social effects of the great depression

8/14/2019 Social Effects of the Great Depression

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effects of the Depression on different groupsin society: workers, women, farmers, Afro-

Americans


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By the dawn of the next decade, 4,340,000Americans were out of work. More than eight

million were on the street a year Wretched men, including veterans, looked for

work, hawked apples on sidewalks, dined insoup kitchens, passed the time inshantytowns dubbed "Hoovervilles," andsome moved between them in railroadboxcars Hoboes


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Largely unreported in mainstream statisticsand traditional sources of information

Historians have attempted to unearth thisstory

Most AA at the time worked on farms Some AA supplemented their farm labour

with subsistence farming practices


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However, paradoxically, the AA in some casesimproved their circumstances as a result of

the New Deal Sports heroes Baseball, Basketball,

Athletics Musicans Billy Holiday, Duke Ellington


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AA accounts of slavery were recorded by theWriters Project under the WPA program.

More than two thirds of all slave accounts arethe result of the ambitious efforts of theFederal Writers'Project of the Works ProgressAdministration

more than 2,000 interviews with formerslaves, most of them first-person accounts ofslave life and the respondents' own reactionsto bondage


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The interviews afforded aged ex-slaves anunparalleled opportunity to give their

personal accounts of life under the "peculiarinstitution," to describe in their own wordswhat it felt like to be a slave in the UnitedStates

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http://www.lo

c.gov/rr/print/

list/085_disc.

html


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In 1931

9 AA boys were tried for rape

Became a national news item and topic ofinterest

Expressed many of the prejudices people hadat the time

Galvanised the protest movement and thesouthern racist groups


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Nine young black male defendants wereaccused of raping two poor white runaway

women on a freight train bound for Memphis A quick conviction was recorded based upon

the testimony of the women The juries were entirely white, and the

defense attorneys had little experience incriminal law and no time to prepare their case


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Several people were "hoboing" on the freighttrain, including the nine black youths, two

white women, and several white youths. A fight began between the white and black

youths, allegedly when a white youth The fight involved name-calling, stone-

throwing and fisticuffs.


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Most of the white youths were forced off theslow-moving train near Stevenson, Alabama.

Several of them told the Stevensonstationmaster about the fight

The stationmaster called Jackson CountySheriff Matt L. Wann to report the incident.

The Sheriff called Deputy Charlie Latham, who lived near the next scheduled stop for the train,Paint Rock, Alabama and told him to deputize as ma

A posse of some fifty white men armed with shotguns, rifles and pistols prepared for their arrival.

Before the train stopped about 2 p.m., the posse had searched all forty-eight cars.

Within ten minutes, they had arrested the black youths at gunpoint.

From this time until the first trial twelve days later, none of the boys were permitted to call or speak to anyone, including each other.

The initial arrest was for the assault and attempted murder of the white youths ejected from the train at Stevenson.

Ruby Bates & Victoria Price in 1931

The posse was surprised to find Ruby Bates and Victoria Price on the train, dressed in men's overalls covering dresses.

When discovered, the two women scrambled out of the gravel car in which they had been riding.

They ran in the direction of the engine

They turned and started to run back in the other direction where other members of the posse stopped them. The older woman, Price, "appeared t

Seeing that, Deputy Latham ordered some of the men to take them to wait in the shade of a nearby gum tree, while they tied their black charges t

Twenty minutes after the train left Paint Rock, its station agent W. H. Hill asked the women whether any of the "negroes" had bothered them.















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The Sheriff called Deputy Charlie Latham, who livednear the next scheduled stop for the train, Paint Rock,Alabama and told him to deputize as many citizens as

he needed to "capture every negro on the train. I amgiving you authority to deputize every man you canfind."

A posse of some fifty white men armed withshotguns, rifles and pistols prepared for their arrival.

Before the train stopped about 2 p.m., the posse hadsearched all forty-eight cars.

Within ten minutes, they had arrested the blackyouths at gunpoint.




























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From this time until the first trial twelve days later,none of the boys were permitted to call or speak toanyone, including each other.

The initial arrest was for the assault and attemptedmurder of the white youths ejected from the train atStevenson.

Ruby Bates & Victoria Price in 1931 The posse was surprised to find Ruby Bates and

Victoria Price on the train, dressed in men's overallscovering dresses.

When discovered, the two women scrambled out ofthe gravel car in which they had been riding.




























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Twenty minutes after the train left Paint Rock, its station agent W. H. Hill asked the womenwhether any of the "negroes" had bothered them.

At that point, Ruby Bates told Hill that they had been raped by them. Agent Hill quickly reportedthat accusation to Deputy Latham.

Upon hearing this accusation, Sheriff Wann sent the women to be examined by two doctors.Scottsboro doctor, R. R. Bridges and his assistant, Dr. JohnLynch, examined them within twohours of the alleged rapes.

The doctors found semen in the vaginas of both women, with RubyBates having considerablymore than Victoria Price.

The doctors found little evidence of a violent attack; they found no vaginal tearing for either woman.Bates and Price were arrested and jailed for several days, pending charges of vagrancy. Probably

on a tip from the mother of underage RubyB

ates the authorities initially looked into whetherPrice had violated the Mann Act, which prohibited taking a minor across state lines forprostitution. It was alleged that Victoria Price was a known prostitute, which led law enforcementto suspect that Price had violated the Mann Act when she leftTennessee for Michigan with Bates.[

These charges were never filed and the women were released. A widely shown photo shows the twowomen shortly after the arrests in 1931, still in their hobo dress and still on very friendly terms.


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The eight convicted defendants wereassembled on April 9, 1931 and sentenced to

death by electrocution, the first time JudgeHawkins had pronounced the death sentencein his five years on the bench.

The Associated Press reported that the

defendants were "calm" and "stoic", as JudgeHawkins handed down the death sentencesone after another


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The National Guard was called out to controlcrowds and civil unrest in Scottsboro

New YorkTimes reports on the case Protest/demonstration in Harlem NY in

support of the AA


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"By publicizing the plight of the boys anddefending them in court, the Party saw the

chance to educate, add to its ranks, andencourage the mass protests not only to freethe boys but bring about revolution.


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Either through paroles or escapes all of theScottsboro Boys eventually found their way outof Alabama.

Charles Weems was paroled in 1943, Ozie Powelland Clarence Norris in 1946, and Andy Wright,the last to leave Alabama for good (Wright had

been paroled earlier, then returned because of aparole violation) in June, 1950. HaywoodPatterson managed a dramatic escape in 1948.

social effects of the great depression

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