My Great-Grandma In WWII

I talked to Great Grandma Mary about her life during WWII many, many times over the course of my life. She was 15 when the war started, and her father, uncle, and two brothers were sent to various places overseas, most of them being highly top secret. She always shivered when I asked about Pearl Harbor, and the news that began to fly. She was told by her dad right after breakfast, because he was due to ship out days later. Our entire family was petrified, because after the bombing there, the Japanese, to civilians, seemed like an unstoppable force. Most families around them had men leaving to fight, and many of the women were frustrated, because they had no idea where they were going, or when they'd be back.
After the men departed, life was rough, because of all the normal uncertainies of wartime life, along with many women going off to work in order to support their families. My Great-Great-Grandma was a nurse for the Red Cross. My Great-Grandma used to say all the time "After the depression, it was a strange feeling to be suddenly dropped into another World War...my father always spoke of how he was so proud to be a part of such a great country, that can band together so rapidly adter so long of being almost ripped apart."
She didn't remember much about the 20s, so I always felt kind bad, that so much of her early life was in the midst of depression and war.

The New Deal and Black Women

I couldn't call this blog "The New Deals Impact on Black Women" because it didn't really have any! The only jobs avaliable to them were 'pink-collar' jobs in the south, that were mostly dangerous postitions, and paid very little money. Sure, there were plenty of groups geared towards helping Americans get jobs, like the CCC, but they only helped young, white men. As if the lack of aid towards jobs wasn't enough, FDR refused to pass an anti-lynching law, making our social life just as hard, if not harder, than the working life for us. Not to be forgotten, however, are Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, Aubrey Williams, and John Flores Sr., who worked to gain blacks at least 10% of welfare payments, which was better than nothing. As an overall "impact" though, it was very slight, and could hardly be considered an impact at all.