By Thaddaeus Elliot
The Stock Market Crash of 1929 created massive unemployment and a mortgage crisis that became the Great Depression. As banks failed, homes and farms were foreclosed upon and factories shut down. At the Depression’s peak in 1933, nearly 25% of the labor force—approximately 13 million workers—were unemployed. Those who remained employed saw their wages decrease. With both tenants and landlords in financial distress, evictions rose and housing became a critical issue for the nation.
Institutional failure in both the government and business sectors saw millions of low-income people in the United States organizing to provide mutual aid in their communities and to protest. Over 700 protest demonstrations occurred across the country in the early 1930s. Some of these were coordinated by formal Unemployed Councils organized by the American Communist and Socialist Parties, but many were unaffiliated ad hoc neighborhood efforts like the Unemployed Citizens League of Seattle (Unemployed Citizens League and Poverty Activism, University of Washington, https://tr.ee/CdiFUm). Many of the participants in the unemployed workers movement were engaged primarily because the groups did meet the immediate concrete needs of the unemployed: feeding their families, staying housed, and finding better stable employment, rather than an ideological commitment to leftist politics or an elevated class consciousness. They formed self-help cooperatives where they exchanged labor for food, clothing, and fuel. They demonstrated in front of public relief offices demanding more assistance for their hungry and unhoused neighbors. They marched on town and city halls, state capitals, and Washington, DC lobbying for relief and jobs programs.
The Unemployed Councils fought evictions through mass demonstrations. Once word of an eviction made it to the Council, Council members would rally members of the community to show up en masse and physically prevent the tenant and their belongings from being removed. If the tenant had already been put out, they would restore the tenant and their belongings to the home. These demonstrations drew hundreds to thousands of people for a single eviction. Often, the sheer number of demonstrators was enough to get landlords and law enforcement to abandon pursuing the eviction, but in other instances, like the August 3, 1931, demonstration in Chicago, things could take a violent and deadly turn. These direct actions did lead to policy change. In the aftermath of the Chicago riot, then Mayor Anton Cermak instituted an eviction moratorium in December 1931. These demonstrations were not contained to major cities like New York, Chicago, and Detroit, but also occurred in smaller towns and cities like Evansville, Indiana. Such demonstrations elevated housing as a national issue and laid the groundwork for the establishment of federal housing programs in the New Deal.
So, what is the lesson in this history? Throughout its history, the United States has experienced periods of economic, social, and political upheaval that gave rise to progressive social movements. These movements began at the grassroots level and involved directly impacted people applying pressure upwards to eventually create transformative policy change at the national level. Despite high risk and a perception of little political power, both employed and unemployed low-income people organized and grew in numbers across political, socioeconomic, and racial lines and saw success: they secured relief adjustments, prevented evictions, and met other material needs of thousands of unemployed workers across the country at a time of widespread and dire economic deprivations. The movement also created political pressure that led to the 1932 election that put Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House along with the coalition in Congress that passed the New Deal. What started as grassroots grievances and demands translated into national legislation: public works programs like the Works Progress Administration, unemployment insurance in the form of Social Security, and the establishment of a federal housing agency and public housing were established.
In this issue of Tenant Talk, we feature advocates who are currently going through adversity, whether in their community or on a larger scale. The only way to go is forward, and the advocates featured in this issue will demonstrate how important it is to grow your community in times of upheaval.