The two eras that defined Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency are the Depression years in which he pushed for his ‘New Deal’ for Americans, and the global conflict of the Second World War. What distinctly separates these two periods is the nature of where the problem lied. During the New Deal era the United States was plagued by an economic depression that left Americans of all races and geographical regions destitute and calling for federal action to improve their individual situation. The Second World War years were defined by a mobilization of Americans by the Federal Government to action to defend democracy against the threats of fascism and totalitarianism abroad. The domestic versus foreign focus of these two different time periods helped
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The war also contributed to the exposure of the contradictory nature of U.S. racial caste system by espousing the conflict as a fight to preserve freedom against the threat of despotism abroad while African-Americans were marginalized as second class citizen at home. In order to derive which period was more significant to the progress of black civil rights this essay will analyse three different themes during this time. The extent of the actions and encouragement of government to forward civil rights, the level and methods of black activism and awareness, and the level of resistance that African American progress met in each period. While neither of these periods brought close to full civil rights to African-Americans - indeed the condition of many was worsened - the momentous rupture to American life served as a catalyst to differing degrees of progress towards African-American …show more content…
This large proportion was due to the majority of African Americans living in the South of the United State where they worked as sharecroppers on lands owned by wealthy white planters. Land that was not being cultivated resulted in ability for sharecroppers to pay rent resulting in increased evictions due to the AAA. While the surplus provided by the government not to farm was intended to prevent the loss of profits from a lack cultivation the system of patronage in the sharecropper system often prevented this. Planters who received the checks often kept the money spending it instead to settle the debts that bound African-American sharecroppers to the land or used it to invest in new machinery that further reduced the need for black labor. While the immediate impact of the AAA increased the hardships of many African Americans it had a long term liberating effect as well. Between 1933 and 1940 the number of sharecroppers in the South lowered by one third, thus driving a bulk of African Americans from the isolation and economic stagnation of the farm and into the cities. Albeit urban life was not necessarily an improvement to
The war also contributed to the exposure of the contradictory nature of U.S. racial caste system by espousing the conflict as a fight to preserve freedom against the threat of despotism abroad while African-Americans were marginalized as second class citizen at home. In order to derive which period was more significant to the progress of black civil rights this essay will analyse three different themes during this time. The extent of the actions and encouragement of government to forward civil rights, the level and methods of black activism and awareness, and the level of resistance that African American progress met in each period. While neither of these periods brought close to full civil rights to African-Americans - indeed the condition of many was worsened - the momentous rupture to American life served as a catalyst to differing degrees of progress towards African-American …show more content…
This large proportion was due to the majority of African Americans living in the South of the United State where they worked as sharecroppers on lands owned by wealthy white planters. Land that was not being cultivated resulted in ability for sharecroppers to pay rent resulting in increased evictions due to the AAA. While the surplus provided by the government not to farm was intended to prevent the loss of profits from a lack cultivation the system of patronage in the sharecropper system often prevented this. Planters who received the checks often kept the money spending it instead to settle the debts that bound African-American sharecroppers to the land or used it to invest in new machinery that further reduced the need for black labor. While the immediate impact of the AAA increased the hardships of many African Americans it had a long term liberating effect as well. Between 1933 and 1940 the number of sharecroppers in the South lowered by one third, thus driving a bulk of African Americans from the isolation and economic stagnation of the farm and into the cities. Albeit urban life was not necessarily an improvement to