How Did These Historic Developments Impact Black Americans?
And How Did Black Americans Impact these Historic Developments?

Register here for a link to the Zoom conversation.

The current economic crisis and movement against institutionalized racism provide a great vantage point from which to consider the 1930s and engage in a conversation between the past and the present. As we explored last month, more than 2,000,000 African Americans left the South in the 1910s and 1920s only to experience racism and discrimination in the urban North. While many of them succeeded in finding employment in the expanding steel, auto, and meatpacking industries, they were often relegated to the most dangerous and lowest paying jobs. And then the bottom dropped out in 1929. What was the impact of the Great Depression on African Americans, and how did they develop agency and voice for themselves? How did they participate in the political and industrial changes, how were these changes still limited by racism, and how did Black life change? What can we learn from this history that sharpens our thinking in the present?

Here are links to some readings which will help us explore these questions:

• Jesse Meisenhelter, “How 1930s Discrimination Shaped Inequality in Today’s Cities”
• Leigh Remizowski, “Blacks Helped Drive Steel Revolution in Pittsburgh”
• Dianne Feeley, “Black Workers, Fordism, and the UAW”
• James Sears, “Black Americans and the New Deal” (email [email protected] for a PDF of this reading)

These conversations are an opportunity not only to educate ourselves, but also to develop the argument for a St. Paul Recovery Act which can address centuries of institutional racism. Join the conversation!

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