggled through the 1930s, jobs grew even scarcer. Competition between whites and blacks brought added hostility. The number of lynchings of blacks by white mobs increased from eight in 1932 to 28 in 1933, 15 in 1934, and 20 in 1935. Lynching is a form of mob violence in which a mob, operating in the name of justice but without holding a trial, executes a person suspected of committing some offense. Usually the victim is tortured and their body mutilated in some way. Hanging was a common form of lynching, though some victims were burned alive. Almost all occurred in the South. The number of lynchings finally dropped to two in 1939 as economic conditions improved for whites. However, blatant racism, the most dominant factor contributing to these murders, still propelled lynchings in the South for the next several decades.
Hard Times in the Urban North
The Great Migration of southern rural blacks to northern industrial centers seeking employment decreased some during the Great Depression as job opportunities declined. At least if they stayed on the farm they could grow some food in the garden, even if they were not making money. Still, 400,000 blacks made the journey north during the 1930s. At least two benefits of living in the North inspired their continued migration. One benefit was to escape the racial violence of the South. Secondly, blacks experienced less discrimination by relief organizations in the North.
For those already living in the North, the steadily growing black population only meant greater hardships. More and more people were competing for fewer and fewer jobs. Black Americans organized cooperative groups such as the Colored Merchants Association in New York City to help each other. “Jobs for Negroes” organizations appeared in several cities. These groups bought food and other goods for black residents in large volume so they could get lower prices. Boycotts were also organized against stores that served mostly black customers but employed few black workers.
Blacks faced yet another obstacle during the Great Depression. With husbands unemployed or taking pay cuts, the incomes of their wives became that much more critical. But with hard times for everyone, many white women began seeking jobs