The Great Depression brought mass suffering to all regions of the country. National income dropped by 50 percent and unemployment rose to an estimated 25 percent of the total labor force. At the same time, twenty million Americans turned to public and private relief agencies for assistance. As the "Last Hired and the First Fired," African Americans entered the Depression long before the stock market crash in 1929, and they stayed there longer than other Americans. By 1933, African Americans found it all but impossible to find jobs of any kind in agriculture or industry.
