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The African-American Experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps

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The title of this book is misleading in that it only covers the experience of blacks in the CCC in California. Sadly much regarding African American men in the CCC still needs to be researched. The 1933 law establishing the CCC by Congress forbid discrimination. However the US during the Great Depression was still a very segregated society. The net result was blacks, after 1936, were almost always limited to membership in "colored" CCC companies. And frequently they were given the most undesireable jobs in states such as Arizona. And sadly many of the studies of the CCC at the state level ignore blacks in the CCC. An exception to this trend is Harley E. Jolley's balanced treatment in "That Magnificent Army of Youth and Peace..." dealing with the CCC in North Carolina. The involvement of blacks in the CCC was often very diverse. For example from 1933 to 1936 in Arizona while many CCC companies had a few blacks these men often were given the mostly lowly jobs and housed in their own tents or barracks separate from whites. Even some of the group photos of CCC companies had the blacks in a separate group from the whites. In my detailed study of the CCC in Grand Canyon to be published in September ("Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys: The Civilian Conservation Corps at the Grand Canyon, 1933-1942") the evidence is clear that frequently blacks were working along side whites doing the same forestry and trail building tasks. The evidence is also clear that in 1933 African American officers and non-coms from Fort Huachuca, Arizona were supervising white CCC enrollees. Regrettably by 1936, via rules from CCC headquarters in Washington, Grand Canyon CCC companies no longer had black enrollees.