Nevertheless, it
was estimated that in 1939 some one million Negroes owed their
livelihood to the Works Progress Administration. If it had not
been for the W.P.A., the National Youth Administration, the
Civilian Conservation Corps, and other similar organizations,
Afro-Americans would have suffered even more during the
Depression.
Some relief was brought to farmers through the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration. However, white landlords usually
kept the checks which had been intended for the sharecroppers.
This resulted in the formation of The Southern Tenant Farmers'
Union, an interracial organization. Despite the landlords'
attempts to use racism to destroy it, the Union showed that white
and black farmers could cooperate on the basis of their common
economic plight. This alliance of poor whites and poor blacks was
reminiscent of the earlier Populist Movement.
Although the New Deal did much to help the Negro, it tended to
further undercut his self-confidence and independence.
Alain Locke has argued that the significant fact about the
northward migration by blacks had been that the Afro-Americans
had made a decision for themselves.
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