What was racism like during the Great Depression?
The people that lived through the Great Depression said “We didn’t go hungry but we lived lean.” During the Great Depression, unemployment reached 25% by 1933. 86,000 businesses failed between 1932-3. The national income in 1929 was 87.8 billion in 1933 it was 40.2 billion. Wages declined by 60%, 9 million savings accounts were wiped out, poverty became a way of life. People moved to the cities to find jobs but there were no jobs were left. The homeless built shanty-towns around cities and called them Hoovervilles in spite of Hoover’s response to the Depression and people began to blame Hoover for the Depression.. People stood in the breadline from charity handouts. People started eating jackrabbits and called them Hooverhogs.