AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Agency)

• What does the AAA stand for?


  Agricultural Adjustment Administration
• When was the AAA formed?

  May 1933
• What was seen as the greatest issue in farming by the AAA?

  Overproduction
• What did the AAA invite farmers to do?

  Voluntarily reduce production in exchange for government subsidies
• What products were farmers paid to reduce?

  Corn, cotton, milk, pigs, rice, tobacco and wine
• Who ran the AAA?

  It was run by county committees and dominated by powerful landlords
• Why did AAA negatively effect black Americans?

  Landowners were offered money if they removed land from production and so evicted sharecroppers
• How many black Americans worked on land in the South?

  800,000 in 1933
• What percentage of black Americans owned their land?

  13% with the rest tenants or sharecroppers
• How many black sharecroppers were evicted?

  200,000 black sharecroppers between 1933 and 1940
• What happened to federal compensation?

  Until 1936, federal compensation meant to be given to evicted sharecroppers was distributed by white landowners, who didn't pass it on to the evicted
• How was federal compensation adjusted in 1936?

  Cheques were made out to black workers individually
• How did the AAA adjustments in 1936 still restrict black Americans?

  Landowners threatened workers until they signed over the cheque
• How did AAA money restrict black American workers?

  Planters used AAA money to buy machinery which replaced black farm workers
• Which group resisted the AAA?

  The Communist led Alabama Sharecroppers Union (ASU)
• When was the ASU set up?

  1931
• How many members did the ASU have?

  8000 members by 1934 to resist displacement
• What did state officials do to support landowners?

  They condoned the use of violence against them by landowners, which Roosevelt did nothing about