They were the first to be laid off from their jobs, and they suffered from an unemployment rate two to three times that of whites. In early public assistance programs African Americans often received substantially less aid than whites, and some charitable organizations even excluded Blacks from their soup kitchens.
Lieutenant is not a part of the main clause, and it is an address to a person that is inserted into the sentence. It must be therefore separated by comas on both sides: the correct answer is a.
