Backyard of a dwelling in a slum area near the House Office Building, Washington, D.C.
September 1935
Carl Mydans, photographer
Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection
Memorial Day Group 1938, James E. Walker Post No. 26 of the American Legion, Washington, D.C.
Addison Scurlock, photographer, May 1938
Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
William J. Powell (far right), a successful owner of several automobile service stations in Chicago, moved to Los Angeles to learn to fly. By the early 1930s Powell had organized the Bessie Coleman Aero Club to promote aviation awareness in the black community. Both men and women were welcome to apply. Powell became a talented visionary and promoter of black involvement in aviation.
California, 1931
Credit: National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution
(Source: blog.nasm.si.edu)
During his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed an unprecedented number of prominent African American leaders to positions in cabinet offices and New Deal agencies. These leaders were referred to as the “Black Cabinet” or “Black Brain Trust”. While not official cabinet members, they advised President Roosevelt on a number of issues important to African Americans, such as employment, education and civil rights issues. By mid-1935, there were 45 “Black Cabinet” members including the following:
- Dr. Ambrose Caliver, Department of the Interior
- Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Public Health Service
- Dr. Robert C. Weaver, Federal Housing Authority
- Joseph H. Evans, Farm Security Administration
- Lawrence A. Oxley, Department of Labor
- Dr. William J. Thomkins, Recorder of Deeds
- Charles E. Hall, Department of Commerce
- William J. Houston, Department of Justice
- Ralph E. Mizelle, US Postal Service
- Dewey R. Jones, Department of the Interior;
- Edgar Brown (tennis star), Civilian Conservation Corps
- J. Parker Prescott, Housing Authority
- Edward H. Lawson, Jr., Works Projects Administration
- Arthur Weiseger, Department of Labor
- Alfred Edgar Smith, Works Projects;
- Henry A. Hunt, Farm Credit Administration
- John W. Whitten, Works Projects
- Joseph R. Houchins, Department of Commerce
- At various times, others included:
- William H. Hastie attorney, Department of the Interior
- Eugene Kinckle Jones, Department of Commerce
- William J. Trent, Federal Works Agency
Mary McLeod Bethune, who was appointed to the National Youth Administration, was the only female member of the “Black Cabinet”.
Photo credit: Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Addison Scurlock, photographer.
![James Donnell Williamson, child of Nat Williamson, Guilford County, North Carolina
April 1938
John Vachon, photographer
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
[More about the Williamson family (including additional pictures): http://www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/natwilliamson1.html
Thanks to Throat, Eye & Knucklebone for this link.]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsa/8a03000/8a03100/8a03178v.jpg)
James Donnell Williamson, child of Nat Williamson, Guilford County, North Carolina
April 1938
John Vachon, photographer
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
[More about the Williamson family (including additional pictures): http://www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/natwilliamson1.html
Thanks to Throat, Eye & Knucklebone for this link.]
Rufus Marshall, Boy Scout
ca. 1935
Los Angeles, California
Shades of L.A.: African American Community
Mrs. Flossie Johnson and her family, standing in front of their house in Reidsville, North Carolina, 1939
At the time the photograph was taken, Mrs. Johnson was 34 years old and separated from her husband. Living with her were her seven children, her brother and his wife. The family lived raised most of their food and earned income by sewing drawstrings into cotton tobacco bags.
Carleton Stutz and Peter A. Maxfield, photographers
Source: Mrs. Flossie Johnson, Reidsville, N.C. In Tobacco Bag Stringing Operations in North Carolina and Virginia, 1939. North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
(Source: dc.lib.unc.edu)
![The Warren family pose on their front porch in Fort Worth, Texas. L to R, top, William, a Pullman porter, his wife Carrie and children, Alma, Alton, Elnora.
ca. 1930
Fort Worth, Texas
Shades of L.A.: African American Community
Los Angeles Public Library
Shortly after the Civil War, the Pullman Company hired African-American men to staff its Pullman sleeping cars. These men became known and widely respected as Pullman porters. While the pay was low and porters often suffered abuse from racist passengers, being a Pullman porter was once considered one of the best jobs a black man could obtain. Over the 100 years they served the railroads, Pullman Porters contributed to the development of the black middle class in America, established the first African American labor organization and played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Notable Pullman Porters include A. Philip Randolph, Matthew Henson, Claude McKay, Benjamin Mays, Oscar Micheaux and Gordon Parks.
[Correction: A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters labor union, was never a Pullman Porter.]](http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics04/00001767.jpg)
The Warren family pose on their front porch in Fort Worth, Texas. L to R, top, William, a Pullman porter, his wife Carrie and children, Alma, Alton, Elnora.
ca. 1930
Fort Worth, Texas
Shades of L.A.: African American Community
Los Angeles Public Library
Shortly after the Civil War, the Pullman Company hired African-American men to staff its Pullman sleeping cars. These men became known and widely respected as Pullman porters. While the pay was low and porters often suffered abuse from racist passengers, being a Pullman porter was once considered one of the best jobs a black man could obtain. Over the 100 years they served the railroads, Pullman Porters contributed to the development of the black middle class in America, established the first African American labor organization and played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Notable Pullman Porters include A. Philip Randolph, Matthew Henson, Claude McKay, Benjamin Mays, Oscar Micheaux and Gordon Parks.
[Correction: A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters labor union, was never a Pullman Porter.]
Tempie Cummins
Jasper, Texas, July 1937
“The white chillun tries teach me to read and write but I didn’ larn much, ‘cause I allus workin’. Mother was workin’ in the house, and she cooked too. She say she used to hide in the chimney corner and listen to what the white folks say. When freedom was ‘clared, marster wouldn’t tell ‘em, but mother she hear him tellin’ mistus that the slaves was free but they didn’ know it and he’s not gwineter tell ‘em till he makes another crop or two. When mother hear that she say she slip out the chimney corner and crack her heels together four times and shouts, ‘I’s free, I’s free!’ Then she runs to the field, ‘gainst marster’s will and tol’ all the other slaves and they quit work. Then she run away and in the night she slip into a big ravine near the house and have them bring me to her. Marster, he come out with his gun and shot at mother but she run down the ravine and gits away with me.”
WPA Slave Narrative Project, Texas Narratives, Volume 16, Part 1
Federal Writer’s Project, United States Work Projects Administration (USWPA); Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
(Source: memory.loc.gov)
