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Ten ants and sharecroppers were the livelihoods of African Americans in the South. They were the most menial, lowest- paying jobs because of racial discrimination.

They were also victims of intimidation. Most African Americans were not allowed to vote because of Jim Crow laws. Black people were hardest hit by the Depression.

3 million blacks lived in cramped cabins without running water or a bathroom in the rural South.

The philosophy of "last hired, first fired" meant that the people who could least afford to be laid off were the first to go. Black workers who had left the South to take factory jobs in the North were among the first to be laid off. In the early years of the Great Depression, this group had the highest rate of joblessness. Some charity organizations refused to give aid to minority groups.

Latino and Asian farm workers were competing with Impoverished whites for seasonal work on large corporate farms. Many Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino farm laborers moved to cities. Mexicans who came to the United States during the 1920s were mostly migrant workers who traveled from farm to farm to work during harvest and planting seasons. California, New Mexico, Arizona, Col orado, Texas, and the midwestern states are where they settled. Government officials called for the deportation of Mexican- born Americans to avoid the cost of providing public services as economic conditions worsened. More than half a million Mexican Americans were deported by 1935.

People were suffering in the early 1930s. The governments couldn't manage the misery. Herbert Hoover, the "Great Engineer," was unable to provide Americans with answers.

Herbert Hoover was a genius during the Great Depression.

He denied that there was a calamity.

The do- nothing approach did not work. Falling wages and declining land and home values made it even harder for struggling farmers, businesses, and households to pay their bills.

President Hoover was less willing to let events take their course as the months went on. Various committees and commissions were formed to study the economic calamity.

President Hoover was a cheer leader for capitalism.

Hoover never felt com fortable reassuring a desperate nation. No one is actually starving.

The nation was woefully unprepared to deal with the Great Depression, which was the greatest national emergency since the Civil War. As personal income plummeted, so did tax revenues. President Hoover tried to balance the federal budget by raising taxes and cutting budgets. The Revenue Act of 1932 was the most poorly timed peacetime tax increase in history, raising the top rate from 24 percent to 63 percent. The higher taxes took money out of consumers' pockets. When the economy needed more consumer spending, people had less money to spend.

By the fall of 1930, many cities were in financial trouble. The federal government had no programs to deal with homeless ness and joblessness as a result of the state and local governments cutting spending. There were vacant lots where shantytowns sprouted.

The president's fear that the nation would be "plunged into socialism" if the government provided direct support to the poor was reflected in his refusal to address the social crisis. He claimed that government assistance would rob people of the desire to help themselves.

Hoover hoped that the natural generosity of the American people and charitable organizations would be sufficient, and that volunteers would relieve the social distress. His faith in traditional "voluntarism" was incorrect.

Herbert Hoover became the target of their frustration because the economic col apse was so unexpected and intense. The Democrats exploited his predica ment. They won a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate in November 1930.

Hoover didn't see the elections as a warning. He became more resistant to calls for federal intervention. He failed as an economist. He failed as a business leader.

President Hoover was forced to do more with the new Congress in session. The Emergency Relief Act authorized the RFC to make loans to states for infrastructure projects. While the unemployed went hungry, critics called the RFC a "breadline" for businesses.

In the spring of 1932, 20,000 Great War veterans and their families descended on the nation's capital. Many of the veterans who were owed cash bonuses are now homeless and unemployed. Congress passed the Adjusted Compen sation Act in 1924, which gave veterans a bonus for their service in the war. The Senate refused to approve the payments because they would have caused a tax increase.

Most of the veterans went back to their homes. The rest, along with their families, had no place to go and were in a shantytown within sight of the Capitol. They were the first large- scale example of protest in the nation's capital.

Hoover wanted to remove the veterans so he persuaded Congress to pay for their train tickets home. Hundreds stayed, hoping to meet the president. The buildings were ordered to be cleared by the Attorney General.

The soldiers used horses, tanks, tear gas, and bayonets to break up the veterans and their families. The soldiers exceeded their orders and burned the camp. Fifty-five veterans were injured and 135 were arrested.

The attack on the Bonus Army caused a public relations disaster and led to more people seeing Hoover and the Republicans as cruel. The president sent a message to MacArthur telling him not to send his troops in.

The governor of New York is a democrat. Franklin Roosevelt told an aide that he would be the next president.

Hoover's health was affected by the stress of the nation's plight. He hated giving speeches, and when he did he was cold and impersonal. He got along badly with the journalists, who often highlighted his sour demeanor and voice.

The organizational genius who promised Americans "permanent prosperity" lost the respect of most Americans and became a laughing stock. Millions of people struggled to survive as wage levels continued to rise. Hoover failed because he didn't understand or acknowledge the seriousness of the nation's economic problems.

Herbert Hoover was nominated for a second term by Republicans in June of 1932. The Dem ocrats arrived in Chicago a few weeks later confident that they would win the election. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won on the fourth ballot.

Roosevelt traveled to Chicago to accept the nomination in person.

Roosevelt said that the economy needed new ideas and aggressive action. The country needs.

Hoover lacked vision and vitality.

Voters gave Roosevelt 23 million to 16 million votes. Hoover won six states four years after he won forty. He had to make one.

Many white Protestants felt that their religion and way of life were under attack. The revival of the Ku Klux Klan promoted hatred of Catholics, Jews, immigrants, Communists, and liberals. The teaching of evolution in public schools was opposed by fundamentalist Protestants.

Although the Eighteenth Amendment paved the way for prohibition and the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed women's right to vote, the movement lost much of its appeal as a result of the Great War. Calvin Coolidge and his fellow Republicans followed policies advocated by the Secretary of the Treasury that emphasized lowering taxes and government spending as well as raising tariffs to protect domestic industries. The economy was revived by the plan. In 1924, Coolidge won reelection and restored trust in the presidency. Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce under Coolidge, won a third straight victory for the Republicans in the 1928 election.

Business owners did not provide adequate wage increases for workers during the 20th century, thus preventing consumers' "purchasing power" from keeping up with increases in production. Overproduction hurt the nation's agricultural sector. The emerging economic depression was worsened by government policies such as high tariffs that reduced international trade and the reduction of the nation's money supply as a means of dealing with the financial panic.

Hoover's philosophy of voluntary self- reliance prevented him from using federal intervention to relieve the nation's suffering.

In March 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the presidency and set in motion a New Deal that included scores of new federal agencies and programs designed to end the depression and put people back to work.

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William Gropper, the son of Jewish immigrants who became a Communist sympathizer during the twenties and thirties, was one of the most controversial artists commissioned by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration. In 1939 Gropper painted a mural on the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C., based on his observations of dam construction on the Columbia and Colorado Rivers.

The Great Depression was more than just an American event, it was a worldwide economic disaster whose global scale increased its severity and complicated efforts to address its impact. Europe was still reeling from the effects of the Great War in 1929. The American economy sent shock waves around the world. The rise of communism in the Soviet Union was caused by economic distress. "Capitalism is dying," said the theologian.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to do that in 1933.

He would change capitalism from within. He believed that the problem of twentieth- century life was the excessive power of large corporations. Corporate capitalism could only be regulated by the federal government and an active president.

In dire circumstances, few leaders have taken office. Within days of becoming president, FDR took dramatic steps that changed the scope and role of the federal government while keeping the nation from fragmenting. He believed that America's democratic form of government had a responsibility to help people who were in distress. With the help of Congress, he was able to put in place dozens of measures to relieve human suffering and promote economic recovery.

FDR was an inspiring personality, overflowing with cheerfulness, strong convictions, and an unshakeable confidence in himself and in the resilience of the American people. He was a pragmatist who was willing to try different approaches.

The Second New Deal was launched in 1935 by FDR.