African American Poverty In America

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African American Poverty The elimination of Slavery during the Civil War brought on greater job opportunities and avenues for African American participation, it also affected the blacks in a significantly negative way. Primarily dragging them into poverty. Pre-War, approximately 75 percent of African Americans lived in the South as well as two-thirds of them in rural areas. Between 1940 and 1960, many of the African Americans migrated towards Los Angeles to search for industrial job opportunities open for blacks. Although these opportunities seemed enticing, it didn’t take long for blacks to realize that they were being paid less because of their race. Many blacks had no choice but to sharecrop on white farms, which is a relatively similar…show more content…
In the book Poverty In America, William Wilson argues that the 2 main reasons for economic trouble is deindustrialization and class segregation among African Americans. African Americans have gone through the most deindustrialization for the reason that they are highly populated in the regions that have been hit the hardest such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. For those African Americans that lack the college education, the loss of their factory job seriously hurts their means for finding future employment. When blacks lose jobs, as they do during recessions, the black poverty rate increases. The opposite is also true. When there is sturdy job growth in the country, the black poverty rate still declines. African Americans are set at a disadvantage when having to find a job because they are competing with whites. Part of the reason that African Americans are not given the same opportunity as whites is because of the dissimilarity in education between the two races. Massey and Denton mentioned in reading that high levels of segregation contribute to unequal schooling, therefore African American children are more likely to attend a school that is mediocre to other schools with fewer recourses for learning. These levels of segregation majorly affect the economic opportunities of African…show more content…
However, poverty is a major crisis among all of them. The traditional obstacles that the blacks have overcome are plentiful but the state of mind that has been set upon the race is degrading the optimism to move forward. The first step to helping the status of poverty in the African Americans is to have a stronger commitment to creating jobs with good wages. If there are open opportunities for blacks to get jobs with good wages, it will be easier for them to pick themselves up out of poverty and move forward. Another major issue that will help is for the black children. Children who grow up in an impoverished home or in a poor neighborhood are more likely to be poor as adults. If we want to reduce poverty in the long run, we have to be committed to reducing poverty right
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