Paper #3 Rough Draft

The years 1930 to 1940 were a time of great unity but also a time of dire crisis. America was suffering the adverse effects of the great depression brought on by an economic turn down. Simultaneously, American citizens felt threatened when they looked at the political structure of Communist, Fascist, and Socialist countries all around the world. These radical political structures seemed to be spreading like an infectious disease. On the surface Communist Russia appeared to offer more economic opportunities, more racial equality, and more unity among their citizens. This realization threatened Americans and motivated them to seek out a miracle resolution to the depression and communism. Most Americans maintained the idea that hard work in a democratic America would lead to economic success for all. On September 23, 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a moving speech known as the “Commonwealth Club Address” about how America could get out of the depression. Roosevelt says “the right of free thinking, freedom of farming and expressing opinions, and freedom of personal living, [was entitled to] each man according to his own rights.” Blacks desired the freedom that Roosevelt spoke of in his speech so they participated in the great migration. Warren Susman proposes that a singular national “culture” existed in America during the 1930’s period. Susman supports the conception that blacks were just as much a part of American culture as any other Americans. Blacks were willing to do whatever it took to obtain the economic freedom Roosevelt promised all Americans were entitled to. The New Deal affected all people in America regardless of nationality, gender, age, or race. Various visual cultural materials were used to support the political viewpoint of Franklin D. Roosevelt. These visual images were photographs and murals depicting African American men as productive, rural or urban, and included in American society. The life and murals of Jacob Lawrence chronicled how African Americans had more job opportunities, freedom from Jim Crow Laws, and hope for full citizenship in the future because of the New Deal.

Jacob Lawrence made his Migration series in 1941 looking back at the changes brought on by the New Deal policies and other events. Two mural paintings by Jacob Lawrence are particularly good at persuading Americans that Roosevelt’s new deal was a success. Out of a sixty mural series, mural number seventeen captures the devastating oppression black tenant farmers suffered under white landowners. The mural features two black men and one white man. The rural black men are hunched over carrying heavy satchels of raw goods to be hanged on giant hooks. The black men are dressed in suspenders and straw hats. Simultaneously, the white landowner intently writes the labor down on his checklist ignoring the pained faces of the black men. The white man is dressed in white pants, a grey blazer and hat. Lawrence sees this Black American way of life as another form of slavery. Roosevelt thought that all American farmers should be able to enjoy economic freedom. Lawrence shows that blacks have little to no economic freedom in the sharecropping relationship. The New Deal sought to fix many of the problems that Lawrence points out in his artwork by creating economic opportunities for blacks in the industrial field that primarily existed in the North.

There is a fundamental difference between mural forty-five and mural seventeen. There are no white people in mural forty-five to supervise the work or life of the blacks in the painting. Instead the mural depicts a black family complete with men, women, and children. All the black figures appear to be dressed in well made garments. Two of the figures are smiling at two black women as they look out at the smoke stacks being produced by industrial buildings. This conveys a sense of pride because one of they may work in the industry or know someone who works there. In the caption below the painting Lawrence writes that “I think people…have escaped certain kinds of desperations, and they have arrived [at] a goal where they hope to prosper, relatively speaking, not to become rich but just to prosper, and become part of the work force and to realize the American Dream.” (Lawrence, Migration Series, 12) This quote epitomizes the support Lawrence has for black economic equality. Unfortunately, blacks had flee the farms to go North and achieve this American way of life. Roosevelt spoke of the quest that all Americans are on in search of better things. The New Deal played a significant role in creating jobs for all Americans so that Blacks could have inclusion in the American ecomonic struction. Warren Susman argues that this kind of inclusion could not have been possible without Americans sharing in a unified culture during the years 1930 to 1940.

The programs that Roosevelt implemented with the New Deal in 1933 made it possible for artists such as Jacob Lawrence and ordinary black citizens to gain jobs that were previously unavailable. The miraculous program was designed to rebuild the American economy through new stronger federal programs like the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and Office of War Information (OWI). Susman makes an insightful claim that “the New Deal, of course, in [the work] area offered considerable competition [to communism] with its own projects in arts, in the theater, and in the Federal Writer’s Project.” (Susman 173) Yet, the Deal had a remarkably unique relationship with African Americans. Before the New Deal Americans were beginning to become insecure about the reliability of an economic democracy. Roosevelt changed the economic landscape of opportunities for black people.