14:3

• Life on the Home Front– Businesses hire minorities and women – “Rosie the Riveter”

14:3

• African-Americans– Not hired by defense contractors – Demand changes– Roosevelt issues Executive Order 8802 (June, 1941)

• First civil rights agency created by federal government since Reconstruction (1870s)• Forbids discrimination in defense work

14:3

• Bracero Program– bracero = “worker”– Government hires 200,000 Mexican workers• Harvest fruit and vegetables

14:3

• A Nation on the Move– Wartime economy creates millions of jobs– Many people move to south • Creation of the “Sunbelt”

14:3

• The Housing Crisis– War industries cities lack housing– Roosevelt creates National Housing Agency (NHA)• Provides prefabricated houses

14:3

• Great Migration starts up again– Massive movement of African-Americans north

• Riots in some northern cities – Detroit, June 20, 1943• Belle Isle• 25 African-Americans killed• 9 whites killed

14:3

• The Zoot Suit Riots– Southern California – Racism against Mexican-Americans• 2,500 soldiers and sailors attack Mexican-Americans

14:3

• Japanese-American Relocation – Many Americans on west coast turn against

Japanese immigrants – Roosevelt allows military to designate parts of the

country a “military zone”– People with Japanese ancestry forced into

internment camps

14:3

• Legal Action Against Internment – Korematsu v United States (Dec 1944)– Supreme Court ruled internment was

constitutional • Not based on race, but military urgency

– Ex Parte Endo• Supreme Court ruled Americans cannot be held against

their will• End of internment camps

14:3

• Cost of the War– $300 billion– more money than the government spent in total

between 1787 to 1940– Office of Price Administration (OPA)• “rationing”

– Limiting use of goods and materials