by Hanin Menchew
In Youngblood, John Oliver Killens paints a dismal picture of the economic prospects for African American workers in Crossroads, Georgia, during the 1920s and 1930s. Based on the information available about the economic landscape of Macon, Georgia, in during the same time period, it is easy to see that Killens’s portrayal of Crossroads does not differ much from his source material. Economic hardship for the African American community in Macon was a reality well before the Great Depression. Following the Civil War, African Americans who managed to find work were usually employed by their former masters. Those who weren’t faced heavy competition from soldiers returning from war, who were now poor enough to be willing to take jobs that would have been considered “black” jobs before the war. In addition, many white southerners were economically ruined by the war and could not afford to hire additional workers (Landrum 86). This lack of jobs and heavy competition from the white workforce after the Civil War foreshadowed the hardships that the African Americans in Macon and throughout the South would face during later economic crisis.
Georgia sharecroppers
By the Depression Era, forty percent of black wage earners were employed as agricultural workers. Ninety percent of these agricultural workers lived in the south, and only twenty percent of them owned their own land, which meant that the large majority of black agricultural workers were sharecroppers. White and black sharecroppers alike lived in extreme poverty, but black sharecroppers typically made as little as seventy-three percent of the wages of their white counterparts (Wolters 7-8). These conditions were no different in Macon, where two-thirds of all black workers were employed in the agriculture industry (Landrum 93). During the first three years of the Great Depression, farmers and sharecroppers continued to produce surpluses, which caused the prices of their crops to drop dramatically. Many New Deal officials theorized that one of the keys to reversing the nation’s economic crisis was to raise the income of farmers. To that end, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was implemented. The most important tenet of this act was that government paid farmers to grow a reduced amount of crop on a small portion of their land (Wolters 3-6). Although this measure did remove the problem of agricultural surplus and ensure that some farms saw an increase in economic prosperity, its effect on black agricultural workers was extremely negative. Because tenant farmers did not own their own land, the reduction of acreage mandated by the act meant that many tenant farmers were out of a job. Even those black workers that did own their own lands were often passed up for AAA benefits, and in Bibb County alone, black farmers lost their farms five times more often than white farmers in the 1930’s (Manis 109).
During the Depression Era, eighty percent of African American women were employed in personal service as domestic workers (Landrum 93). Almost every black family in Macon had at least one member employed in personal service because every able-bodied member of the family had to work in order to contribute to the household. Although domestic workers worked for low wages, the nature of their work allowed them more benefits than those employed in other industries. Often, those who worked in white homes were given hand-me-down clothing, were fed during work hours, and were allowed to “tote a pan” of food and kitchen needs home with them in order to help feed their families (94). However, white families who allowed their domestic workers these extras often used them as an excuse to pay their domestic workers less (95).
In Youngblood, Laurie Lee Youngblood spends her whole life working for white families. In her encounters with these families, Killens paints a vivid picture of the degrading nature of domestic work from the very start. At age twelve, Laurie begins working for the Tucker family as a nanny to their eight-year-old daughter Rebecca. Not long after she starts her job, Mrs. Tucker tells her that she should begin referring to the child as “Miss Rebecca” out of respect, because in Mrs. Tucker’s words “it doesn’t look right for you to be calling her Becky and she getting to be a young Miss already” (Killens 8). Laurie refuses to agree to this, since she is older than Rebecca and Rebecca doesn’t pay her wages. In response, Mrs. Tucker attacks Laurie Lee, hitting her on the head with her fists and then going after her with a broom when Laurie Lee accuses Mr. Tucker of touching her inappropriately (9). In this one relatively short scene, Killens manages to allude to a lot of the problems inherent in this kind of work for black women. First, the fact that Laurie Lee is relegated to this type of work despite her intelligence is a common theme in civil rights literature, as it highlights one way in which racism stifles otherwise promising lives that could contribute to society. Second, it shows that black domestic workers were not looked at as people or treated with respect, as it’s very unlikely that Mrs. Tucker would have asked a twelve-year-old white nanny to refer to her child as “Miss Rebecca” rather than “Becky.” Finally, the allusion to Mr. Tucker’s sexual advances shows how vulnerable that black domestic workers were while working in the homes of white families, as they were very unlikely to be believed if they ever made accusations against their employers.
Meanwhile, Laurie Lee’s husband, Joe, works to support his family as Cross Mills Incorporated. He begins working there at age twenty-one, “handling those big barrels of turpentine from sunup to sundown” (30). Much like Laurie, Joe is abused by his employers because of his status as a black man. Also like Laurie, Joe is not content to sit quietly and take abuse, instead standing up to his racist foreman, Mr. Pete just enough to make a point without losing his job (30-32). However, anytime Joe stands up for himself, he is punished. In one instance early in the novel, Joe chews out his coworker, Josh, but uses arguments that make it clear that it is Mr. Pete who is the real problem. Mr. Pete cannot punish Joe directly, but he complains to his boss, who makes Joe carry the large, heavy turpentine barrels by himself (33-35). This extremely strenuous work is nearly impossible for Joe to do by himself, and it eventually sends him to the hospital (61-62). Killens’ portrayal of Joe’s work in the mills is consistent with the historical reality of black industrial workers.
In the earlier part of the twentieth century, Macon was a hotbed of manufacturing work. Macon was the home to Bibb Manufacturing
Manchester Textile Mill, Macon, Georgia
Company, which was a textile mill with twenty million dollars worth of assets, the Happ Brother’s Company, which was the world’s leading producer of men’s pants, as well as companies that shipped out thousands of pounds of kaolin a year, many brick companies, ironworks, and furniture manufacturing plants (Landrum 91). In short, manufacturing was big business in Macon, employing thousands of people, including many African Americans. However, industrial work was considered a “dead end” job for black workers because they were not allowed any advancement above the positions that white people found degrading to fill. African American workers were never considered to fill positions that had any amount of responsibility attached to them (92). The pretense for this practice was that African American workers lacked the education and therefore could not be trained in order to fill higher positions (93).
Throughout the South, it was very difficult for black workers to find employment in industrial plants; however, when white employers did employ black workers in industrial plants, it was often because they could get away with paying black workers lower wages for the same labor. These lower wages were an easy way for the employers to cut production costs (Wolters 98). In fact, southern manufacturers believed that this source of cheap labor was one of their biggest assets during the Depression Era, and that without it they would be unable to successfully attract new business and investment capital. Many of these manufacturers testified in front of the National Recovery Administration in an effort to secure a lower minimum wage for black workers (99). To the Administration’s credit, it denied this request and mandated an equal minimum wage for all workers, regardless of race (113).
However, this mandate of equal minimum wage was not the victory for African American workers that one might think, and its consequences speak to the larger, more menacing undercurrent of racism throughout the administration of the New Deal. Since the mandate of an equal minimum wage raised production costs for manufacturers, many employers began to cut the marginal jobs. Because black workers were often employed solely because they could be paid less than their white counterparts, employers often fired black workers rather than paying them an equal and fair wage (Manis 109). Many tactics were used throughout the Deep South in order to ensure that black workers remain unemployed, ranging from official legislation stating that black workers could only work in certain parts of town to direct intimidation through lynchings (Wolters 113-116). Although many of the New Deal administrations had legislation on the books that prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, these policies often did not come through in practice. Often, this was due to the fact that the distribution of benefits was left up to state and local agencies, which meant that in the Deep South, especially, racist administrators had free reign to exclude black workers at will (Watkins 219-222). These racist practices during the Great Depression meant that during the 1930’s, black unemployment far outpaced that of whites. By 1940, the employment rate for white workers was 7.29 percent, while the unemployment rate for black workers was 12.85 percent (Manis 108-109).
Another industry that employed a large amount of African Americans in Macon was the railroad industry. In 1940, shortly after Youngblood is set, the Central of Georgia Railway employed around five thousand workers, forty percent of whom were black. Almost every phase of railroad work had black workers connected with it. However, just as with manufacturing work, there were only so many positions that black workers were allowed to fill. Black workers were largely put in the most dangerous positions, such as brakemen and firemen, ninety-seven percent of which were African American (Landrum 89). Black workers were never allowed to rise beyond the positions of porters, helpers, and common laborers; in fact, it is probable that the railways hired such a large amount of black workers because they could be made to do menial tasks in addition to their actual job. African American railroad workers were never allowed to become engineers or conductors for the same reasons that African American laborers in the manufacturing industries were never trusted with more responsible jobs: those were meant for white workers and white workers only (90).
It is important to note that the railroad industry gave birth to the first successful labor union made up solely of black workers. It was common practice for the Pullman Palace Car company, which was a railroad company that specialized in luxury railroad cars, to employ black workers as porters. Essentially, these porters continued to do jobs traditionally associated with house slaves, including servicing the eating and grooming needs of passengers. These porters were expected to be available at all hours, and were responsible for many job expenses, such as their uniform and any damage to the cars caused by passengers. In 1925, five hundred porters gathered in Harlem in order to organize and leverage better pay and working conditions. This was far from the first time that the porters had attempted to organize, but on this occasion they reached out to civil rights advocate A. Philip Randolph, who launched the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. After fighting with Pullman for ten more years, the BSCP became the first black union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a large U.S. company (Williams 28).
In Macon, black workers were not limited to these three industries. By 1940, Macon was home to 214 businesses that were owned and operated by African Americans. The two kinds of businesses that fared best were “defense enterprises,” such as banks and insurance companies, and personal service agencies such as mortuaries, contractors, and the like (Landrum 106). However, the large majority of these businesses were cafes and groceries stores, though only a few of these managed to hold out for long because of the market saturation (107). Some businesses operated for the black community by black owners took for granted that other members of their community would patronize their stores simply because they were run by blacks. They then failed to be competitive in either their merchandise or prices, and ended up losing their customers to white businesses (108). There were also businesses operated by African Americans that catered specifically to the white community, made up of personal services including five barber shops, dressmakers, and a few tailors. The white community patronized these shops because they were known to have a reputation of courtesy, efficiency, and service. However, in the white business community, black workers were limited to roles of little responsibility such as janitors, porters, and elevator operators (109).
Douglas Hotel and Theatre
One black businessman in particular set himself apart during this time period. In 1921, Charles Henry Douglass organized the Middle Georgia Savings and Investment Company. In a financial report given in 1923, it was recorded that in twelve months before, business at the company had totaled $227,729. In addition to the insurance company, Charles Henry Douglass owned and operated a shoe shop, liquor store, pool room, beauty shop, restaurant, and hotel on Broadway, as well as an extensive amount of property through Macon and Bibb County (“We Too” 146). These businesses were situated largely on Broadway and Cotton Avenue, which was the black business and entertainment district in Macon in the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s (148). However, Douglas’s success story was nowhere near the norm. The large majority of black businesses failed, which many blamed on the children’s failure to take family businesses seriously (151).
In 1940, African Americans made up only two percent of the nation’s professional workforce (Landrum 96). In Macon, 31.9 percent of professional workers were African Americans, a near-astronomical figure accounted for by the large number of ministers in Macon (97). Of all of the ministers in Macon at the time, 64 percent were black. However, these ministers were often only part-time clergy, and were often uneducated. Due to the sheer number of ministers, it was difficult for congregations to support them (100). In contrast, although 43 percent of Macon’s population in 1940 was African American, only 10 percent of Macon’s doctors and 10 percent of Macon’s dentists were African American (97). Add to that number a handful of of registered nurses and one nurse in private practice, and this meant that there was only one dentist for every 8,500 African Americans and only one physician for every 2,600 African Americans (98). The low number of black medical professionals in Macon is not surprising for a few reasons. First, there were only two accredited colleges for black doctors at the time, and both of them were expensive and far away (98). Second, the black doctors couldn’t practice in white hospitals, even on black patients. Third, the large majority of the black community could not afford professional medical care, so the community could not support medical professionals even if they were available (99).
Four other professions that black workers pursued in Macon were teaching, practicing law, social work, and mortuary work. Only 29.7 percent of Macon teachers were black, which was a wholly inadequate number to properly serve the African American community. In addition, the highest wage paid to an African American teacher at the time was lower than the lowest wage paid to a white teacher (101). Macon only had one black lawyer, as white law firms would not hire African Americans to practice (102-103). Opportunities for social work jobs for African Americans rose during the depression with Federal assistance, but those jobs began to decline after the Federal government pulled its assistance. Black morticians, however, made up a large portion of professional work (104). Black funeral homes outnumbered white funeral homes three to one; however, most did not stay open for very long. African American families were much less likely to be able to pay for a nice funeral, so the community could not support that number of morticians. Only two of the morticians in Macon were able to keep up steady enough business to make ends meet (103).
It would be incorrect to say that the small number of professional workers in the African American community in Macon reflected a small need for those kinds of services. On the contrary, Macon had a tremendous need for black teachers, doctors, and lawyers at the time. However, the community did not have the resources to support those kinds of services, so it was often in the best interest of the professional to seek employment elsewhere (Landrum 105).
Another important plot point in Youngblood is the idea of labor unions in the black community. One of the many factors working against black workers during the Great Depression is that they were poorly organized, in addition to holding little economic and political power. Typically, democratic systems work in the favor of those who are best organized, and those groups tend to reap the most benefits (Wolters xi). In 1930, there were no more than 50,000 black members of national unions, and half of that number were members of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (Wolters 172). During the same year, at least nineteen independent unions explicitly excluded black members in their constitutions, but many more excluded black members less explicitly. A few all black unions did exists, such as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the Sharecropper’s Union, and the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (Watkins 206). However, these were typically small, weak, and faced intimidation tactics that threatened the well being of those interested in joining. In Macon, for instance, the American Federation of Labor sent someone to organize a black workers’ union, but the representative was arrested on faulty charges (Landum 128-129). In the end, the lack of cooperation from the community of black workers was typically too great for black labor unions to be effective (Landum 129).
This futility of labor unions is reflected in Youngblood, as Robby struggles to convince black workers at the Oglethorpe Hotel that unionization will give them power. Almost as soon as he begins to recruit members in secret, Oscar Jefferson, a white man who works at the same hotel, warns him that their boss knows about his efforts, and that Robby needs to tread carefully (Killens 377). Soon after, his boss calls Robby to his office in order to ask him what he knows about a union racketeer coming to town. He warns Robby that “Them union racketeers is the worst thing in the world for a colored man to mess with, especially in Georgia, all that social equality and messing with white women” (393). However, instead of encouraging Robby like it is meant to, this warning just gives him more hope and leads him to push harder at his unionization efforts. By the end of the novel, it is unclear whether Robby’s union will work out. However, there is a sense of hope at the end of the novel, as the black community gathers together to mourn the loss of an important member of their community. Killens ends the novel with a passage that speaks of unity, if not unionization:
“And people coming over, strangers and friends, and shaking their hands, and hugging and kissing and giving them strength, and over in the west the sun going down, and the moon would come up and the moon would go down and tomorrow the sun would come up again” (475).
So although the economic future of the community is uncertain, what is clear is that the novel ends with a sense of hope and continuance, whatever the future may bring.
Works Cited
Killens, John Oliver. Youngblood. Athens: U of Georgia, 2000. Print.
Landrum, C. Logan. A Survey of Negro Life in Macon, GA. Thesis. Union Theological Seminary, 1942. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Manis, Andrew M. Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century. Macon, GA: Mercer UP, 2004. Print.
Watkins, T. H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Print.
We Too Built America: Recovering the American Heritage of Three Ethnic/Minority Groups in Middle Georgia Area. Macon, GA: n.p., 1984. Print.
Williams, Jasmine K. “The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.” New York Amsterdam News 30 May 2013: 28. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
Wolters, Raymond. Negroes and the Great Depression; the Problem of Economic Recovery. Westport, CT: Greenwood Pub., 1970. Print.