1929: The Great Depression

The Great Depression began in 1929, and the resulting financial crash caused the American economy to crumble. As with all economic downturns, those closest to subsistence living suffer the most, leaving African Americans disproportionately effected. Feagin (2014) found that “By 1932, half of [B]lack workers in cities were unemployed. Extreme hunger or starvation was often their lot” (p. 58). In Baltimore, it was much the same: “Blacks suffered from devastatingly high rates of poverty, crime, and disease; low life expectancy; and high rates of infant mortality and illegitimacy… [and] relatively few could afford to own homes” (Skotnes, 2013, p. 31; Greenberg 2009). By cutting African Americans off from the economy, even a depressed and struggling one, whites created the fulfillment of their eugenics arguments that Black people were lazy, sickly, and immoral.

As Black people faced the devastation of the Depression, a national movement, the “Buy Where You Can Work” movement began to attract local supporters. A man known in African American circles as the Prophet Kiowa Costonie (also known as “the new Messiah”) arrived in Baltimore in 1933 and began to generate support to resist anti-Black practices. As historian Skotnes (1994) noted

Indeed, within a few months of his first appearance in Baltimore, Costonie initiated a racial advancement campaign to force white-owned stores in the African-American community to hire African-American workers. Between September 1933 and June 1934, this campaign, the “Buy Where You Can Work Movement,” mobilized large sections of Baltimore's Black community to direct action for the first time. (p. 735)

“Buy Where You Can Work” campaigns occurred in over 35 cities across the United States. As they gained attention, they created a wider movement that brought together Black activists from many different organizations. In many ways, the “Buy Where You Can Work” campaign created the momentum and social organizations that later came to fruition during the 1950s and 1960s in the Civil Rights movement (Skotnes, 1994, p. 736). Baltimore remained a critical city in the midst of this building campaign.

1900-1999: A New DivideStephanie Brizee