Complex sentence: He attended Detroit City College (Wayne State University), and left in 1936 one credit short of finishing his degree during the Great Depression and went to work for the Federal Writers' Project, where he researched black history and folk culture.
Split into simpler sentences: He attended Detroit City College (Wayne State University), and left in 1936 during the Great Depression, one credit short of finishing his degree. He went to work for the Federal Writers' Project, where he researched black history and folk culture.