Summary

During the 1920s, African Americans faced significant barriers that largely excluded them from the economic prosperity of the decade. Deep-rooted racism led to widespread discrimination in all areas of life, from employment to housing.

Many were stuck in low-paying jobs, especially in the South, where Black farm workers lost their jobs as agriculture didn’t benefit from the economic boom. In northern cities, African Americans were often confined to menial work and lived in overcrowded, under-resourced neighbourhoods like Harlem.

Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in the South, denying African Americans equal access to education and healthcare. Violence and intimidation, particularly from the Ku Klux Klan, further oppressed Black communities, making it difficult for them to improve their situation.

Though some progress was made – such as the rise of the Harlem Renaissance; the fame of some Black individuals; the continued work of the NAACP; and the emergence of a small Black middle class in the north – these developments were mostly cultural and societal, not economic. The majority of African Americans remained excluded from the Boom of the 1920s, still suffering from severe discrimination and inequality.

To what extent did African Americans share in the Boom of the 1920s?

A number of barriers almost wholly prevented African Americans from sharing in the economic prosperity of the 1920s.

One of the greatest barriers faced by African Americans during the 1920s was that most white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) believed they were inherently better than other races, an idea supported by so-called 'eugenicist' scientists of the time. This deep-rooted racism permeated every aspect of society, leading to routine abuse, prejudice and discrimination … supported by the law; for example, the 1926 Supreme Court decision in Corrigan v. Buckley upheld racial covenants in housing, ensuring that neighbourhoods remained segregated. Additionally, many labour unions, such as the American Federation of Labor, barred non-white workers from joining, severely limiting African Americans' opportunities for negotiating better wages and working conditions. As a result, African Americans were consistently denied equal opportunities in employment, education, and civic participation, severely limiting their ability to share in the economic prosperity of the decade.

Economic marginalization was another barrier for many African Americans. In the South, Black Americans worked as sharecroppers and cotton pickers and, since agriculture did not share in the 1920s Boom, neither did they – one million Black farm workers actually lost their jobs during the 1920s, throwing their families into poverty. Even in the northern cities, Black Americans were routinely restricted to low-paying, menial jobs such as janitors, cooks, porters and boot-boys. This economic discrimination meant that, despite the Boom, the majority of African Americans were excluded from its benefits.

Segregation further exacerbated the situation of African Americans in the 1920s. Jim Crow laws in the southern states enforced strict separation, denying African Americans access to equal education, healthcare, or public services. Even in northern cities like New York, black communities such as Harlem were severely overcrowded and under-resourced, with only one hospital bed available for every 1,941 black people compared to one for every 139 white people, and a life expectancy of just 47 years for Blacks compared to 59 for whites in 1929. This systemic inequality greatly hindered African Americans from improving their social or economic standing despite the prosperous of the time.

Violence and intimidation were another barrier for African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan, with five million members by 1925, actively sought to maintain white supremacy through terror. Lynchings were still common, while authorities turned a blind eye. Even in the North, where segregation was less legally enforced, African Americans often faced violent racism, such as in 1919, when white Americans in Chicago rampaged through Black neighbourhoods after a drowning black man clinging to a log had drifted into a whites-only swimming area. Such pervading oppression created an environment of fear where African Americans found it nearly impossible to advance economically or socially, thus remaining largely excluded from the nation's prosperity.

It is sometimes argued that that the 1920s showed signs of improvement:

Approximately one and a half million African Americans (the ‘Great Migration’) moved from the South to northern cities in search of better opportunities; some were able to get good jobs and access higher education, and a small black middle class began to emerge. Meanwhile, the ‘Harlem Renaissance’, centred in New York's Harlem neighbourhood, and focussed on jazz music, fashion and dance, emerged as a beacon of artistic and intellectual achievement. Prominent African American figures like Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson and Josephine Baker, also, achieved fame and success, serving as role models and inspiration for their communities. Intellectuals like Alain Locke and the ‘black is beautiful’ movement advocated for a new black identity that would confound negative stereotypes. And activism and organized efforts for civil rights gained some momentum during this decade as well, as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) campaigned in the courts for equality.

These developments, however – although they may have laid the groundwork for future advancements and fostered a will to overcome the barriers facing African Americans – were the seeds of challenge, not the seeds of prosperity: they were mainly societal and cultural, rather than economic, affected only a small proportion of the African American population, and did little (?nothing) to change the overwhelming economic discrimination and social and legal inequalities which most Black Africans suffered in the 1920s.