Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section087/James Adams 2

Overview

James Adams was an "odd-jobs" Black man who lived in Charlotte, North Carolina during The Great Depression in the 1930s. His family relations and his date of birth are unknown. He was interviewed as part of the Federal Writer's Project on August 8th, 1939 by Cora Bennett. In the interview transcript, Adams is referred to as John Eaves to retain anonymity.

Biography

Early Life

James Adams, a Black man born in the southern United States, spent his youth taking care of himself. Adams lived with his uncle, who abused him regularly. This would cause Adams to run away from home, but he was always brought back. Once Adams was of age, he would join the circus. Initially, he was a janitor, but the circus would promote him to stage actor. It was his job to do an “African Dance”, after putting on makeup and taking drugs to make him more lively. Over time, he began to dislike his routine with the circus, prompting him to drift in search of a new job.

Family Life

After Adams left the circus, he married his wife, Mary Adams, and had three children. After starting his family, Adams worked for the National Youth Administration before he caught pneumonia, and for the Works Progress Administration for a short time afterwards. He was able to do so thanks to the New Deal, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he would support in his interview: "Roosevelt's been a backbone to many a poor man and he's hope me out. If I could vote I'd sho vote for him to be president again." After leaving the Works Progress Administration, Adams worked odd jobs, such as lawn work, to get by. Due to the financial stress, Adams' two oldest children left home to provide for themselves, and his youngest went to live with their grandmother. For a short period, Adams' wife fell ill and also went to live with her mother. Adams and his wife lived off of about 6 dollars a week, and their rent was 2.5 dollars per week.

Social Context

The Deterrents to the Black Vote in North Carolina

North Carolina, like many other southern states in the early 20th century, enacted laws to keep Black People from voting even after the 15th Amendment. There were two major obstacles to the Black vote: The Poll Tax and literacy tests.

The Poll Tax was a flat tax that citizens were required to pay to vote in elections on the local, state, and federal levels, and were enacted in an effort to prevent Black people from voting. North Carolina's Poll Tax was regulated in the North Carolina State, County, Poll and Income Taxes Amendment in 1920, which mandated that the Poll Tax would be limited to $1 at the local level, and $2 at the state level. This tax would, of course, disproportionately affect Americans in poverty. In an era such as the Great Depression where many Americans were struggling to pay rent, the Poll Tax was the difference between voting and putting food on the table. In the 1930s, where the unemployment rate of Black People was over 50%, the majority of Black Americans had to forego voting to survive.

Because of the uneven wealth distribution in the United States during the Great Depression, many poor people were unable to send their children to school; they were needed for labor. As Black People disproportionately experienced poverty during this period, many Black children were leaving school as early as the third grade. This lack of education made them easy targets for literacy tests, a predatory way of preventing the Black vote. Literacy tests in North Carolina did not only target the illiterate. While there were Black people could not read, there was a significant increase in the Black literate population from 1880 to 1930 of 53.6%. However, this literate population would fail the tests consistently, which were administered by white voting officials.

While many white people were also either too poor to afford the Poll Tax or too illiterate to pass the literacy tests, their right to vote was protected by the Grandfather Clause. The Grandfather Clause states that if a person's ancestors could vote before 1867, they could vote regardless of circumstance. Since Black men were given the vote in 1868, this clause ensured that legislation that targeted poor people would only affect Black poor people.

The NYA and the WPA in North Carolina During The Great Depression

As Jim Crow Laws all but eliminated the Black population's ability to vote, hiring and firing discrimination made it just as difficult to find stable work. Many Black Americans were unable to read or perform skilled labor due to a lack of education and training, and the low skilled positions that they held were taken by White people after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. This is reflected in statistics from the early 1930s: Over 50% of Black people were unemployed by 1932, at a rate that was 2-3 times higher than White people. The unemployment rate would continue to climb, so the Roosevelt Administration stepped in to create relief organizations as part of the New Deal.

The National Youth Administration (NYA) was created with the objective of the continued education of young people. They would provide aid to students in both grade schools and higher education. North Carolina would rank second nationally in the number of participating schools and colleges.

Some relief was provided in the form of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was established in order to provide jobs to those in need. The WPA would provide employment in a number of fields, including construction, conservation, and the arts. In construction, the WPA would lay over 14,000 miles of roads and raise more than 1,000 new buildings, including schools, airports, hospitals, and city halls. Conservation efforts would result in more than 600,000 trees being planted, more than 54 million school lunches served, and the expansion of public libraries in North Carolina. Work in the arts would include contributions to the Federal Writer's Project and provide jobs in theatre in Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Wilmington, amongst many other towns and cities. In all, the WPA would provide more than 125,000 jobs to North Carolinians between 1935 and 1940.

References

1. Interview Bennett, Cora on James Adams, August 8th 1939, Folder 295, Federal Writing Projects Papers, Southern Historical Collections, UNC Chapel Hill. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/734/rec/1

2. Murphy, Mary-Elizabeth B. "African Americans in the Great Depression and New Deal." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. 19 Nov. 2020; Accessed 11 Oct. 2022. https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-632.

3. Clawson, Rosalee . “Poor People, Black Faces: The Portrayal of Poverty in Economics Textbooks.” Journal of Black Studies 32, no. 3 (January 2022): 352–61. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002193470203200305.

4. Thomas, Jesse O. Opportunity, Journal of Negro Life 12 (September 1934): 277. https://www.amistadresource.org/documents/document_07_08_010_thomas.pdf.

5. Lynch, Hollis. “African American Life during the Great Depression and the New Deal.” Britannica.com. Britannica. Accessed October 11, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-American/African-American-life-during-the-Great-Depression-and-the-New-Deal.

6. Martin, D.G. “One on One: Jim Crow Is Still Alive in North Carolina.” Chapelboro.com, December 7, 2020. https://chapelboro.com/town-square/one-on-one-jim-crow-is-still-alive-in-north-carolina.

7. Abrams, Douglas Carl, and Randall E. Parker. “Great Depression.” NCPedia.org, 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/grandfather-clause.

8. Hunt, James L. “Grandfather Clause.” NCPedia.org, 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/grandfather-clause.

9. “The Suffrage Amendment.” NCPedia.org. Accessed October 26, 2022. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/suffrage-amendment.

10. “120 Years of Literacy.” National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed October 26, 2022. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp.

11. Klein, Christopher. “Last Hired, First Fired: How the Great Depression Affected African Americans.” HISTORY.com, April 18, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/last-hired-first-fired-how-the-great-depression-affected-african-americans.