How did African Americans fare during the Great Depression and under the New Deal?
WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON: During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks. Now, it’s true that blacks also faced the problem of discrimination, even during the Depression, but for the most part, blacks felt that they were in the same boat as everybody else. They didn’t experience that sense of real relative deprivation as if they were being singled out. And it was clear that it had a psychological uplifting, believe it or not for some blacks to know that others were experiencing similar problems. There is some evidence that some New Deal programs in some of the states discriminated against blacks. But I have been sort of – I’ve been impressed overall with the relatively fair treatment that blacks received during the New Deal. And if you talk to black leaders like A. Phi
