to secure successful professional careers. They
included now-famous novelists, poets, and short-
story authors such as Saul Bellow, John Cheever,
Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, John Stein-
beck, Richard Wright, and Margaret Walker.
U.S. Race Relations during the 1930s,
1940s, and 1950s
The Great Depression, a time of tremendous eco-
nomic stress, bank failures, and losses of jobs and
homes, began with the crash of the stock market in
1929 and ran through the 1930s, and for some, into
the 1940s. It was a difficult time for all Americans,
especially African Americans. Discrimination was
then rampant in the UnitedStates, such that Afri-
can Americans, who had trouble finding jobs even
before the depression, were especially hard hit as
competition for jobs increased. Even though Pres-
ident Roosevelt had issued an executive order
to prohibit discriminationinthearmedservices,
African Americans continued to experience unfair
practices in the military and business worlds. With
many blacks migrating from the South to find jobs
in the larger northern cities, such as Chicago and
New York, tensions among the races spread. Dis-
crimination was not just a problem in the South.
There were reports of discrimination even in the
government work programs, such as the Federal
Writers’ Project.
Discrimination was entrenched in southern
society through what were called Jim Crow laws.
These laws were created to enforce racial segrega-
tion and to deny blacks their civil rights. Through
these laws, schools, restaurants, movie theaters,
and other public places were either completely
closed to African Americans or were open to
them only under special rules. For example, if a
movie theater allowed blacks to buy tickets, they
had to sit in designated places, often in balcony
areas, completely cut off from the white audience.
Blacks attended segregated schools that were his-
torically poorly equipped. Besides the Jim Crow
laws, certain social understandings were observed.
Black people were cursed, or worse, if they even
made eye contact with white people. This was
particularly true in the case of a black man and aYounger woman holding the hand of older woman(Image copyright Painless, 2009. Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
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