ns without much funding. Even though Ickes meant well, many blacks found problems with PWA programs similar to those of the AAA and the NRA. Again, the federal government (Ickes included) did not hold any influence over the individual state governments. Therefore, the blacks continued to be denied jobs and equal wages. John P. Davis, an authority on the Roosevelt Era explained this quite well in his article for the Journal of Negro Education:The Negro’s experience with the PWA has been no better than his experience with other New Deal programs. Negro workers in the building trades have been driven to the wall. They have been denied employment on public works projects and singled out in the South for sub-standard wages. Even under the new Works Relief Bill we find the establishment of work relief for families of five as low as from $10 to $17 for four 30 hour weeks…What hope can we have for the improvement of the lot of the Negro as long as the federal government joins with private employers in imposing upon Negroes by law and administrative practices sub-normal standard of living?19The depression and collapse of America’s economy in 1929 enhanced the political, social, and economic burdens of black Americans. Any substantial gains in wealth that many African-Americans had enjoyed during the roaring 20’s became obsolete due to the harsh reality of the depression. For the unskilled laborers, tenant farmers, and household domestics, who made up the majority of the black working class, the depression was indeed immediate and as a result devastated many lives. In the mid 1930’s there were enormous wage differentials between black and whites, AAA cotton subsidy policies, discrimination is government-sponsored relief and public works, and restrictions in federal hiring practices. In John P. Davis’ “Black Inventory of a New Deal,” written in May 1935, the few benefits that had been won ...
