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On the verge of the crash only a quarter of Black families Owned the home they lived in (Greenberg 1).

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In the Deep South, a majority of Black workers were stuck in agriculture. Only a quarter owned the land that they worked with the rest sharecropping. Sharecropping itself was a viscous cycle with many family’s being required to produce cash crops. Thus their farms rarely fed themselves and with declining values of these cash crops due to overproduction lead to many needing to borrow money at exorbitant interest rates keeping them poor (Greenberg 2)

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Black man photographed by Russel Lee in 1938 (Library of Congress)

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#WhitewashingSucks
According to Whitewashing the Great Depression by Sarah Boxer, Photos during the Great Depression were focused on showing the suffering of rural areas. During the Depression, Blacks made up half of farmers and sharecroppers. In 1932, when a quarter of white Americans were unemployed, half of Black Americans were. No group had it worse. Even with this, their suffering was not shone to the public.

FSA (Farm Security Administration) funds were controlled by Southern Democrats in congress. Roy Stryker, the chief of the FSA photographing, worried racial honesty would cause the funding to dry up. Without the Southern Democrats' support, FDR wouldn't have his New Programs pass congress. This extended to the Social Security Act. Blacks were excluded from this act.

Stryker thought that appealing to white suffering would be more effective than illustrating blacks. The chief also controlled what images the photographers took. He created scripted shots  where he made sure the all of the subjects were white. He pressed that photos of black people be removed.

The magazines also played a part in creating an image of only white suffering. Walker Evans and James Agee wanted to show the like of sharecroppers. The magazine told them to document only the life of white tenants. The two the of them disobeyed the order and photographed of both. The magazine removed the images of blacks. They were only added back in in 1960 in the 2nd edition.

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White washing is the misrepresentation of minority groups by replacing them with white (usually male) figures.

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Even before the Crash, many black families were under constant terror and threat of white supremacist. During the 1920s, the KKK exploded in membership with its peak being 4 million members. Not only that but they were supported by the government which granted permission to the KKK to organize a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue within Washington DC in 1925. Lynching was also commonplace and between 1917 and 1926, 419 African Americans were killed by lynch mobs (Greenberg 6).

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According to History.com "Harlem Renaissance", The Harlem Renaissance was a golden age for black artists. It allowed them to represent themselves and their culture the way they saw fit. It also allowed Black Americans to be able to reach whites.

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#BlackWriters

Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes hoped for equality. His poems touched upon black culture and to be proud to be black. They were emotional and passionate. "The Weary Blues" was a critical acclaimed poem by Hughes. It details a man singing in Harlem. It concludes with the man sleeping like a dead man. It references the dark past of blacks still plagues them even while they are happy during the Harlem Renaissance.

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Photo Credit: History.com "Last Hired, First Fired: How the Great Depression Affected African Americans"

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#EconomicInequality
The Great Depression demolished the economy. Factories, banks and firms collapsed. Three million people could not find jobs in January 1930, according to the American Federation of labor. Three years later it would be 13.5 million. Wages had fallen by 40 percent.

Although the economic crisis affected everyone, it was worse for blacks. The federal government in 1930 stated that 38% of the black population could not support themselves. White men took jobs that were held by black men. Black men were the first fired and last hired.

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"Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are" (Ellison 590). The loss of the connection to one's own race can be jarring. In Invisible Man, the narrator has lost his connection with his own culture from the south. He is also ignored by white society because he is not seen as fully human. He does not have a place where he belongs. Whitewashing causes this same loss of connection. By removing elements of a minority's culture, that culture loses identity. Black suffering is usually tied to slavery but rarely tied to the Great Depression. It is connected with rural, whites instead. Blacks suffered just as much but they were rarely shown or acknowledged. This can give a dangerous sense that racist tendencies are only in the past because slavery is over.

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#NewChange
During 1916, when the Great Migration began, a factory wage in the North was three times more than what a Black person could make in the rural South.
When World War I broke out in 1914, the North needed more workers to keep up with war productions. By 1919, almost 1,000,000 blacks left for the north. This major Migration would help create the Harlem Renaissance.

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The Dangers of Whitewashing Black History | David Ikard | TEDxNashville

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The Dangers of Whitewashing Black History | David Ikard | TEDxNashville

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The Dangers of Whitewashing Black History | David Ikard | TEDxNashville

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According to Britannica "Pan-Africanism", W.E.B. Du Bois further the cause of Pan-Africanism. This was the idea that people of African descent should be united under the same cause. He advocated for the study of African culture and history. Du Bois stated that blacks in America and Europe were both oppressed by whites. Marcus Garvey advocated for African independence Black's important past. His plan was to send millions of black americans back to Africa. It was ultimately unsuccessful.

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Cootie Williams Photo citation: Bettman Archives/ Getty Images

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Jazz was important to the Harlem Renaissance. Jazz interested whites and blacks. Louis Armstrong was an innovative jazz artist who pushed the boundaries of traditional music. Speakeasies provided illegal alcohol which brought in white patrons, not just black. The cotton club was the most successful of these clubs.

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This is a picture of Hooverville. While the housing was not the best, it provided homes to the homeless. Getty Images/ Washington State University 

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#EconomicProjects
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal redefined government with more development projects. Every person was entitled to decent housing in the form of Hooverville which were shanty towns for housing. The government provided grants and jobs to millions to stimulate the economy. Black Americans who benefited disproportionately from New Deal programs because they were poorer on average. Most New Deal agencies explicitly prohibited racial discrimination. These programs helped prevent starvation and allowed for kids to go back to school.

And the visibility of FDR’s “Black Cabinet” of African American advisers was evidence that the Federal Government supported racial equality.

Despite federal guidelines, most local programs continued to discriminate on racial grounds, especially those in the South. Black farmers lost their land more quickly. African Americans obtained jobs and training far more slowly and received less in economic aid. The harsh reality for blacks were the unequal job distribution, unequal education and grant distribution, and institutionalized racism within Tennessee Valley Authority.

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The narrator comes to term with the racism before the battle royal "I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed" (Ellison 15). The Pan-Africanism movement reflects the main character's sense of growing black pride. The black community was beaten down and ashamed of their past. Slavery was evidence that black people were inferior.

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#WhitesInHarlem
As the Harlem Renaissance kicked off and started to gain worldwide attention, many whites within New York became infatuated with their colored brothers. Initially this was seen as a positive, for many colored intellectuals believed that the newfound stardom and popularity of black culture would lead to better racial relations. Some even went as far as to believe that race issues were finally solved through "art" (Bascom 21). Of course this was far from the truth and although newly intrigued whites brought attention to Harlem not all of it was necessarily good.

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In reality, the Harlem Renaissance did little to change the view whites had of colored people. as even after producing such impressive works of art many believed that they were still inferior and rather believed that Black art was something of a novelty and a fad rather than legitimate art. Often People of Color and their art was described as: childlike, naive, and primitive by whites visiting Harlem (Hubert 24). These generalizations and gross oversimplifications of Black art reinforced racial stereotypes at the time and ensured that for the time many people of color would be held back and constrained by society.

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The end of the Harlem Renaissance was due to the economic crash in 1930 and the lift of the prohibition of liquor. Patrons didn't have the money or the reason to go to the clubs.

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Although the answer is most likely obvious, Whites were treated with upmost respect and whenever they visited certain primarily black establishments and still given the best service for the most part. Meanwhile when brought into primarily white spaces Blacks were humiliated, laughed at, and treated like animals by their white hosts. For example after the Battle Royal scene in chapter 1 of Invisible Man. The Invisible Man is allowed to give a speech he is almost ignored by the white listeners and threatened upon misspeaking. "I spoke automatically with such fervor that I did not realize the men were still talking and laughing... I spoke even louder in spite of the pain. But still they talked and still they laughed, as though deaf with cotton in dirty ears" (Ellison 30). After being tricked into a ruthless fight and beaten to a pulp the Invisible Man still tried to speak. In return the white crowd did not even afford the smallest bit of respect to him. This event highlights how many African Americans whilst attempting their hardest to be cordial, educated, and polite where completely swept under the rug by their white counterparts. This of course runs absolutely opposite of How People of Color treated their white visitors within their own spaces.

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For farmers, it became more expensive to farm and ship produce then it could be sold for. The plummeting prices caused a positive feedback loop. This meant that the lower the prices caused the less workers to be hired. This continued until the government could get involved. Some farmers dumped milk onto the field rather than try to sell it. After a year of the Great Depression, the number of black farm owners had fallen 5% and their acreage total by almost 10%. The value of the land fell by almost 1/3.

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The African-American voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Prior to the Great depression, blacks voted for Republican candidates because Abraham Lincoln had black interests in mind. The southern democrats were the racist plantation owners. The Great Depression showed that the democrats were willing to help the black minority. The black debt to republicans had seeming been paid off.

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Upon finally being hired to the Liberty Paints plant the Invisible man is confronted with a swath of racial stereotypes and messages. Upon meeting engineer he is at first rejected but then immediately Mr. Brockway has a change of heart and explains why the Invisible Man can be his assistant. “This is the first time they ever sent me anybody like you. That’s how come I called you back. Usually they sends down some young white fellow who thinks he’s going to watch me a few days and ask me a heap of questions and then take over” (Ellison 208). This relates to how a staggering majority of new hires even in cities with high Black populations are whites during the time. In addition it highlights the downright competition for jobs within the city and how many workers feared being usurped by educated white colleagues.

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Whilst a majority of African Americans simply sought to live in peace with their white neighbors a sizable minority of African Americans sought to return the favor to Whites. Beginning in the 30s during the hardships of the Depression Black separatist movements popped up. Immediately upon his arrival to Harlem the Invisible man encounters one of these groups during a protest about to turn riot. “It was ahead of me, angry and shrill, and upon hearing it I had a sensation of shock and fear such as I had felt as a child when surprised by my father’s voice. We gone chase ‘em out, the  man cried. Out!” (Ellison 159). These efforts stoked racial that lead to a number of riots. These racially motivated riots gripped many cities from the 30s to the 60s. That would be viciously put down by police forces. Malcom X in specific would be the leader of these separatists and seen as an opponent to MLK within the racial justice movement later in the 60s.

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Blacks were not offered loans for housing because the federal government thought they would lower the property value. The property value actually went up because blacks were expected to pay more and they were willing because the entire system was racist.

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Maps were divided into sections where it was safe to ensure. Any place with an African American would be deemed "too risky" to ensure mortgages. This caused blacks to not be able to gain wealth from housing which made the financial gap worse.