In Search of a Dream: African-Americans in the United States Economy, 1930 – 1970s

Abstract

Historical relationship between the races in the United States has been characterised by racial hostility and mutual recrimination. The African-Americans have been subjected to oppression, victimization, humiliation, and unequal opportunity by the White Supremacists. The paper examines the scope of black experience in the economy of White America in search of the American dream from 1930 to 1970s. As one of the major hyphenate groups in America, the African Americans were victims of some inherent paradoxes in the American constitution, judiciary, economy and politics, hence they suffered sustained segregation, discrimination, inequality and injustice. After several failed attempts, they cast aside the scheme of integration and established a consciousness of themselves as a unique group, hence the emergence of their co-operative societies, pressure groups and black nationalism as the channels through which they appropriated their share of American dream in the American economy. The Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s afforded them the opportunity to realize their dream gradually regardless of the conflicting economic views of their leaders.

Lagos Historical Review Vol. 8 2008: pp. 20-32