Though celebrated as a model program of the New Deal, the Civilian Conservation Corps was not without problems, particularly for people of color. Simply enrolling in the CCC was more difficult for people of color because of unofficial quotas in place for much of the duration of the program. Once in the CCC, minorities experienced resistance to the placement of their companies near white communities and little opportunity to acquire positions of leadership.
The Act of March 31, 1933 (Unemployment Relief Act) included the clause: “That in employing citizens for the purposes of this Act, no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, or creed.” However, the nine-year span of the CCC’s existence demonstrated this intended protection did not lead to equality. From its inception, the CCC failed at the selection of black applicants on an equal basis with white applicants. This was most problematic in the American South where enrollment rates were far from proportionate to state populations. In Mississippi, where the state population was more than 50 percent black, the CCC had black enrollment rates as low as 1.7 percent. This despite black unemployment rates that were double the national average and more than two million African American persons on federal relief. At this time, the US population was approximately 10 percent African American. By contrast, 6 percent of enrollees were African American over the life of the program.
All CCC camps in Arkansas, like the remainder of the South, maintained segregation. Outside the South, segregation was predominant, but blacks were attached to some white companies into August 1934. However, a ruling by the CCC program director, Robert Fechner, in September 1934 instituted strict segregation in the camps. This action cemented the ongoing practice of a quota system within the CCC. Subsequently, African Americans were only selected for CCC positions as vacancies occurred in African American camps.
An additional problem was the resistance of local communities to the establishment of black camps in their vicinity. In at least one case, an Arkansas community rejected the opportunity for a camp, only to have a majority black community request and obtain the camp. However, if a location could not be found for a black company, the state lost one of its 200-man camps.
Stipulations were placed on black enrollment to include a prohibition on transportation outside one’s own state. Additionally, camp locations for black companies were to be selected by the state’s governor rather than any outside administrator. While these structural forces worked to limit the movement and participation of African Americans in the CCC, there was pressure from some local communities, and groups such as the NAACP to expand African American participation. These efforts did not overturn disproportionate enrollment practices and other discriminatory policies beyond enrollment, such as the policy that blacks would not have any position of supervision beyond educational advisor. President Roosevelt’s vague 1936 recommendation of extending supervisory roles to blacks “wherever possible” was easy for local administrators to dismiss.
In the end, African American citizens did not receive representative relief from the agency to which they were explicitly entitled in its enabling legislation. In 1939, the Arkansas District selected only 20 black enrollees out of a total selection quota of 934. While the national director of the agency actively worked against the black constituency through policy decisions that prohibited integration and restricted interstate movement, he was reflecting prevailing white power and opinion. This manifested from the local scale in the resistance to black camps and unrepresentative enrollment to the national in President Roosevelt’s acquiescence to racist policy.
About the Author:
Dr. Jess Porter is Chair of the UA Little Rock History Department. A cultural geographer by training, Jess coordinated the UA Little Rock Geography program upon his arrival from Oklahoma State University in 2009.