Working Hard To Survive

Working Hard To Survive. CCC Creates Jobs for America's Unemployed. , Have you ever had difficulty finding a job? During the Great Depression of the 1930s, 15 million Americans, a quarter of the nation's workforce, were unemployed. Many people lived in poverty. African-American unemployment rates were two to three times higher than that of others. In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to create jobs and help preserve the nation's public lands., This was once the site of CCC Camp NP-2-MD where hundreds of young African-American men lived while restoring the first 22 miles of the abandoned Chesapeake and Ohio Canal for recreational use. The work of repairing the towpaths, locks, and lockhouses was difficult, requiring the use of picks, shovels, and axes., In all, the CCC provided jobs to 3 million young, unemployed men. Of that number, 300,000, or 10 percent, were African Americans. Thousands of men in need waited with the hope of getting a CCC work assignment.,

"…when Mr. Roosevelt entered the White House, things began to change, not only for the white man, but for the Negro as well." , Claiborne Pina CCC Enrollee , Camp NP-2, Barrack 4, March 1939

, [Sidebar:] , Imagine, in front of you, the sights and sounds of a bustling camp of up to 200 young men as it would have have been between 1938 and 1942., Half a mile downstream was CCC Camp NP-1 MD. These were the only two African-American camps in Maryland. None of the camp buildings remain today., [Captions:] , CCC enrollees repair a washed-out canal towpath near here in the late 1930s. Without their efforts, the canal towpath and national park might not exit today., The men enrolled in the program earned $30 a month and had to send most of it home., Unidentified CCC enrollee