In the early 1930s the American depression occurred, increasing the rate of poverty, unemployment and homelessness. But the people who were worst affected where the black Americans. Because of racism, the depression wasn't just a tough time but was also a turning point in their lives for the worst.
After slavery had been abolished in 1865, the ex-slaves had nowhere to go. Because of this, their previous 'owners' divided up their land and let the ex-slaves farm crops on the land in return for a small percentage. This was called sharecropping. By the 1930s there were an awful lot of sharecroppers, but they were very vulnerable as their 'land-lords' could easily evict them whenever they felt like it. Because of the depression, many small farms failed and so more black families and farmers were forced into sharecropping. Although this was better than being homeless, they were still vulnerable to eviction. This definitely changed the lives of black Americans for the worst. Secondly, I would like to talk about the 'last hired, first fired' system whereby Black American industrial workers as well sharecroppers were the first to be evicted or laid-off by their land-lords or bosses. It meant that there were less people working, thus more people will less money, meaning that there were less consumers for the products that were made by workers. Consequently unnecessary workers were fired and then the cycle (known as the cycle of depression), started again. Black workers were always if not very often sacked first. This of course was due to racism and because of that, the depression affected black Americans more than white Americans in both the short term and the long