The Homestead Acts began more than one decade before the end of slavery. This alone should provide evidence of the limited benefit this act had for blacks in America. Passed in 1862, the Homestead Acts gave away 246 million acres of land. To qualify for Homestead land a person had to be a citizen of the United States and blacks were not given citizenship until 1866. Research shows that 99.73 percent of that land went to whites, including white immigrants. 1.5 million white families were given free land or the equivalent of a minimum of $500,000 per family.
Today 93 million whites still live on homestead land, which is at least 40 percent of the white population in America. That land has helped whites accumulate the wealth they have today.
The National Housing Act was a law passed by Congress and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. This law created the Federal Housing Administration or the FHA. The National Housing Act is probably the policy that has provided the greatest impact on individual wealth accumulation in modern America. The FHA was able to create a guaranteed home loan program whereby potential homebuyers could get bank loans guaranteed against default by the government. Less than 5 percent of all government guaranteed loans between1935 and 1968 went to blacks. Black creditworthiness was no excuse for banks because payment of the loans were guaranteed by the federal government.
The Social Security Act of 1935 created the
Social Security program, state unemployment insurance, and assistance to single women with children. TWhen President Roosevelt signed the law, approximately two thirds of the blacks in America were ineligible. So for years a majority of blacks were excluded from social security savings and could not get unemployment.
. Title 4 or IV of the social security act of 1935 called for grants in aid to be provided to each state as Aid To Dependent Children. Eventually the name of the program was changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children. This was welfare folks. Assistance for single moms with children without daddy at home. In 1935. Blacks were excluded. The program offered aid primarily to poor females who were caring for children without a husband. From the time of the Childrens Bureau until 1965 no one talked about how the welfare state was wrong and created the disintegration of the white family.The program was not denigrated as something creating dependence on government, it was seen as essential assistance needed to help women without husbands who had children.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 created the minimum wage and time and a half overtime pay for working over forty hours a week. Due to pressure from southern congressmen, industries would be excluded from the regulations where the majority of workers were black. Because of this, blacks were paid less than the minimum wage.
“I'm the beneficiary of the biggest affirmative action program in American history: A free education, a loan for a house. But black veterans didn't get it. We got made middle class by our government program.”-The Rev. Jim Wallis
On June 22, 1944, President Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill. This law provided benefits for veterans returning World War Two. This act included funds for college tuition, low-cost home loans, and unemployment insurance.
“In 1947, some 70,000 African American veterans were unable to obtain admission to crowded, under-resourced black colleges. The University of Pennsylvania—one of the least-discriminatory schools at the time—enrolled only 40 African American students in its 1946 student body of 9,000.” Southern universities? Forget about it. “
After World War II, blacks wanting to attend college in the South were restricted to about 100 public and private schools, few of which offered education beyond the baccalaureate and more than a quarter of which were junior colleges, with the highest degree below the B.A.”
All these things impact our lives right now. Whites would have NOTHING without this government assistance and while blacks paid taxes, blacks were excluded from most if not all of these programs.