tanding racism and increased competition over jobs led to considerable hard feelings. This situation was especially strong in the South. In many areas black Americans were excluded from federally sponsored work programs. In fact, some relief programs such as those led by the AAA actually contributed to a further decline in the black condition. The AAA programs favored the large farmer who had enough land that he could cut back production on in order to qualify for government payments. These payments greatly supplemented farmers’ incomes. The small farmers found it even more difficult to compete in the marketplace. In addition, sharecroppers were kicked off lands that were taken out of production. As a result, the programs ran many small black farmers and sharecroppers out of business.
With little relief coming from the New Deal, blacks soon lost confidence in the programs. For example, black newspapers characterized the National Recovery Act (NRA) as standing for “Negro Run Around” and “Negroes Rarely Allowed.” Wage standards developed by the NRA setting wage rates did not meet the needs of black Americans. Most black occupations, such as farm workers and domestic help, were excluded from the program. Wage rates were also set according to region. Most blacks lived in the rural South where pay rates were low. Even if a black person did have a job favorably affected by the wage rates, they likely lost the job to unemployed whites. In many cases the NRA codes were ignored as employers paid lower wages to blacks than to whites. Some relief started coming in the mid-1930s as President Roosevelt became more sensitive to the criticisms of advocates for the needy. Still, hopes were largely unanswered, as it took World War II to bring relief on a larger scale.
Realizing little help was coming from the federal government, local efforts seeking better economic conditions rose in both the South and North. In the South sharecroppers and tenant farmers formed local organizations such as the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. The union started in Arkansas and spread to other states. Store boycotts in northern cities sprung up as part of the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” program. In Cleveland the Future Outlook League was formed, seeking to establish a fully economically self-sufficient black community within the larger city. In Harlem the Citizen’s League for Fair Play promoted greater employment opportunity for blacks. All of these movements led to opening up some employment opportunities and encouraged a number of new black businesses.
On a national level, black Americans, who composed only 10 percent of the population and had traditionally been economically downtrodden and politically voiceless, had a major mountain to climb for relief.
You kiss the niggers,
I’ll kiss the Jews,
We’ll stay in the White House
As long as we choose.
This poem (from McElvaine’s The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941, 1993) was a popular fictional characterization of President Roosevelt speaking to Eleanor. It was a criticism of Eleanor’s promotion of black equality. This prose represents well the racism that pervaded American society in the early 1930s. Not only did Eleanor become the target of such hate for promoting black issues nationally, but President Roosevelt did as well for reaching out to various ethnic and religious groups in building his new democratic coalition. Despite Roosevelt’s stance, however, racism was also a part of the Democratic Party. Senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith of South Carolina walked out of the 1936 Democratic National Convention when he learned that a black minister was to give the invocation to the convention.
Despite such public views, the Roosevelts were successful in bringing diverse groups together politically for the first time in American history. President Roosevelt won by a landslide in the 1936 presidential election. Seventy-five percent of black voters voted for Franklin Roosevelt.
Though successful in the November 1936 elections, Roosevelt’s inclusion of black Americans into his new democratic coalition wa