By Amy McCullough
When you think of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, you probably picture brawny young men cutting trails and hauling boulders to build dams, footbridges, and cabins. Perhaps you envision black-and-white photos depicting teamwork among the picturesque landscapes of places like Yosemite National Park. You may recall that the CCC was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal strategies for helping the country cope with the Great Depression. What might not be present in your mental image is a less favorable aspect of the CCC’s execution: segregation.
Upon its founding in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps was intended to operate without discrimination. The federal relief program, which offered work and wages to 3 million otherwise unemployed Americans, had equality language written into its charter. The legislation establishing the program included this language, as drafted by Illinois Representative Oscar DePriest, the only Black member of Congress at the time: “That in employing citizens for the purpose of this Act, no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, and creed.”
But reality didn’t transpire as DePriest envisioned. Black CCC workers were subject to demeaning treatment, denied advancement, and ultimately segregated into separate camps. While this isn’t surprising in a country that’s still grappling with systemic racism and battling hate daily, it’s a reality that’s deserves recognition—as do the efforts of Black laborers who shaped many of our most beloved public parks.
As TPL National Director of Black History and Culture Dr. Jocelyn Imani puts it, “Public lands as they exist today wouldn’t be as they are without Black labor. We need to acknowledge that.” The incredible strides of the CCC were made by laborers of all kinds, including Black and Indigenous Americans, the latter often serving on reservations.
The program’s aims were virtuous: improve park infrastructure, plant trees, build recreational facilities and lodgings, and generally improve public lands. From its creation until the CCC dissolved in 1942, these goals were achieved. Even as early as 1935, the National Park Service estimated that the CCC “had advanced forestry and park development by as much as two decades.”
In exchange for this backbreaking work, corpsmen were provided with a steady source of income, housing, meals, and access to education from elementary to college level. (The PBS documentary series American Experience estimates that over 40,000 illiterate men, including African Americans, were taught to read and write.) The pay was $1 per day, which is roughly equivalent to $24 per day now. Today, the CCC’s stamp is visible across the country, very likely in a park near you.
At Zion National Park in Utah, the CCC stabilized the Angels Landing Trail against erosion and installed water management infrastructure along the Virgin River. In Ohio, they removed hundreds of chestnut trees killed by a fungal disease, then used the wood to build the Happy Days Lodge (and other structures) at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Landmarks along the Appalachian Trail were built by CCC workers, and they left their mark on Saguaro, Yosemite, and Haleakalā National Parks in Arizona, California, and Hawai‘i, respectively—all places where Trust for Public Land has protected land, concurrently preserving the CCC’s legacy. (Their work can be seen at lesser-known TPL projects, as well: check out enduring trails and rustic lodgings at Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas or at Camp Waskowitz in Washington State. Indeed, the first time you see something built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, you recognize it as special.
Despite making great strides for America’s public lands, the CCC’s treatment of Black corps members stands as one of the program’s greatest failings. To start, enrollment was capped at 10 percent for Black men seeking admittance into the CCC. This was meant to mirror the Black population in the U.S. at the time, but as is often the case, national hardships hit Black communities disproportionately harder than white communities. The percentage of Black Americans eligible for—and in need of—relief during the Depression, was far greater than 10 percent of the population. In fact, African Americans experienced an unemployment rate two to three times that of white Americans.