Question

What effect did corrupt practices in the railroad industry have on in African American political leadership in the south?

Answer 1

Racism was rampant among the African American workers in the railroad industry. Although they were well-trained and well-educated, they were only given blue-collar jobs such as porters. During the Great Depression, unionized white workers and the railroad brotherhoods in southern railroads used violence to intimidate, and even murdered the blacks just to take their jobs from them. Despite the continuous suffering and discrimination, Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal program’ was only of little help to African American people. This urged the blacks to participate more in social movements and exert more efforts to progress their contribution in the New Deal coalition facilitated by the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) in 1935.