 The social strata of the urban Afro-Guyanese community of the 1930s and 1940s included a mulatto or "coloured" elite, a black professional middle class, and, at the bottom, the black working class.Unemployment in the 1930s was high.When war broke out in 1939, many Afro-Guyanese joined the military, hoping to gain new job skills and escape poverty.