Remembering the New Deal during Black History Month: Remedying past sins

Above: Graduation day for African Americans who have learned how to read and write in a WPA education class in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, ca. 1935-1943. Across the nation, many thousands of African Americans (and many thousands of whites and immigrants too) learned how to read and write in WPA-funded literacy programs. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: Carrie "Mother" Kirk, in a WPA literacy class in the Sterling Library, Cleveland, Ohio, ca. 1938-1939. Kirk, 101 years old in this photo, was born on March 31, 1837, a slave to the Alexander family near Charlotte, North Carolina. The Alexander Plantation was very large, and Kirk was one of 400 slaves. The caption for this photograph tells us, "Probably her good health today is due to the fact that she was not an ordinary field worker but served as the plantation nurse and seamstress." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Above: During the New Deal, "separate but [supposedly] equal," i.e., apartheid, was still the law of the land, thanks to the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). To pour salt into the wound of that dreadful case, the Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, noted that, "in some parts of the country there have not been enough schools for Negroes" (p. 60). New Dealers, for various reasons (not the least of which was the Plessy case) could not completely end American apartheid; but they did the next best thing by building or improving thousands of new facilities for African Americans (e.g., hospitals, clinics, libraries, colleges, and elementary, middle, and high schools). In the photo above, taken the day after Christmas, 1936, African American children stand in front of their new WPA-built school in Pocomoke, Maryland. Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.

Above: An African American school in Dorchester County, Maryland, gets a new paint job, courtesy of the WPA. Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.

In many parts of America, during the nation's slave years, it was illegal to provide an education to blacks. In South Carolina, for example, educating blacks--whether enslaved or free--could lead to a fine or imprisonment (Illinois Writers' Project, Cavalcade of the American Negro, 1940, p. 24). Yes - as if enslaving people for profit was not sick and twisted enough, many Americans wanted to ensure that blacks could never develop their minds. What kind of a person purposefully tries to keep another person in an uneducated state? 

Many brave people defied these evil laws, and brought some degree of education to some African Americans in any covert manner that they could. Decades later, New Dealers did their part to remedy these past sins too, through literacy classes, adult education on various topics, and better and more numerous educational facilities for African Americans.