Absolutely agree with the above post, although the 1950s
did have at least a recognizable black middle class, and this in part helped spur the
effectiveness of economic boycotts during the Civil Rights
Movement.
In addition, Native Americans still largely lived
in abject poverty on reservations, ignored by the government and the population at
large. The best land and resources had been taken decades earlier, and the move towards
tribal gambling that has lately led to an economic revival in some areas was yet to take
place. Unemployment on many reservations hovered near 70 and 80
percent.
Farmers did better in the 1950s than in past
decades, but still struggled. Subsidies put in place in the 1930s helped, but large
farming operations started to put a squeeze on small family farms, a process that would
continue throughout the 1980s and 90s.
Women had little
protections from the law against pay and hiring discrimination, and were still socially
locked out of many professions where men found prosperity in the 1950s. It would take
decades more of struggle for them to achieve something like parity in the
workplace.
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