New Deal programs provided relief to millions of Americans suffering from the Great Depression. Inspired by Roosevelt’s more inclusive message of relief during deep economic crisis, African Americans supported him en masse leading to a shift in their vote from the “Party of Lincoln” to the New Deal Coalition during the 1936 election. Using your textbook and at least five of the primary sources below (or six sources total) discuss African Americans’ experience with New Deal programs and their efforts to eliminate racial violence and discrimination through the 1930s and 40s. Ultimately, was the New Deal a good Deal for African Americans?
must be 3-4 pages
must use sources below:
- Anonymous, “Black Labor and the Codes” (1933) (Links to an external site.)
- “Waitin’ on Roosevelt”: Langston Hughes’s “Ballad of Roosevelt” (1934) (Links to an external site.)
- E. E. Lewis, “Black Cotton Farmers and the AAA” (1935) (Links to an external site.)
- “Please Help Us Mr. President”: Black Americans Write to FDR (1935-1936) (Links to an external site.)
- “The Right to Housing Is a Civil Right Due Without Discrimination”: Racial Bias in Public and Private Housing (1947) (Links to an external site.)
- “Democracy Can’t Live in These Houses”: Senator Paul Douglas Advocates a Federal Housing Program to Clear Slum Areas (1949) (Links to an external site.)
- “The Rights of All Must Be Secured or the Rights of None Will Be Secure”: Arguments for Federal Civil Rights Legislation (1949-1950) (Links to an external site.)
- “Gonna Miss President Roosevelt”: The Blues for FDR (1945)
