1933 The United States

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The United States

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Academic Achievements

*Edgerton Hall received a Doctor of Education degree from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

*Howard H. Long received a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Agriculture

*Between 1933 and 1934, Federal studies indicated that one-third of Southern land, and more than one-half of the land in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and Kentucky, was eroded to some extent.  Cotton prices fell to half the pre-1914 level.  Foreign countries bought cotton from their dominions, because of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) curtailment of production and destruction of surplus.  The world price was also influenced by the introduction of synthetic materials, especially rayon.

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) production curtailment program was directly responsible for a decline in the number of African American sharecroppers and tenants in the South.  Its policies inadvertently forced out the poorest farmers, of whom many more were African American than European American.  Due to the reduction of crop acreage, many African American tenant farmers and sharecroppers lost their livelihood.  In addition, under the AAA, benefit checks for curtailment of production were made out to landlords, who often failed to pass them on to their African American tenants.  AAA cash benefits made mechanization possible and European American landowners mechanized production to eliminate tenants and thus to increase their own percentage of profits.  For example, a 1939 study showed that with mechanization a reduction from 40 to 24 families was possible in the Mississippi Delta area.  Jobs created by mechanization went to European American labor.

Although vast numbers of Southern African Americans voted in AAA crop referendums, large landowners were over-represented on local AAA administration committees.  African Americans were rarely allowed to vote for these committees, even if established in primarily African American areas.  All benefit and acreage decisions were made by these local committees, without adequate, if any, African American voice.  Complaints were heard by European American boards. 

Southern lien laws made it difficult for African American share tenants and sharecroppers to borrow from government agencies and credit cooperatives such as the Federal Land Bank, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Farm Mortgage Corporation, because the African Americans had nothing to offer as security.  Even owners and cash tenants who had some resources had less valuable land than European Americans to offer as security, and thus had to apply for smaller loans.

Competition between poor African Americans and poor European Americans and local government racial attitudes impeded cooperation and development of agricultural unions to combat the ill effects of Federal legislation.  Interracial organizations were concentrated in the Southwest.  Not until 1940 did they appear in the South.  The Socialist Party organized with other groups the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.  It was composed of small farmers, sharecroppers and laborers, both African American and European American, in Tennessee, Arkansas, and later Texas and Oklahoma.  About half African American, it held interracial meetings in violation of state and county laws, and thus encountered frequent violence. Membership probably never exceeded 30,000.  There was little conflict between European Americans and African Americans within the organization.  However, the Southern Tenants Farmers Union accomplished relatively little in its efforts to acquire Federal benefits and to fight displacements resulting from AAA policies.

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Awards

*YMCA secretary Max Yergan received the Spingarn Medal for his work as a missionary in South Africa.

Max Yergan (b. July 19, 1892, Raleigh, North Carolina – d. April 11, 1975, Mount Kisco, New York) was an African-American activist notable for being a Baptist missionary for the YMCA, then a Communist working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch anti-Communist working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch anti-Communist who complimented the government of apartheid-era South Africa for that part of their program. He was a mentor of Govan Mbeki, who later achieved distinction in the African National Congress.  He served as the second president of the National Negro Congress, a coalition of hundreds of African-American organizations created in 1935 by religious, labor, civic and fraternal leaders to fight racial discrimination, establish relations with black organizations throughout the world, and oppose the deportation of black immigrants. Along with Paul Robeson, Yergan co-founded the International Committee on African Affairs in 1937, later the Council on African Affairs.

Max Yergan was born on July 19, 1892, in Raleigh, North Carolina, in his grandfather's house to mother Lizzie Yeargan, daughter of Frederick Yeargan. Frederick was the source of inspiration for much of Max Yergan's life, as a board member at Shaw Institute and a member of the Baptist church in Raleigh, as well as a man deeply interested in his African heritage. Yergan attended St. Ambrose Episcopal Parish School as a child, and then moved on to attend Shaw University in both the preparatory and college branches. It was there at Shaw that Yergan discovered the YMCA, and in 1916, he joined a missionary trip to India, a trip that would greatly affect the rest of his adult life.

Yergan came to South Africa in 1920 as a missionary for the YMCA. He was the first African American to do YMCA work in South Africa. As a YMCA activist he was interested in improving social work in the nation and this influenced the founding of the Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work.  As a whole his experiences in South Africa radicalized him to the point he came to desire a more radical direction for the YMCA than it was willing to accept. After attempts to radicalize the YMCA failed, he resigned from the organization in 1936 and became committed to Marxism. 

On his return to the United States, Yergan became the first African-American faculty member ever hired at one of New York City's public colleges, City College of New York, teaching the course "Negro History and Culture" in the fall of 1937. It was the first time this course was offered within the City Colleges of New York. During the Rapp-Coudert hearings, informers reported that Yergan's class was "liberal and progressive."   Yergan was denied re-appointment and dismissed for his politics.

The Cold War led Yergan to become disillusioned with Communism and ultimately to become strongly hostile to Communism. In 1952, he spoke against Communism on a visit to South Africa and, in 1964, he praised aspects of the South African governments "separate development" plan. In the last decade of life, he co-chaired the conservative American-African Affairs Association.

Yergan died on April 11, 1975, in Mount Kisco, New York.

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George Washington Carver

* From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

*From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio). Ultimately researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.

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Civil Rights

*In New York, an African American minister, the Reverend John Johnson, organized the Citizens League for Fair Play, which attempted to persuade European American merchants to hire African Americans.  Eventually seven hundred jobs were opened to African Americans, but the bad feelings between European American merchants and African American residents continued, culminating in a riot in Harlem in 1935. 

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The Communist Party

*Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old Cincinnati native and member of the Communist Party, led hunger marches in the South in an attempt to secure relief support due African Americans  He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to twenty (20) years on a chain gang (January 18).

Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old African American from Cincinnati, who said he had come to the South with the message of Communism, led a hunger march to petition county commissioners for relief due to African Americans.  He was arrested and convicted of attempting to incite insurrection.  The state based its case on Herndon's possession of literature distributed by the United States Communist Party.  Some of the literature advocated self-determination for Black Belt African Americans.  Herndon's attorney, Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., said, "The only offense Herndon committed was that he asked for bread for children -- his only crime is his color."  Herndon was sentenced to 20 years on a chain gang. 

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W. E. B. DuBois

After arriving at his new professorship in Atlanta, Du Bois wrote a series of articles generally supportive of Marxism. He was not a strong proponent of labor unions or the Communist Party, but he felt that Marx's scientific explanation of society and the economy were useful for explaining the situation of African Americans in the United States. Marx's atheism also struck a chord with Du Bois, who routinely criticized African American churches for dulling African Americans' sensitivity to racism. In his 1933 writings, Du Bois embraced socialism, but asserted that "[c]olored labor has no common ground with white labor", a controversial position that was rooted in Du Bois's dislike of American labor unions, which had systematically excluded African Americans for decades. Du Bois did not support the Communist Party in the United States and did not vote for their candidate in the 1932 presidential election, in spite of an African American on their ticket.

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Educational Institutions

*The Works Projects Administration initiated adult education programs that taught 400,000 African Americans to read and write.  Student aid programs by the National Youth Administration, the Agricultural Extension Service and the Farm Security Administration also helped many African Americans.

*The New Deal increased African American educational facilities.  The Public Works Administration was especially successful in school building projects in the North.  Less than 10% of the funds were used for African American schools in the South.

*There were 38,000 African Americans attending colleges, 97% in colleges in the South.

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The Labor Movement

*To encourage European American employers in New York to hire blacks, John Johnson organized the Citizens League for Fair Play.  African Americans quickly gained several hundred jobs, but tensions aggravated by league activities would lead to a riot in Harlem in 1935.

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The Law and Legislation

*The first of the series of retrials of the Scottsboro Boys ended (April 9). Haywood Patterson was again found guilty of rape and sentenced to execution.

*On June 22, in a ruling that would cost him his judicial career, Alabama circuit judge James E. Horton set aside the April 9 jury verdict against Haywood Patterson, the first of the Scottsboro Boys to be retried on charges of rape in 1931. Judge Horton wrote, after reviewing the proof presented at the trial, that "the evidence greatly preponderates in favor of the defendant", set aside the verdict and the death sentence, and ordered a retrial. In making the unpopular decision, Horton would lose his bid for re-election in 1934, and retire to farming. All of the Scottsboro Boys would later be exonerated and released from prison.

*Clarence Norris, the first of the Scottsboro Boys to receive a new trial, was found guilty of rape and sentenced to death for the third time. His attorney, Samuel S. Leibowitz, appealed the verdict of the Decatur, Alabama jury (December 1).

Literature

*Princess Malah, by John H. Hill, was published.  An "Uncle Tom" historical novel, it gives an exaggerated, bucolic view of the relations between Virginia aristocrats and their slaves.  Hill made the poor European Americans the only real racists. 

*Banana Bottom, a poem by Claude McKay, expressed the fullest development of McKay's cultural dualism theme.  The story, set in Jamaica, concerns the tensions and contrasts between a young African American and a European American missionary couple, who had raised her.

*Run Little Chillun by Hall Johnson was a successful African American folk drama written by an African American.  It ran 126 performances on Broadway.

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Media

*Nina Mae McKinney became the first African American to perform on television, appearing on a broadcast made by John Logie Baird in London (February 17).

*Ethel Waters became the first African-American to have her own network radio show, after being signed to appear twice a week on the NBC Radio Network (July 1).

*Elmer Simms Campbell (1906-1971) became the first African American cartoonist to work for a national publication.  The St. Louis-born artist contributed cartoons and other art work to Esquire (he was in nearly every issue from 1933 to 1958), Cosmopolitan, Redbook, the New Yorker, Opportunity, and syndicated features in 145 newspapers.  Campbell created the character "Esky," the pop-eyed mascot who appeared on the cover of Esquire.

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Military

*After a ban against African American enlistments that had begun on August 4, 1919, the United States Navy allowed African Americans to join, but only in the steward's department, in food service and as servants for officers (January 4).  At the time, 0.5% of the enlisted men were African American.  The reversal was not prompted by racial enlightenment, but by concerns that the number of available Filipino domestic help would be dwindling.

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Movies

*The film version of The Emperor Jones, starring Paul Robeson and an African-American cast, had its premiere, being shown at the Rivoli theater in Manhattan and the Roosevelt Theater in Harlem (September 19).

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Music

*Florence Price became the first African American woman to compose a symphony that was performed by a major symphony orchestra.

The Chicago Symphony, under the direction of Frederick Stock, first played Symphony in E minor by Florence Price (1888 - 1953) at the Chicago World Fair.  The first African American woman to achieve distinction as a composer, Price was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1906, and won her first Harmon prize for composition in 1925. 

*Benny Goodman, a European American bandleader, began using African American musicians in recording sessions.  In 1936, he would be the first major bandleader to have African Americans and European Americans playing together for the public.

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The NAACP

*The NAACP began a widespread campaign against segregation by filing a suit on behalf of Thomas Hocutt against the University of North Carolina.  The suit was lost.

*The NAACP again challenged Texas' white-only primary.  Dr. Nixon was again the plaintiff, as in 1924.  Nixon was awarded damages by the United States District Court for having been denied the right to vote, but the law was not changed.  The following year, however, Dr. Nixon was permitted to vote.

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The New Deal

The impact of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, of the new Labor Union movement (CIO) and of the democratization processes during and after the Second World War upon African Americans was at best peripheral.  Whatever African Americans achieved was much less than the economical, social and educational possibilities afforded.  

Such New Deal measures as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Youth Administration (NYA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) lifted African Americans as well as European Americans out of the depths of the Depression, but some African Americans felt that they did not receive their fare share of the benefits.  Since many of the recovery and reform programs were administered by the state and local governments, this meant all-European American control, especially in the South.

Discriminatory handling of the measures for relief, in many instances, would not be difficult to imagine.  In any case, the New Deal Administration was a segregated one.  Nonetheless, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established his so-called "Black Cabinet," African American advisers on African-American affairs.  These individuals included an educator, Mary McLeod Bethune; a political scientist, Ralph J. Bunche; an attorney, William H. Hastie, and an economist, Robert Weaver.  In the end, the New Deal, despite its imperfections, was viewed by African Americans as well as European Americans as an era of progress -- certainly a marked advance over the Depression years.  

One noticeable change that is also attributed to the New Deal was with regards to immigration.  An interesting and positive factor was the influx of people of African descent from the West Indies during the 1930's (and of Puerto Ricans after World War II) -- somewhat similar to the great ethnic immigrations and their meaning for the American melting pot.

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*President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought several prominent African Americans into government to serve in the "Black Cabinet," an advisory group.  The most famous member was Mary McLeod Bethune.

*The United States Housing Authority began building low-cost housing, and African Americans occupied about a third of the units.  The housing was segregated in the South and only partially integrated in the North.

Low-cost housing during the Depression was built largely with funds supplied by the United States Housing Authority, later the Federal Public Housing Authority.  About one-third of the units constructed were occupied by African American families.  In the South, separate projects were built for African Americans and European Americans.  Some Northern projects were integrated and others were not.

*The Federal Housing Administration sponsored restrictive covenants in building and rental programs.

The fact that the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the Federal Housing Administration followed conventional practices in granting loans eliminated most African Americans.

*The Tennessee Valley Authority hired African Americans as unskilled laborers but did not admit them to training programs.  African Americans could not live in the Government communities of Norris and Arthurdale.

*In August, African Americans in Atlanta, Georgia, said "that in some cases competent and satisfactory Negro workers are beginning to be displaced by white men as a result of the higher wage scales provided by the NRA [National Industrial Recovery Act]."

*Although the law creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) stated that "no person shall be excluded on account of race, color or creed," in fact, the CCC generally maintained a policy of strict segregation.  Between 1933 and 1942, approximately 200,000 African American boys worked in CCC camps.  In New England, and in the Western States, approximately 30,000 African Americans lived in integrated camps.

*Camp De Priest, the first African-American Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, was established at the Allegheny National Forest (April 24). 

*United States Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes issued an order forbidding racial discrimination in hiring on any Public Works Administration (PWA) funded projects, including any businesses awarded a PWA contract (September 1).