Struggle & Resistance Achievement & Excellence

May 1933

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), a cornerstone of the New Deal, paid subsidies to landowners to reduce crop production. White landowners used these payments to mechanize and evict Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers instead of sharing benefits as intended. Hundreds of thousands of Black farming families were displaced across the South between 1933 and 1940. The Southern Tenant Farmers Union, formed in 1934, documented widespread evictions. Black sharecroppers received a fraction of promised payments when they received any at all. The AAA was administered locally by all-white county committees.

Events

May 1933
New Deal's Agricultural Adjustment Act Evicts Black Sharecroppers
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), a cornerstone of the New Deal, paid subsidies to landowners to reduce crop production. White landowners used these payments to mechanize and evict Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers instead of sharing benefits as intended. Hundreds of thousands of Black farming families were displaced across the South between 1933 and 1940. The Southern Tenant Farmers Union, formed in 1934, documented widespread evictions. Black sharecroppers received a fraction of promised payments when they received any at all. The AAA was administered locally by all-white county committees.
May 18, 1933
Tennessee Valley Authority Employs Black Workers at Lower Wages
The TVA's model town of Norris, Tennessee was built entirely by white labor and barred to Black residents. Black TVA workers received lower wages than white workers and were excluded from skilled construction jobs. The agency's progressive image coexisted with explicit racial hierarchy enforced at every work site.