Stfu and Black Sharecroppers | The Black Worker From the Founding of the CIO to the AFL Merger, 1936–1955—Volume VII | Temple University Press and North Broad Press

STFU AND BLACK SHARECROPPERS

1. SOUTHERN SHARE-CROPPER

By Marcus B. Christian

He turns and tosses on his bed of moss;

The moon wheels high into the Southern sky;

He cannot sleep—production, gain, and loss

Harass him, while a question and a cry

Stir through the dim recesses of his soul—

This slave to one-fourth, one-third, and one-half;

His sow will litter soon; his mare will foal;

His woman is with child; his cow, with calf.

Earth screams at him—beats clenched, insistent hands

Upon his brains—his labor and his health

He gives unceasingly to her demands;

She yields to him, but others grow in wealth.

What nailed his soul upon the wrack of things—

That he must slave, while idlers live like kings?

Opportunity, 15 (July, 1937):217.

2. FORMATION OF THE SOUTHERN TENANT FARMERS’ UNION

By Howard Kester

Because of the furor which has been raised in Arkansas and Washington over the alleged “meddling of socialists and communists,” it is well to point out at the beginning that the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union was an indigenous movement, springing up out of the very soil which bore the sharecroppers’ bitter grievances. It should be said, furthermore, that the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union is not, nor ever has been, an adjunct or organ of either the Socialist Party or the Communist Party. That individual members of these parties have been prominent in the work of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union we do not deny, but to the contrary we affirm and are proud of their achievements. Probably the reason that they were asked to assist the sharecroppers in the formation of the union was due to the fact that experienced working-class leaders were the only ones who were not on their backs, and who had the intelligence, love of human justice and courage to help them.

Just south of the little town of Tyronza, in Poinsett County, Arkansas, the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union had its beginning. In the early part of July, 1934, twenty-seven white and black men, clad in overalls, gathered in a rickety and dingy little schoolhouse called Sunnyside. The schoolhouse was old and it had witnessed many strange sights but none so strange as the one being enacted between its four leaning walls that hot summer night. Dimly lighted kerosene lamps cast strange shadows upon the faces of the men as they talked. On rough-hewn benches sat white and colored men discussing their common problems in a spirit of mutual regard and understanding.

Little time was lost in agreeing that they should form some sort of union for their mutual protection. Their main problem was to secure for themselves and their fellow-sharecroppers their share of the benefits granted under the AAA contracts. The contracts entered into between the landlords and the Secretary of Agriculture gave the tenant farmers very little and the sharecropper next to nothing but something, and they considered it worth struggling for anyway. Wholesale violations of the contracts by the planters were occurring daily. Tenants were not getting their “parity payments”; they were being made to sign papers making the landlords trustees of the bale tags; landlords were turning to day labor at starvation wages; the AAA was making things worse. They knew they could not get anything trying to dicker with the landlord individually: he would just “kick them off the place.” Most of them had never been in a union and they scarcely knew how to go about organizing one. Anyway, they had to have one and they were sure that they could find someone who would know how and who would help them.

The meeting had not been in progress long when the inevitable question, which always rises when Negro and white men come together to consider joint action, arose. “Are we going to have two unions,” someone asked, “one for the whites and one for the colored?” It had been many a day since the ancient walls of the schoolhouse had heard such silence. The men had thought about this before they came together, but now they had to face it and it was not an easy question to answer. A lot depended on their answer, certainly the future of their organization and maybe the future of a whole people. It was time for deep silence and exhaustive thinking. Finally the men began to speak. One man believed that since the churches divided the races that maybe the union should do likewise. He wasn’t sure though, for he had noticed that the churches hadn’t done very much to help the sharecroppers and that some of the church members were the cause of their suffering. Another observed that it would be dangerous for the white and colored people to mix together in their union and he was sure that the planters wouldn’t stand for it. An old man with cotton-white hair overhanging an ebony face rose to his feet. He had been in unions before, he said. In his seventy years of struggle the Negro had built many unions only to have them broken up by the planters and the law. He had been a member of a black man’s union at Elaine, Arkansas. He had seen the union with its membership wiped out in the bloody Elaine Massacre in 1919. “We colored people can’t organize without you,” he said, “and you white folks can’t organize without us.” Continuing he said, “Aren’t we all brothers and ain’t God the Father of us all? We live under the same sun, eat the same food, wear the same kind of clothing, work on the same land, raise the same crop for the same landlord who oppresses and cheats us both. For a long time now the white folks and the colored folks have been fighting each other and both of us has been getting whipped all the time. We don’t have nothing against one another but we got plenty against the landlord. The same chain that holds my people holds your people too. If we’re chained together on the outside we ought to stay chained together in the union. It won’t do no good for us to divide because there’s where the trouble has been all the time. The landlord is always betwixt us, beatin’ us and starvin’ us and makin’ us fight each other. There ain’t but one way for us to get him where he can’t help himself and that’s for us to get together and stay together.” The old man sat down. The men decided that the union would welcome Negro and white sharecroppers, tenant farmers and day laborers alike into its fold.

When this question had been cared for the men turned toward the formation of their new organization. A white sharecropper of great ability, Alvin Nunally, was elected chairman. A Negro minister, C. H. Smith, was chosen vice-chairman. An Englishman with a ready hand for keeping minutes and writing letters was chosen secretary. A holiness preacher was elected chaplain. Some of the men had belonged to lodges and they wanted to introduce all of the secret rigamarole of the fraternal societies into the union. Some of them had formerly ridden with the Ku Klux Klan and they thought it would be a good idea for the union to operate in secret and for the sharecroppers to ride the roads at night punishing dishonest landlords and oppressive managers and riding bosses. One of the men had formerly been a member of the Farmers’ Educational and Co-operative Union and advanced the idea that it would be best to have the union made a legal organization and for it to operate in the open. The men agreed that this was the best policy and they turned their minds toward getting it accomplished.

They did not know exactly how to go about having the union made legal. They could not expect any aid from any of the planter-retained lawyers and they did not have any money for fees anyway. Someone suggested that H. L. Mitchell and Clay East might help them. Mitchell was the proprietor of a small dry-cleaning establishment in Tyronza and, next door to him, Clay East ran a filling station. The two men were known throughout the countryside as “square-shooters” who always gave the underdog the benefit of the doubt, and who were, to the amusement of most people, always discussing strange ideas about labor, politics, economics and most everything else. Mitchell had once been a sharecropper himself and all of his people were farmers. He knew something about almost everything. He was known generally as a Socialist but to the landlords and planters as a “Red.” Some months before Mitchell had brought Norman Thomas down to Tyronza to speak to an overflow audience at the schoolhouse. After Thomas had visited some of the plantations, he told the audience gathered in the schoolhouse what he had seen. The planters were there en masse and so were the sharecroppers. The planters writhed in their seats and the mouths of the sharecroppers stood agape as Thomas denounced the system of semi-slavery under which they all lived. The planters did not forget Mitchell for this nor did the sharecroppers.

A committee from the sharecroppers called on Mitchell and East. The two men told them that while they did not know much about running a union they would be glad to help all they could. Mitchell subsequently became the secretary of the union and East its president. Mitchell wrote letters to people all over the country asking for help and advice. J. R. Butler, an ex-school teacher, sawmill hand, hill farmer, or as he prefers to be known, “just an Arkansas Hill Billy,” came down to write the first constitution and to help spread the organization among the cottonfield workers. Ward H. Rodgers, a young Methodist minister with an eye to social justice, who had been preaching in the Ozark Mountains, decided to come down and preach to the sharecroppers and planters. He gave up his churches and soon became Mitchell’s right-hand man.

Each night would witness Mitchell’s and East’s battered old automobiles loaded down with sharecroppers going to some outlying church or schoolhouse to organize a local. Enthusiasm among the sharecroppers ran high and they talked “union” with the abandon of a backwoods’ revivalist. New locals sprang up everywhere the organizers went. The people were hungry for the “New Gospel of Unionism.”

When the union was first formed the idea of organizing sharecroppers rather amused the planters. They generally poked fun at the boys who were scouring over the country in all kinds of weather organizing new locals. One man was heard to say, “Oh, well, let them try to organize the sharecroppers; they won’t succeed for the sharecroppers are too lazy and shiftless to ever amount to anything worthwhile.” But as the union continued to grow and the planters saw the Negro and white people getting together they were not quite so amused as formerly. When a car-load of white and colored sharecroppers would start off together to a union meeting someone would say, “The Socialists and the Republicans (meaning the Negroes) have joined hands.” It has been rumored that Mitchell and East had “political ambitions,” and that they were going to run for office in the forthcoming elections. The politicians and planters could not quite understand though why men who had “political ambitions” would bother with Negroes who had been disenfranchised and could not vote, and poor white sharecroppers who had not been disenfranchised but were too poor to pay the poll tax. Gradually the planters got the right idea. These men were not even mildly interested in the kind of politics for which Joe Robinson and Hattie Caraway had made Arkansas famous; they were interested in organizing the sharecroppers to abolish the planters’ organized system of semi-slavery.

On July 26, 1934, the organization was incorporated under the laws of the state of Arkansas as the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union. The papers were taken out in White County and a certificate of incorporation received. The movement rapidly became a sort of sharecroppers’ crusade and every day new applications for membership in the union were received. Men came from all over the countryside asking for organizers’ papers. The union was definitely on the move. . . .

During the middle of March Mr. Norman Thomas visited Arkansas. After a long and fruitless interview with the governor, J. Marion Futrell, Thomas began a tour of the cotton country in which the union had been most active. Thousands of sharecroppers turned out to see the man about whom they had heard so much. A union bulletin issued at the close of the tour tells the story in a graphic manner. It subsequently appeared in scores of papers throughout the country. “Norman Thomas spoke to thousands of sharecroppers, some of whom walked seventy miles to hear him. He saw conditions as they are, stark starvation stalking the most fertile land in all America; a land which is potentially the richest on earth now holding the poorest paid and most exploited workers in the world. While driving over the plantation roads visiting the people he witnessed one of the thousands of evictions that have recently occurred. He saw a white sharecropper’s family, household goods and all, dumped upon the roadside. Upon inquiry it developed that the reason for the eviction of this family was that the father was a union member and that he and his wife had attempted to bring to justice a plantation rider who had violated their fourteen-year old daughter. After drugging and kidnapping the child, this prototype of the old-time slave driver raped her and after two weeks returned her to her father’s home. Upon discovering what had happened to their daughter the husband and wife sought to have the fiend arrested. Instead of arresting the rapist, officials arrested the father on a trumped up charge of ‘stealing two eggs.’ After being released from jail, the father, who was a staunch union member, was brutally beaten. The riding boss, a relative of the plantation owner, still holds his job while the unfortunate family is thrown upon the roadside.

“Although the planting season was getting under way, this man and his family were thrown upon the roadside to starve. Without home, job or work of any sort the mother showed to Mr. Thomas the ‘relief which her husband had just received from the relief authorities at Harrisburg. The food which was to last them—a family of seven—for thirty days consisted of the following items: 8 cans of evaporated milk, 5 tins of processed beef, 1 twenty-four pound sack of flour, 1 twenty-four pound sack of meal, and three pounds of salt pork.”

This story is related here because it represents a type of violence inherent in the plantation system of the South and, secondly, because it represents a type of violence used again and again by the planters, their retainers, relief officials and others against those who are active in the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union.

The Union Bulletin closes by relating the now famous “Birdsong incident” which took place on the final day of Thomas’ tour of the country. “As Mr. Thomas’ party approached the little town of Birdsong, where he had been invited to speak by the officials of the church, it was noted that many new shiny automobiles were parked on the roadside. As some five hundred workers began to assemble in orderly fashion, thirty or forty armed and drunken planters led by a man who later turned out to be the sheriff of Mississippi County, forced their way to the front of the Negro church. As Howard Kester began with the phrase, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ a chorus of voices broke out, ‘There ain’t no ladies in the audience and there ain’t no gentlemen on the platform.’ The gunmen surrounded the speakers and violently jerked Kester from the platform. Mr. Thomas, holding a copy of the Constitution of Arkansas in his hands, called attention to the excellent Bill of Rights contained in the document and asked by whose authority he was being prevented from holding a meeting and if his meeting was not legal. They admitted that his meeting was ‘legal all right’ but ‘There ain’t goin’ to be no speakin’ here. We are citizens of this county and we run it to suit ourselves. We don’t need no Gawd-damn Yankee Bastard to tell us what to do with our niggers and we want you to know that this is the best Gawd-damn county on earth.’ In spite of their guns, which were carelessly brandished about over the speakers, Mr. Thomas got in a few words before he was struck at from behind and finally jerked from the platform. Jack Herling, secretary of the Strikers’ Emergency Relief Committee, was severely knocked on the head by a riding boss. The sheriff, sensing the desire to the mob to ‘start something,’ came forward and advised Mr. Thomas to leave at once as he could not give protection to him or to the innocent men, women and children who had gathered to hear him speak. He told Mr. Thomas if he didn’t go there would be trouble and ‘somebody might get hurt.’ Mr. Thomas and his party were thrown into their waiting automobile and warned never to return. Several carloads of planters followed the car to the county line.”

An Associated Press correspondent from Little Rock arrived on the scene just as the meeting was being broken up. Not knowing exactly what was happening he met some of the men who followed Thomas’ car from the churchyard. “My name is—- from the Associated Press,” he said offering a friendly hand.

“We don’t give a damn what your name is or who you are. Get the hell out of here and don’t you write a line.”

The whole story as everyone knows was practically scuttled by the Associated Press from its Memphis office. Freedom of the press is not always wanted by the press—particularly in Arkansas. . . .

Shortly after Norman Thomas returned to New York he spoke over a coast-to-coast hook-up of the NBC. He opened his address with these words: “There is a reign of terror in the cotton country of eastern Arkansas. It will end either in the establishment of complete and slavish submission of the vilest exploitation in America or in bloodshed, or in both. . . . The plantation system involves the most stark serfdom and exploitation that is left in the Western world.”

Howard Kester, Revolt Among the Sharecroppers (New York, 1936), pp. 54–59, 79–81, 85.

3. NIGHT RIDERS, WITH GUNS AND PISTOLS BUT JOHN ALLEN,⁹¹ NEGRO SHARECROPPER, FIGHTS FOR HIS HOME AND UNION

By Myra Page

John Allen’s powerful frame blocked the cabin doorway.

“Howdy, boss,” he said.

The plantation overseer, known as “riding boss,” in cotton country, barely nodded, as the wheels of his car grazed the stoop. “John, I’ve come for the last time to tell you to get off.”

John Allen’s slow gaze traveled from the cotton rows that began right at his cabin door and ran as far as the eye could reach. He didn’t ask the riding boss why. He knew. The Twist brothers didn’t intend to have any croppers’ union on their 20,000-acre plantation, one of the largest in Eastern Arkansas. But John Allen and many more of the thousand “hands” who raised cotton for the Twists had built them a union.

“You see, boss,” John said quietly, “I’ve worked on this place going on fourteen years.”

“I know that. But you got notice to go.”

“I don’t know where to go. I wouldn’t know where to look.”

“This is your third and last notice to get off.” The white man was losing his temper.

“If you want me to leave, bring an officer of the law and read me off,” Allen told him. “I won’t go before.”

“We’ll read you off, you dam’ nigger!” Then riding boss raised his fist, “We’ll throw you into the St. Francis river.”

Night Riders

That Saturday night, he and more of Twists’ men came to get John Allen, but the cropper was being guarded elsewhere on the plantation by union men, so the night riders rode to no avail that night.

The bright moon scanned the endless mile of cotton, the cabins, outhouses and wells, then came to rest on the white pillars of the “Big House,” as the croppers called it, standing so graciously among the tall oaks and southern pines. Here there was music, happiness, far removed from the cotton fields.

All that week John Allen was hidden in friendly cabins while he carried the union word. Amanthy and their twelve children worked on in the fields that they had come to feel a part of, and to love as much as they despised the outright slavery of their common lot.

“John, they’ll be the death of you,” his wife moaned.

“What is that but death?” he answered. How could a man see the truth, and not fight for it.

Guns and Pistols

That Sunday came the meeting which the planters had said should never take place. Men and women crept one by one out of their cabins across the fields, and into skiffs on the St. Francis river, where they rowed to Turkey Island to hold their union meeting beyond reach of the planters’ men.

Someone though, had played the snitch, for as they lay plans and exposed their wrongs, the banks on each side of the river grew thick with deputy sheriffs and planters’ men. Their guns and pistols gleamed in the sun.

When the croppers and their women left Turkey Island, John Allen was left off not on the Twist plantation, but on the far side, adjoining Morris Smith’s place. Later, as he made his way to hiding, he was seized by two carloads of men. He fought to keep his union record books from them, but they slugged and bound him. “Now we’ll drown you, you black rat.” As they dragged him toward the river, two white men who heard his cries came running. John recognized union croppers, a man and his son. They brought help, and John had his first narrow escape for “carrying the word.”

Traveling along the swamp and woods, trailed through Parkin, Earle, and other Arkansas towns, sleeping under bridges at night, always avoiding the highways, this 67–year-old cropper walked for three weeks to cover the forty-five miles to Memphis, headquarters of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union. This was a year ago, this February. John Allen had traveled many tens of miles since then, organizing for the union in Jefferson and other counties, being beaten up, threatened, but quietly going on. He hasn’t been able to see his family since that fatal night in February, nor can his family come to him. The Twist brothers are holding them on their plantation, on a charge of debt.

The Union

Hundreds of croppers, both white and colored, are being so held on plantations in the Southern states, quite against the law. The planters keep all accounts, so how can a cropper expect to ever come even? At the same time, hundreds of other croppers and their families are being evicted, either for union membership, or because the planter thinks he can make more out of somebody else.

John Allen knows all these things. He has been growing cotton since a small boy barely able to tote a hoe, cotton that floods Memphis and New Orleans warehouses, making planters rich, but leaving him without so much as a roof over his head or a good cotton shirt to his back. He has seen his own and others’ children wasting away from pellagra, “the hungry disease.” And in his last years, when hope was nearly gone, he has seen the union come, and swung into it with his whole agonized heart.

I met John Allen at the recent convention of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, held in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the Labor Temple. I met many men and women like him, colored and white; I heard them tell, in their soft Southern drawl, of the terrors they have braved and the victories they have won, in building an organization 25,000 strong, which is truly theirs, “a fortress in the time of storm.” How common suffering and need has helped them “bridge the chasm bringing to pass a new South. All of us who were born and reared in which once separated us white from black”; how they are willing to stake their lives on the hope, “To the Disinherited Belongs the Future.”

Leaders

It is men like John Allen who are the South, who love its fields and rivers, its folklore and songs, and its warmhearted people, but who also know too well the South’s wrongs; we who have felt the lash in the Southern owners’ boast of “cheap and contented labor,” can now feel proud that out of our cotton fields are rising such great, simple leaders of the South’s working people as John Allen.

Among those who stood shoulder to shoulder with John Allen singing

The union is a-marching

We shall not be moved!

The union fights evictions

We shall not be moved!

were men like Odis Sweeden, son of an Oklahoma Cherokee Indian and a Scotch-Irish mother (could such a combination ever know defeat!). As a boy he organized his fellow bootblacks to get fifteen cents a day, and he has been at it for seventeen years since. Tired of picking spinach for a quarter a day, and paying the Griffin Manufactures a dime transportation out of that; he started organizing the Oklahoma Indians, Negroes, Mexicans and “Poor Whites,” and in ten short months they tripled their pay, won free transportation and built 75 S.F.T.U. locals with 9,500 members.

There were fighters like the Walter and Lee Moskops, women and men of old native “Poor White” stock. Evicted from their shacks by the landlords, the Lee Moskops are living in a small houseboat, and organizing, being arrested and bailed out again, and going back to organizing again.

You can never kill a movement that has spirit like this.

Walter Moskop told how the first union convention, held only a year ago, had only a handful present, and all the lunch among them a dime’s worth of crackers and fifteen cents’ worth of cheese. “Look at us now,” he told the convention, and they cheered. Twenty-five thousand strong, and in the coming year, these Southern croppers and farm-laborers promise themselves to organize twice that number. Over in Alabama there is a brother Sharecroppers’ Union. Together they will organize the entire cotton belt. They have gone on record in support of a Farmer-Labor Party, a party that will help them win their civil and economic rights. They stand as one on the demand, “Land to the Landless” and in their hard daily lives there shines the hope;

“To the Disinherited Belongs the Future.”

Daily Worker, January 12, 1936.

4. FRANK WEEMS CASE

By Norman Thomas

Content removed at rightsholder’s request.

The Crisis, 43 (October 1936):294–95, 315.

5. PLANTERS RAILROAD UNION MEN TO PRISON, FEBRUARY 21, 1936

Jim Ball, Secretary of the St. Peters Local, Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, was given a seven year prison sentence yesterday by the Crittendon County Circuit Court. He was convicted of “Assault with intent to kill” by a jury picked of planters, and sentenced by a judge who is also a large landholder. Jim Ball’s crime consisted of trying to preserve order in a peaceful meeting which was illegally raided and broken up by Deputy Sheriffs and a mob of planters on the night of January 16th. Jim Ball attempted to take a shot gun away from Everette Hood, the plantation deputy, who led the raiding party. After Ball was placed under arrest, Hood and another, so called, officer of the law returned to the scene and shot two men in the back as they were walking alongside the road.

In the Court Room yesterday planters were betting that the “damned Union men” would get the limit 21 years. Defense Attorney Newell Fowler, well known labor lawyer of Memphis, Tenn., said that no evidence to warrant conviction was presented.

Simon Bass, John Ligons and Sam Brown, are to be given a similar trial next week on a charge of Rioting. “Rioting” consists of having reported the raided meeting to Union Headquarters in Memphis. Local newspapers were given the news, and on attempting to get a statement from the planters all refused to talk. These three men will no doubt be given prison sentences similar to Ball’s. This is plantation justice. Sharecroppers are framed up and railroaded to prison. Criminals who break up peaceable meetings in churches in violation of all the laws go scot free. No attempt is ever made to punish the guilty parties.

The Central Defense Committee of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union appeals to all our friends thru out America. Help us fight these cases. An appeal to the Supreme Court must be made. Bonds must be given. Won’t you help to save these innocent men from the Tucker Prison Farm (Arkansas equivalent of a Georgia Chain Gang). Funds are needed badly. Send all contributions—Howard Kester, Sec’ty, Central Defense Committee, Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union—Box 5215, Memphis, Tenn.

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 1.

6. H. L. MITCHELL TO E. B. MCKINNEY, JULY 31, 1936

Dear McKinney:

Found your letter upon my return to Memphis a few days ago and I believe that Butler answered the question you raised in part anyway. The statement was issued by the Executive Council and not by me the first I saw of it was in the Chicago Tribune, of course they quoted Mitchell etc. but they always do that you know, but in all papers that I saw it said that the Executive Council at the Muskogee meeting called it off and I believe you were there and voted for the statement, if I recall a right made the motion for its adoption. So why should you and I squabble about something we have already done.

Your letter excited Butler, Kester and others but not me I know you too well, and how you feel some times and I can’t say that I blame you much because I feel like saying and doing the same damn thing myself—so let’s just forget it all and go to work for the cause which you and I have done more to further than anyone else.

Want to have a long talk with you sometime soon—you ought to forget the race lines and think of them really important ones—the class against class—the solidarity of black and white workers is much more important than what happens to a white man or a black man. Who cares it has happened before and will again, we can only do what our resources permit and you know as well as I do that there is no racial discrimination in the STFU. That is why we are powerful and feared.

I will certainly see that money is sent you old friend—how finances are right now I don’t know but we will make it the best we can some how—until the planters get one or both of us. I appreciated your strong statement at Muskogee about standing side by side with me until we both went down together—that was the kind of man you are that was talking that day, and I am not apt to forget either.

H. L. Mitchell

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 2.

7. J. E. CLAYTON TO H. L. MITCHELL,⁹³ DECEMBER 28, 1937

Mr. H. L. Mitchell

Exec. Sec. - STFU

Memphis, Tenn.

Dear Mr. Mitchell:—Your letter received a few minutes ago, and I thank you for it.

Mr. Mitchell! If there ever was a time that the International needed an International worker among the colored people in the Southern states, it is right now. If the International waits, while the A.F. of L. and the Big Capitalists have put on an aggressive campaign to prejudice the great host of colored workers against the C.I.O., and its affiliates, it will find the host of colored workers scattered, hence, hard to line up. We should start now lining them up in our Southern states.

Mr. Mitchell! You don’t need a worker for each craft or body of workers among the colored people, as you have among the whites. My people are an Emotional, and a Group Conscious People, and 98% of them can be reached in the churches. If you can arrange to have some Ordained Minister of the Gospel put on the Field as an International speaker, that Ordained Minister can get into all of the colored churches with his message, because the colored churches never debar an Ordained Minister. And when this International organizer goes into a church to speak, he will find in there the colored workers of all occupations, including the farmers. Therefore, the colored organizer will not have to go to shops, hotels, laundries, factories, or plantations to seek a chance to talk to the workers. He can reach all workers in the churches, therefore, you will not have to have a Regional Organizer for each craft or group of workers. Have a Live-wire Regional Organizer to travel and speak, and appoint and direct Local organizers. If you can have this done while you are in Washington, you will sweep the South when it comes to lining up the colored workers and farmers.

The International should get one colored Regional Organizer now to push the work among the colored workers and farmers, before the Enemies of the C.I.O. scatter them. I find the Enemies of the C.I.O. working here in Chicago to prejudice the colored people against the C.I.O., and I have done quite a deal of work here these few days, getting my group to get with the C.I.O.

Mr. Egan told me that he is somewhat handicapped in Houston, in getting a colored organizer put on, because, he has lost some of his white organizers. But he said one is badly needed, and said he would have me put on now if he could. He said also that he believes that you can get a colored Regional Organizer put on much quicker than he can. So I hope you will pull every wire you can, while in Washington, to have one put on at once.

Write me at 2312 Gregg St., Houston, Texas.

I will leave here Friday morning for Texas.

I hope you will get the application from Littig before you leave. Either 30, or 31 members had paid in their enrollment fees before I left Littig.

Yours very truly,

J. E. Clayton

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 5.

8. J. R. BUTLER TO STFU EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, JULY 18, 1938

Brethren:

Inclosed with this you will find a bulletin which I have felt it necessary to send to the locals, especially in Arkansas and Missouri. This bulletin refers especially to activities of Vice President, E. B. McKinney.

As some of you know, McKinney has for some time agitated for a separate office set-up for himself for the purpose of allowing him to handle all business of the Union that anyway affects the Negro membership. This virtually means a separation of the Union into two elements with little or no coordination or co-operation between the two parts. This is opposed to the principle on which the Southern Tenant Farmers Union was built and on which it has been maintained. In addition to this disruptive propaganda he has written at least one letter to the UCAPAWA headquarters asking that practically all the locals in Jefferson County, Arkansas be allowed to affiliate direct with the international getting out of the STFU entirely. He has asked some of the locals to assess their membership extra above their regular dues to enable him to get around and spread this poisonous propaganda. There are any number of other charges that could be made against him but which I consider unnecessary to make at this time.

In view of these matters I have taken the liberty to ask the secretary to withhold any further payments of salary or expenses to E. B. McKinney until such time as I can hear from you. I hope that you will reply to this immediately and state whether you approve or disapprove my action in withholding money from McKinney until these matters can be cleared up. Is it your desire that these matters shall be put into form and that McKinney shall be charged with attempting to disrupt the Union? If so it will be necessary to call a special meeting of the Executive Council in order to give him a chance to appear and answer the charges.

If your answer to the above question is “Yes,” then, shall I call a special meeting of the Council at an early date even though the Union may not be able to pay all the expenses of such a meeting? This would mean that if we cannot raise enough money to pay the full expense of such meeting that you would each have to dig down in your own pocket for a part of your expenses while attending the meeting.

There is another matter also that should receive your serious consideration: the international convention of the UCAPAWA is to be held sometime the latter part of November or first of December. It is very necessary that the Southern Tenant Farmers Union be represented at this convention with a full delegation. That means that it will be necessary to raise money by some means to meet the expenses of the delegates. If a majority of you agree we will take a referendum vote of the membership on the question of making a special assessment of 50 cents per member to be paid on or before Oct. 15th to be divided and used as follows: 12-1/2 cents to the UCAPAWA, 12-1/2 cents to be used to pay the expense of holding a preconvention conference of all our delegates so that there will be no confusion in our ranks when we get to the main convention, and 25 cents to be held in trust for each local for the purpose of having the expenses of its delegate to, at and from the convention. Please say whether you think such a referendum should go out and whether this plan of division is satisfactory to you. Please answer on all these matters at once.

Fraternally,

J. R. Butler, Pres.

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 8.

9. J. R. BUTLER TO CLAUDE WILLIAMS, AUGUST 22, 1938

Dear Claude,

The inclosed mimeographed copy of a document that purports to be a report of Commonwealth College and the Communist Party in charge of same and which I have no reason to doubt, but on the other hand every reason to believe authentic, should be explanation enough for what follows.

Ever since the re-organization of Commonwealth College when you became its Director I have defended you against all charges of Communism and against all charges of attempting to disrupt the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I did those things on the basis of your word of honor (such as it was) to me, assuring me that your whole effort should be directed toward building a Trade Union school that could and would adapt itself to the needs of and be a help to the Southern Labor Movement. You assured me that you yourself were not a Communist and that as a member of the Executive Council of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, that your whole effort would be to further the interest of the STFU at all times and places.

Now please do not get the idea that I am censuring you or any other person for belonging to the Communist Party. That is your privilege. The thing that I am censuring you for is that under the guise of friendship you worked to disrupt the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in its basic principle of being strictly non-partisan.

The inclosed report shows conclusively that you have connived and that you are still attempting to connive with the Community Party to “capture” the Southern Tenant Farmers Union for the Communist Party.

Since you have violated every principle of friendship and every principle of trade unionism I am hereby requesting, in order to save further trouble, that you prepare and transmit to me at as early a date as possible your resignation from the Executive Council of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. I especially hope that such a document may be in my hands before the next regular session of the Council on September 10, 1938.

Since your purpose with regard to the STFU has been as clearly and unmistakenly stated, I ask also that you notify Whitfield that you cannot be present at the mass meeting that he has arranged for you on August 25th at Charleston, Mo. Also that you ask Lee Hayes, Jim Gow, Arthur Ornits, and Mike Kilian to remove themselves immediately from the field of the STFU and that they desist from making or showing any pictures that may in any way purport to represent the activities of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union or the Southern Labor Movement.

Inclosed with this communication you will find my resignation, effective at once, from the non-resident board of Commonwealth College.

It pains me deeply to have to break the friendship that has existed between us for so many years, but you know that with me friendship counts for nothing, individuals count for nothing where the welfare of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union is concerned. You no doubt are curious to know how the inclosed document came into my possession and when. You left your coat at my house; my nephew, Silas Butler, put your coat on and wore it to town. He removed all the papers that you had in your coat and put them in one of our bookshelves. On his return he replaced what he thought to be all of your papers in your pocket, but evidently he missed one, for upon my return from the mass meeting yesterday afternoon I went to the bookshelf for a book and found the document.

I know that you will easily see why I now sign myself,

Your one time friend,

J. R. Butler, president

Southern Tenant Farmers Union

Enclosure

A meeting was held last night at Commonwealth College of 20 faculty, Maintenance and Administration workers who are Party members. The total number of Faculty, maintenance and Administration workers at the College is 25.

A visitor to the College, also a Party member, said: “If we think of the United States as a war map on which flags are stuck as the troops move in to new territory, then clearly it is time our Party stuck a flag in at Mena, Arkansas.”

A committee was appointed to draw up a report to Party headquarters on the present situation at Commonwealth. This report follows.

1. The situation from a Party standpoint at Commonwealth is known to the District Organizer at St. Louis, with whom the College had been working closely. But we wish to draw the attention of national headquarters to the very great national importance of the College to our Party at the present time.

2. Since the reorganization of the school in August 1937, when a Party member became director of the school (Claude Williams), there has been on the campus complete political unity, an absence of such outside or disturbing elements as previously existed, and a conscientious adherence to the Party program in all the educational and field work. The figures quoted in par. 1 above show the numeric situation in faculty and administration, and it may correctly be said that students who are not members when they arrive almost invariably become members either here or immediately after they leave.

3. Since the reorganization the school, in addition to unifying and strengthening its resident program, has greatly developed its working relationship with the Southern labor and democratic movement.

(a). Claude Williams is a member of the National Exec. Council of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, has played a decisive part in insisting upon progressive union policies, and has carried the need for a militantly progressive program to thousands of rank-and-file members who have the greatest confidence in him.

(b). The school has not only given resident instruction to members of the STFU but has conducted field classes as well (for example an interracial Institute for preacher members of the union was held at Little Rock from July 27 to August 1).

(c). The school has the full support of the Arkansas State office of the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union. Two students have been commissioned as organizers and the school has conducted an extensive educational and organizational campaign on behalf of—and financed by—the union.

(d). For several months the school supported two persons to work full time in the labor movement at Fort Smith, the industrial center of this area.

(e). The Commonwealth College Association, governing body of the school, was expanded to include nine leading union officials of this area.

(f). Under direction of the District Organizer the school played a leading part in organizing the Arkansas Conference for Economic and Social Justice, held in Little Rock, July 23rd. Party members who took responsibility for setting up this Conference—the most important step to date in building the Democratic Front in Arkansas—were trained at Commonwealth, used it as their headquarters, and received financial assistance from the school.

4. In Commonwealth College the Party has a unique institution of national value and importance. Commonwealth owns the best and best-maintained labor library in the country, a 320-acre tract in a location enabling it to serve both industrial and agricultural workers. The natural facilities of the plant are used to foster democratic responsibility for maintenance and keep operating costs at a minimum. Students develop labor discipline in their work in farm, laundry, kitchen, etc.

5. The school has been operating under ceaseless financial stress. The ever-broadening scope of the work presents more and more opportunities which could be seized and followed up if money were available. The work is entirely dependent on voluntary donations.

6. A situation has now arisen which offers us an extraordinary opportunity to move into the most important organization in the agricultural South: the STFU. H. L. Mitchell, secretary of the STFU, who has been consistently opposed to the International with which that union is affiliated, to the Party, and to Commonwealth, is on a leave of absence from his office. The President of the union (J. R. Butler) and other members of the Executive Council who are friendly to us have invited us to conduct an intensive program of mass meetings throughout Arkansas and Missouri, beginning August 21st. At these meetings Claude Williams would be the principal speaker and a play which our school has in readiness for the purpose of dramatizing the union’s needs could be presented. If this program could be carried out we believe it would place us in a position to capture the union for our line at the next convention. This is an opportunity for establishing a real party base in the STFU.

7. The situation is that we cannot undertake this program in the STFU without immediate financial assistance. We would not make an appeal to the Party if we were not assured of the paramount importance and urgency of carrying out such a program. The Center traveled from east to west coasts soliciting contributions to Commonwealth. Last year he went to the Center for the first time and asked only for an entree to the Hollywood group, which was given, and of which he was most appreciative. It was estimated at the Center that he could raise $3,000 in Hollywood but the net amount collected on the whole Pacific coast was $1,300. The reason for this is simply that most Hollywood progressives who are sympathetic to Commonwealth’s present program are Party members and are committed to give all they can spare direct to the Party.

8. Commonwealth is possibly the Party’s most strategic position from which to work at this time in the South, where the danger of Fascism is greatest. We do not pretend that it is the only important phase but it is a very important one. We believe the problem of our Party work in the South needs to be approached on a broad basis, that the importance of our Southern work should be carefully appraised and that a sum of money from the National funds should be allocated to it, so that not only Commonwealth but all other Party activities in the South may be assured of a definite income. We recommend to this end the calling of a southwide conference of Party workers in the field. We are convinced that as a result of such a conference the Center would allocate funds for the South where they are so sorely needed.

At the present time, however, we wish to draw special attention to the immediate problem of financing the STFU program above described, which cannot be undertaken unless funds can be raised before the end of next week. The program could be undertaken for $500 and we ask the Center to give most careful study to our request for that sum. Another like opportunity is hardly likely to occur.

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 8.

10. CLAUDE WILLIAMS’ RESPONSE TO J. R. BUTLER, AUGUST 25, 1938

The document purporting to be a report from Commonwealth College to headquarters of the Communist Party which gave rise to a misunderstanding of the school’s program and of my attitude toward the union; between J. R. Butler, president of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union and myself as member of the Executive Council of the STFU and Director of Commonwealth College; and upon which J. R. Butler based his letter of August 22 to me is not an authentic statement by the school. It was merely a tentative appraisal of an individual in class work of the school’s program as a possible basis and a suggestion of a possible source of support and was submitted along with several other individual appraisals for and suggestions of possible sources of potential support.

This report does not represent the strictly non-factional labor-union policy of Commonwealth College, is largely fictional in nature and actually violates importants [?] in its statements.

It is not my desire nor the desire of the faculty at Commonwealth College to “move into” or “capture” the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union or any other union for any political group or party. In all my activities as an Executive Council member of the STFU it has been my purpose to help build it into an effective labor union. I have supported it and shall continue to support the program and policies of the union as adopted in its conventions.

The above referred to report was not concurred in by myself nor by the school nor was any such a report submitted to any person or group.

Claude Williams

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 8.

11. J. R. BUTLER TO E. B. MCKINNEY, AUGUST 27, 1938

Dear Mr. McKinney:

With the concurrence of a majority of the members of the Executive Council of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union I have prepared and hereby present to you certain specific charges:

1. Disruption, through letters, speeches, and actions

2. Non-cooperation. No reports of your activities have been made to this office since June 22, 1938.

3. Insubordination in that you have refused to abide by the rules laid down by the Executive Council of which you are a member and which rules you helped to formulate and

4. Conduct unbecoming to a Union member and an officer in that you have maliciously and viciously gossiped about the officers of the Union.

You are requested to appear before the Executive Council of the STFU at its next regular session which has been called for September 16th and 17th, 1938, and answer to the above charges.

Your failure to appear, unless legal reason for your non-appearance can be shown, will be taken as an admission of your guilt and will likely result in your removal from your place as vice-president, from your place as Executive Council member, and from membership in the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.

Sincerely,

J. R. Butler, president

Southern Tenant Farmers Union

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 8.

12. E. B. MCKINNEY TO J. R. BUTLER, AUGUST 31, 1938

Mr. J. R. Butler

President of S.T.F.U.

Memphis, Tenn.

Dear Mr. Butler.—I have your letter of the 27-Aug. together with the list of specific charges which was recently filed against me by the executive council of the S.T.F.U. Of course there may be other charges against me that you did not specify in the present list; evidently there are others.

In the recent past there were charges against me, but not of such malignant nature as has been described in these charges, and yet I sought redress which proved futile, and instead of reparation which I had hoped would have been the results, it turned out to be a near riot.

In my opinion, such could not happen in a democratic concern as our union pretends to be. It could only happen where there are Dictators who demand only yes men.

This will always happen when men pose as infallibles, above reproach, cannot be upbraided; and their colleagues must serve only as wards. Their elections are no more than appointed by them, they must be such as will suit them, no offence committed but what must first be paraded before the public. Such action as the latter, is an effort to justify the boss in making contact upon his subjects.

In the executive council meeting held at the S.T.F.U. office in June, it was remarked, that the controversy which adjustment had been attempted with regards to the Jefferson County troubles would have to abide by the unsatisfactorily decision to me; or they could just get out. So the next day of the meeting I offered up my resignation, which did not interest the body. Therefore I took for granted that I should go out with them, since I had tried in vain for reconsideration.

Knowing as I am almost sure I do, of the perpetration before, and also at the national convention held in Little Rock in Feb. and the previous decision of what would be done in that meeting, but of course it did not materialize, but the contrivance did not cease with that failure. And the position as vice president of the S.T.F.U. was not conceded to be. Rather my opponent, after being defeated was provided with a created position, in violation of the constitution of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. This act in my judgement could be nothing shorter than a contemptible one, and displays all the collars of a marred vicious move, directed solely at me.

For about 44 years, I have labored among my own people, of course I need not apologize for the crude procedures, most of which, when other people than the Negro know about it, they will find that it is unique. But if the import would be studied instead of being criticized, a better understanding could be had.

Now to the Czars of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. You may put it down that I shall not attend the Council on the 16th inst. And will attempt to work among my people in the capacity which I worked in before the birth of the Union, which was supervising over 36 congregations, comprising 4000 people. Most of whom will stay in, or go out of what ever I think, and impress them that it is not sound.

But we stand ready for a treaty with any fair minded concern. But shall endeavor to retain race autonomy.

Sincerely,

E. B. McKinney

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 8.

13. E. B. MCKINNEY’S PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, DECEMBER 5, 1938

I the undersigned pledge my allegiance to the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and agree to abide by the Constitution now in force or which may here after be adopted by the regular annual convention of the Union.

I withdraw all statements bearing my signature and agree to support only the program and policies of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union now in force or which may be adopted by the regular Annual Convention and its coming sessions.

I believe in the basic principles of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and stand only for the organization of Negro and white workers in a united movement.

E. B. McKinney

In view of the above statement we the undersigned officers and members of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union agree to recommend that the Annual Convention re-instate E. B. McKinney as a member in good standing in the STFU.

H. L. Mitchell

Blaine Treadway

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 9.

14. J. E. CLAYTON TO H. L. MITCHELL, MAY 6, 1939

Mr. H. L. Mitchell

Secy.-Treas., STFU

Memphis, Tenn.

Dear Bro. Mitchell:—I just left Gould, Ark. I saw a number of our Brethren from out on the South Bend Plantation today, and because they are going to have a funeral near there tomorrow, I did not go out there to be there tomorrow. Am on my way back to Texas tonight.

Mr. Mitchell! I have started our campaign this week to get enough buyers to buy in the fine 12 thousand acre plantation of Ex-Gov. Lowden of Illinois.⁹⁴ We colored have had it leased for 3 years, and we want to get buyers to buy it in between now and fall. The prices will be from $24 to $27 an acre, and terms of 1/3 down, and 20 years on the balance at only 4% interest. I’m planning to sell from 2000 to 3000 acres of the improved lands in 1 acre tracts, the same to be a cooperative farm. We can get 2 or 3 thousand share croppers and tenants and day laborers to buy 1 acre each to be worked as a cooperative farm for them. The price will be $27 an acre, and terms of $9.00 down, and $4.00 per week for 18 weeks, without interest. Now if we could get the poor colored people of the STFU to buy this 2000 or 3000 acres as a cooperative farm, that would cause nearly every Negro renter and share-cropper in the South to flock into your Union. And as there is a very large plantation mansion on the plantation it could be used for the Union, and you could operate there without being molested. Write me by return mail and let me know what you think of it. I will close school on the 22nd of this month, and will have my commencement exercises at 10:00 in the morning. I now write you to be with us. We will have a big free picnic after the Graduation Exercises, which will be over at noon. Let me know if you will be with us at our school and Littig on the morning of the 22nd. If you will, we can talk over everything.

Mr. Egan is working in The Houston Chronicle Printing office in Houston.

Yours truly,

J. E. Clayton

P.O. Box 74

Littig, Texas

P.S. I want you to be one of our Guest Speakers on Commencement Day. May I place you on program? J.E.C.

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 9.

15. J. E. CLAYTON TO J. R. BUTLER, JUNE 9, 1939

Pres. J. R. Butler

Pres., STFU

Memphis, Tenn.

Dear Bro. Butler:—Your letter of the 5th inst. received, and I thank you for it, and for sending mine to Bro. Mitchell in New York.

Bro. Butler! The land policy you have in mind is fine, but it will take time to convert the masses of the people to that idea. I had this in mind: If your organization can put over one worth—while Project that the masses of poor colored farmers want, that will cause them to flock into your organization by the thousands, and tens of thousands. After we get them in, we can then convert them over to your progressive idea of farm ownership. But you must get the masses in your organization before you can change them from their old ideas to your new and progressive ideas.

If you and Bro. Mitchell could get some Philanthropist to make us a loan this summer; that is, make the loan of $75,000.00 to about 250 Honest, Progressive Race Farmers to make the down-payment on that 12 thousand acre fine plantation near Gould, Ark., that would show the Negro farmers of the South that your organization had done more to help them become independent than any other organization in America; therefore, they would flock into your organization by the tens of thousands and the STFU would sweep the South in a years time. And at the same time, we could add a small profit of about $2 an acre to the price of the land to go to the STFU, and that would give the STFU over $25,000.00 to go into its Treasure to operate on. The 250 farmers could pay the $75,000.00 loan back in the fall, as they will make more than that on the place. I know the wire to pull to bring the masses of the Race Farmers into the Union. Write me here at once.

Yours truly,

J. E. Clayton

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 11.

16. GEORGE MAYBERRY TO H. L. MITCHELL, NOVEMBER 23, 1939

Mr. H. L. Mitchell

Memphis, Tenn.

I am writing you these lines to let you know what happened to me. I went on Monday the 20th day of November to get the date and place from the County Agent, and he asked me do I belong to this union, and I told him, Yes sir, and he asked me would I take his advice it would be better for me to join the Farm Bureau. I told him that I was a member of that, and he said tht he hadn’t got the date. Then I asked him when I could get it, and he told me about the first of December, and I told him all right, I would come back, and he asked me for my name. And on the 22nd, listen to me, in came Mr. C. M. Addam, the County Clerk to my house and Mr. Anderson Lindy came to my house and hand-cuffed me and shoved the pistol on me and hand-cuffed me and put me in the car and carried me away from my house. When I was handcuffed I gave my sign, and Mr. Lindy hit me in the head two times, and when they got me to the other four men, then Mr. Leonard Perkins hit me 5 times right in the head and stamped me twice with his feet, and put me in the car and carried me to Macon River Bridge, and put me on highway 45, and told me to go to the water mill before I turn out, and don’t come back no more, and gave my family one day to get out of the county. It is so bad, I want some help. They took my box from my wife and my membership card and organizer’s credentials and going to get after all they can. They can’t have no meeting, and told me they better not hear from me, and I better not tell you all about it that they would spend money to find me and kill me, so what am I to do?

Mr. Anderson Linzy hit me 2 times side the head. Mr. L. Perkins hit me 4 times side the head and stamp me 2 times. Mr. C. V. Adams, the County Clerk, he got me for these men. Mr. H. Gland, Mr. Chas. Jackson and Mr. Sturd Addams, these other men I did not know, all from Macon, Miss. And I got one of my brothers word and he came to me. I was in the woods when he found me, and he gave me what money he had, and I am trying to get to the train for here, but I can’t get my clothes, but I am coming like I is. Look for me, I am in the woods and my wife and children all got to get out, and I can’t go home. Please let me hear from you and write the letter to Y. C. Cotton, Macon, Mississippi, Rt. 3, Box 81 and he will get it to me.

G. B. Mayberry, 282

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 13.

17. AFFIDAVIT OF GEORGE MAYBERRY, NOVEMBER 29, 1939

STATE OF TENNESSEE

COUNTY OF SHELBY

Personally appeared before me, the undersigned notary public, of and for the state and county aforesaid, George Mayberry, who makes oath in due form of law as follows:

That he is a resident of Noxubee County, Mississippi, and has farmed near the town of Macon for 39 years. That during these years he has never been involved in any difficulties with the law-enforcing officers and has never been imprisoned.

That on the 20th day of November he went to the office of the County Agent of Noxibee County, Mr. C. W. Gary, and asked for information as to the date of the election of the County Committee of the County Conservation Association. Mr. Gary told him that he did not know the date, and told him to come back a month later. Mr. Gary then asked him if he believed in the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, and he replied that he did. Mr. Gary then advised him to join the Farm Bureau, stating that he would get more out of it than he would from the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union. He replied that he was already a member, and Mr. Gary advised him to return to the office a month later for the information he wanted.

That on the 22nd day of November, while he was cutting fire wood near his home at about Eight O’clock in the morning, three men, C. V. Adams, the Chancery Clerk; Anderson Linzy and Leon Perkins came to his home and had his wife send to the woods for him. When he got to the house Mr. Adams told him to get in the car and go with them down to the store where Mr. H. G. Land wanted to talk with him about some land. That when he did not respond immediately to this order Mr. Linsy and Mr. Perkins drew their pistols, and Mr. Linsy put hand-cuffs on him. After having been forced to enter the car, these men drove about a quarter of a mile from the house where they met a second car containing four men, H. G. Land, Chess Jackson, Steward Adams and Henderson Tinzy. The affiant was then dragged from the car by Leon Perkins and jerked to the ground. Perkins then stamped twice on his head. When he had arisen Mr. Perkins again struck him on the side of the head and knocked him down, commenting that he should kill him and throw him in the creek. Linzy then hit him twice. After the beating, they then put him back in the car and drove about eight miles to Highway #45, where they stopped, took off the handcuffs and put him out of the car, ordering him to go south and to never come back. Mr. C. V. Adams then told him that he would give his family 24 hours to leave the community, and if they had not left in that time he would kill them.

That he remained in hiding until Tuesday morning, November 28th, when he came to Memphis, Tenn.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, the aforenamed George Mayberry has affixed his hand and seal at Memphis, Tennessee, this the 29th day of Nov. 1939.

George Mayberry (Sr.)

SWORN TO AND SUBSCRIBED before me

this 29 day of Nov. 1939

Notary Public

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 13.

18. LETTERS FROM A SHARECROPPER

Content removed at rightsholder’s request.

The Crisis, 46 (November 1939):335.

19. FARMER’S MEMORY SINGS ‘RAGGEDY’ TUNE

“Raggedy, raggedy are we

Just as raggedy as raggedy can be

We don’t get nothin’ for our labor

So raggedy, raggedy are we.”

by William Thomas

John L. Handcox wrote that song for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union more than 40 years ago—but he remembers it like it was yesterday.

“It was written for rough, tough, raggedy times,” said Handcox, 78, who sang some of his songs yesterday during the 48th anniversary celebration of the union’s founding in Historical First Baptist Church Beale Street.

Handcox, a one-time sharecropper from Brinkley, Ark., was among the more than 150 former union members who met for a two-day get-together designed to pay tribute to the union’s beginnings.

“I used to write both poems and folksongs,” said Handcox, who now lives in San Diego. “I don’t write songs, anymore. But if I wrote a song today it would be about hard times. I could write one about modern conditions if I wanted to. They don’t exactly compare to the ’30s, but they’re still hard. A lot of folks are out of work.” Handcox, a lean, white-bearded black man, said people worked harder during the Great Depression—but they didn’t know anything about high prices.

“The highest-paid hand was 75 cents. He worked from can to can’t. That’s from the time you can see till the time you can’t. They used to ring the bell at 5 a.m., and you had to get down to the barn and harness the mule by lantern light.”

A pair of runaway mules killed Handcox’ father when he was a boy.

“I had an older brother, but he didn’t have no get-up,” Handcox said. “So I had to take over and help raise the rest of the kids. There were 10 of us at the time. It was rough and tough. Our land was too poor to farm. So we rented land on the thirds and fourths—a third of the cotton, a fourth of the corn.”

Handcox wrote a song about it: “The poor man raises all the rich man can eat, and then gets tramped down under the rich man’s feet.”

Handcox said things are a little better now, but only because of the government’s help.

“If it wasn’t for social security, it would be pitiful,” he said. “The social security it not enough to live on, but it’s enough to exist. I’m one of the fortunate poor because I’ve always had enough to eat. My stomach was never in danger of collapsing. It will do that, you know, if you don’t get something between your front and your back.”

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), April 17, 1982.

20. KING COTTON

By John Handcox

The planters celebrated King Cotton in Memphis, May fifteen.

It was the largest gathering you most ever seen.

People came from far and near—to celebrate King Cotton

Whom the planters love so dear.

Thousands of flags were hung in the street,

But they left thousands of sharecroppers on their farms with nothing to eat.

Why do they celebrate Cotton? Here, I’ll make it clear,

Because they cheat, beat and take it away from labor every year.

Cotton is King, and will always be,

Until labor in the South is set free.

The money spent for decorations and flags,

Would sure have helped poor sharecroppers who are hungry and in rags.

Oh! King Cotton, today you have millions of slaves

And have caused many poor workers to be in lonesome graves.

When Cotton is King of any nation,

It means wealth to the planter—to the laborer starvation.

[1936]

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 3.

21. STRIKE IN ARKANSAS

By John Handcox

The day labor called a strike the eighteenth day of May,

For they cannot live on what the planters pay.

They asked the people in Memphis not to go out on the truck,

But the picketeers found that jail was their luck.

The Union having many friends and good support had to pay

A ten dollar fine to the unjust Memphis Court.

In Earl, Arkansas they threw so many in jail,

That anyone would class such arrest as “wholesale.”

Some planters have forced the labor into the field with gun,

And are driving them like convicts from sun to sun.

The planter is using pistols and whipping labor across the head,

Telling them “If you don’t get in my field, I kill you dead.”

The Planter say to ask for a dollar and a half a day is unfair,

They never mention high prices the labor have to pay him for what he eat and wear.

Everybody knows the Union isn’t asking for enough,

If we remember how the planter sell his beans and stuff.

They’re riding around cussing and raising sand,

When it’s known they sold the 25₵ size baking powder for 50₵ a can.

They arrested Mr. Gilmartin, a New York guest,

Who was investigating the people who were in distress.

On May twenty-second, the most terrible thing happen you ever could record.

Peacher attacked Miss Evelyn Smith and Mrs. Clay East,

Told them to leave there at once for they were disturbing the peace.

They went out to take a picture of Union people he had in stockade,

Only wanting to seek some way to give the Union people aid.

Peacher took their Kodak, and tore up their film,

Saying, “You’d better leave Arkansas, or you be hung to a limb.”

The planter saw in Arkansas is raising Cain,

They have no respect for person—woman or man.

If you go through Arkansas, you better drive fast,

How the labor is being treated, you better not ask.

I warn you to carry enough money to give bail,

For if planter law find you in sympathy with labor, they put you in jail.

It make no difference, whether white or black,

If you not in the ring, you all look alak.

[1936]

Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers, microfilm edition, reel 3.

THE MISSOURI ROADSIDE DEMONSTRATION OF 1939

22. TEN MILLION SHARECROPPERS

By Mildred G. Freed

Content removed at rightsholder’s request.

The Crisis, 46 (December 1939):367–68.

23. TELEGRAM FROM H. L. MITCHELL TO MRS. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, JANUARY 18, 1939

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt:

Remembering your concern for the welfare of evicted sharecroppers farm laborers encamped on Missouri Highways last Thursday may I urge that you use your influence to have tents supplied for 159 families located at Homeless Junction near New Madrid and 23 families on River Levee near Dorena over 600 men women and children without shelter despite stories that all are being cared for by government agencies. A number of expectant mothers many small children in open weather little food or firewood, drinking water supply from open ditches, highway camps were broken up by state police on pretext health protection. Landowners had these people moved from highways to back roads out of public sight emergency still exists with problem unsolved. May I again urge your help.

H. L. Mitchell

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

24. MR. HERBERT LITTLE, NYA REPRESENTATIVE CALLED MR. AUBREY WILLIAMS FROM MISSOURI, 1/15/39

Mr. Little:	I have 16 of these case histories. I shortened them somewhat but they will take about two minutes each to dictate - it means about 30 or 35 minutes.
Mr. Williams:	In general, what is the situation?
Mr. Little:	That the State Police, plus the Sheriff with some armed citizens, have broken up most of these camps. We saw them break up two. They are taking these folks and their effects away to an isolated place in the country in State Highway Department trucks. I interviewed 16 of these fellows with the help of the State staff and got pretty adequate answers as to where they contended they were from, what they were there for, and how they got there - and they are, most of the 16 I talked to in the space of two or three hours in the early morning, nearly all residents of Missouri, with the exception of maybe one-third who came from Arkansas a year ago or two years ago. There were none from Mississippi and only one from the tip of Kentucky. Fifteen of them were Negroes and one, White.
Mr. Williams:	Most of them are Negroes?
Mr. Little:	About 90–95% of the whole group are Negroes.
Mr. Williams:	Were they sharecroppers or laborers?
Mr. Little:	About two-thirds were sharecroppers at some stage, although some had been kicked down to day laborers. Maybe, one-fourth were day laborers and two or three of them tenant farmers.
Mr. Williams:	How many are there out there where you are?
Mr. Little:	We went up about 20–25 miles of highway and there were four camps along the road. One camp had 250, another 60 or 70.
Mr. Williams:	Are they going to break up those camps?
Mr. Little:	Yes, they have already done it today. They moved them away starting about 10 o’clock on trucks to an isolated place down the country.
Mr. Williams:	What have they there?
Mr. Little:	Forty acres and no provision for keeping them, according to what the Sheriff told me.
Mr. Williams:	They are just going to dump them on the ground?
Mr. Little:	That is the impression the Sheriff gave me.
Mr. Williams:	Is that in Missouri or Arkansas?
Mr. Little:	Missouri, about 50 or 60 miles from Arkansas.
Mr. Williams:	What do they think they will do down there?
Mr. Little:	I don’t know. My impression is they will probably starve or go back to day laboring jobs mostly.
Mr. Williams:	Is that near a town or is it in a town?
Mr. Little:	No, it is ten miles off the main highway on a farm-to-market road.
Mr. Williams:	Of course, there is nothing to compel them to stay there.
Mr. Little:	They have plenty of shotguns - these citizens that the Sheriff brought around - when they took them away from their present camps.
Mr. Williams:	They are not going to establish an armed camp?
Mr. Little:	I don’t know. That is up to the Sheriff. It was a little bit like Harlan County, with a few differences.
Mr. Williams:	Have you that stuff so you could put it in envelopes and air mail it to me so I could get it in the morning.
Mr. Little:	We are 170 miles from St. Louis, but the boys can drive it in about 5 hours. In addition to these 16 cases, I have a 2000-word description, which I dictated while the Sheriff and the men were preparing to tear down their shanties, being transcribed now and it will take another hour. I have already transcribed and organized these case histories and, if you say so, I will send them both and catch the 11 o’clock plane here tonight which ought to get to your desk in Washington not later than 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning.
Mr. Williams:	I think that is the thing to do and I would like for you to stay on - go on down there and see where they are putting them and get the whole view of the thing. Be careful, though, that nobody finds out you are there.
Mr. Little:	The State Police tried to arrest one of the NYA boys that came along with me and I told them who I was - that I was making a study.
Mr. Williams:	I mean the papers.
Mr. Little:	I am avoiding any newspaper people and I don’t think the State Police will do anything about it.
Mr. Williams:	I would keep on getting these case histories - go way down there.
Mr. Little:	I have the typical ones. I can get more, but I think we pretty well covered what we can get.
Mr. Williams:	I understood there were 1700 families all-told involved.
Mr. Little:	No, I think about 1600 or 1700 persons.
Mr. Williams:	I see - only about 300–400 families.
Mr. Little:	That would be my guess from what I saw and what I heard about the ones the Sheriff had evicted.
Mr. Williams:	You think probably 350 are Negroes.
Mr. Little:	90% or more.
Mr. Williams:	Would it be too dangerous for you to get back in there where they are taking them and see what they are doing to them?
Mr. Little:	Not at all, the Highway Police have been very decent to me.
Mr. Williams:	I would like for you to do that. I would like to have an eye witness description of where they are taking them and the conditions under which they are being placed.
Mr. Little:	I will try.
Mr. Williams:	I understand the thing goes South clear to the Arkansas line.
Mr. Little:	I think in the next County down - I will have to go and see - they are trying to get most of them to go back to day laboring on the farm or plantation. I don’t know for sure.
Mr. Williams:	I think this is grand. Send those boys on up to St. Louis with that stuff, get it on the plane by Special Delivery marked “PERSONAL” and mark it so that it gets here to me at 723 Washington Building.
Mr. Little:	Yes sir.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

25. SAMPLE CASE HISTORIES COMPILED BY HERBERT LITTLE FROM THE ROADSIDE DEMONSTRATORS IN JANUARY 1939

WILLIE SCOTT

Husband ill with flu, staying with neighbor.

Age 42

Two children, one 16, one 24 years.

Both children living here with parents.

Previous address, Portageville, Mo. Route #1, 1-1/4 mi. from camp.

Lately tenant for Murray Phillips, Sikeston, Mo. Farmed “all my life,” in Arkansas and Mo.

Tenant previously at Ristine, Mo. near New Madrid on Hall Hunter’s Farm. Never owned a farm.

No cash on hand, small amount of bread and fruit from Surplus Commodity.

No relatives in a position to help.

No member of family receiving W.P.A., relief, old age pension or other public assistance.

Says she was evicted, being given notice the Friday before Christmas and joined this camp on January 10, 1939.

Does not wish to stay longer on “this farm.” “Any place for a farm that would make a living.” She has her own stock on Murray Phillip’s farm including three head of mules.

A sort of leader at the largest camp. Known among the other campers as “the writing woman.”

O. J. JULIN

Married

Age 45

Seven children from 9 to 21 years old. Six of the children and his wife were at the camp and the oldest boy is taking care of his grandfather at Wardell, Mo.

Previous address, Marston, Mo.

Lately tenant, for one year, for Walter Richardson, Marston, Mo.

Previously rented farm from Central States Life Insurance Co., near Marston for one year, preceded by renting from B. Brinkman, Wardell, Mo. for one year. Prior to this, he sharecropped for Brinkman whom he described as a member of the Legislature. Never owned a farm.

Had one penny, food to last a week and “some” clothes.

No relatives to help although his oldest brother, works some.

Father receives old age pension, apparently about $10.00 a month, and Julin obtained a rehabilitation loan in 1936 to buy farm equipment.

His tenant house burned in July and the owner did not rebuild. Julin and family lived in a tent through the cotton picking season. He says he had written as well as verbal notice from Richardson to move. He Left January 10 and moved to the roadside camp.

He wants to farm “any good place” where there is good land.

DAVE WILKINS

Married

Age 48

Three children, 5, 8 and 12 yrs. age. All at camp with wife.

Previous address, Cathron, Mo. since last October, when he came here from Arkansas.

Lately day laborer for J. C. Mathis, Cathron.

Share cropped “all my days” except for 1934, when he rented a farm in Arkansas. Never owned a farm.

No cash, a little flour, two cups of lard, work clothing and a grimy overcoat.

No relatives in a position to help.

A sister in Arkansas is farming but unable to help him.

No public assistance received.

He stayed on the Mathis farm after the cotton picking season, but his money went and he sold his pig and chickens to come to the Highway to live.

He desires to continue farm work “anywhere except Arkansas.”

JIMMIE HAMILTON

Married

Age 27

One 8 yr. old child at camp with wife.

Previous address, Bragg City, Mo., 49 miles away, also Cathron, Mo.

Lately Share cropper for J. C. Mathis in Cathron.

Share cropper previously two years fro Dr. Victor, Bragg City, Mo. and Willis Weaver, the latter a Negro. He never owned a farm.

No money, some Surplus Commodity food, overalls and a light top-coat.

No relatives who can help.

No public assistance.

Says he quarreled with Weaver over the amount of money due on his 1937 crop. Says Mathis told him two weeks ago he could not use him. Without telling him to move, Mathis said he would use no share croppers in future.

He desires to continue farming.

ROBERT HAYNES

Married

Age 42

Has seven children. Wife and children in camp.

Previous address Cathron, Mo.

Lately employed at Cathron, Mo., by P. M. Barton as day laborer at $1.00 a day. Worked for Mr. Barton three years.

Previously worked two and one-half miles East of Portageville for George Worth. Worked as day laborer at 75₵ a day. Never owned a farm.

Has 20₵. Also has 24 pounds of flour, 15 pounds of lard and some beans. Has one suit of work clothes, and one good suit.

Has one cousin in camp. No other relatives with the exception of wife and children.

Has never made application for WPA employment and no aid received.

Says he left his last job on January 6 because he could not support his family on $1.00 a day.

Wants to “work on farm for the Government if possible.” Does not want to work for land owners, says they are unfair.

Note: This fellow has two wounds on his forehead, and one on his right cheek which, he says, were inflicted by the sheriff’s deputy on Sunday, January 15. He said that one of the sheriff’s deputies hit him in the face with a gun, and another hit him on the forehead with a cane, cutting his face.

CORNELIUS MCCANLEY

Married

Age 52

Fifteen children born, eleven living. Nine children and wife in camp. One son in St. Louis, married and unemployed.

Route #1, Mathews, Mo.

Lately employed at Mathews, Mo., by Billy McGee, farmer. Worked as share cropper.

Previously had worked for fourteen years on a farm East of Noxall, Mo., owned by Elon Proffer. Has a small farm in Arkansas which he purchased in 1912. This is a five acre farm, and he says he could not support his family on such a small farm.

Has $10.00 in cash. Has a month’s supply of some foods, and will have to buy other foods within the next few days. Has two pairs of overalls and one “Sunday suit.”

Has a brother working on the LaForge Cooperative Farm. No other relatives, except wife and children. Brother has sixteen children.

Has not applied for WPA employment. Received one check from the Government in the amount of $100.00 about a month or so ago. Says, “I never read the check to see the reading on it, but I think it was a loan on cotton.” After paying doctor bills and buying clothing he has $10.00 of this money left.

“Left the last job because I was told I was not needed anymore.” Says the landlord’s son was put to work in his place.

Wants farm job “any place in Missouri out of the bottoms.” Would like to be a share cropper, also have a warm, dry place to stay.

ROBERT HILL

Widower

Age 50

One child in Pennsylvania.

Previous address two miles East of Essex, Mo.

Lately employed at Essex, Mo., by George Bunch, farmer, as a day laborer, for which he received only his board and shelter. Worked on this farm six months.

Came to this section of Missouri, from Washington, D.C., July, 1932, and has been employed as a day laborer wherever he could find work. Is an ex-service man having participated in the World War.

No cash. “I does not have even a piece of bread, will have to eat with friends.” Has poor suit of work clothes only.

Has no relatives, other than the son in Pennsylvania, and from whom he has not heard from since 1932.

Has never made application for WPA employment. Received a bonus of about $100.00 on June 15, 1936, which he has since spent for food and clothing.

Left last job because “I was not going to work for nothing.” After seeing “evicted share croppers” on the highway he decided to stay with them. Never was given a notice of eviction.

Wants farm job on “Government farm.”

SAM BROWN

Married

Age 74

Three children born, one living in Arkansas, the others are dead. Wife is ill and has gone to the home of a son, by a previous marriage.

Previous address Buckley, Missouri.

Last employment was at Morehouse, MO., where he was a share cropper on the farm of Willie Martin.

Previously was a renter for three years at Morehouse, Mo. Prior to moving to Morehouse he was a share cropper at Frisco, Mo., for Joe Snyder.

No cash. Says, “Food is getting pretty scarce.” Has a day’s supply, which was purchased with his “pension money.” Has two suits of overalls.

Has no relatives other than wife and stepson. Stepson is a share cropper.

Is not eligible for WPA as he draws an old age pension of ten dollars a month.

Was notified by written order, along with other share croppers, that he would be evicted, and went to the highway camp on January 10.

Wants a place to call home.

MANUEL JENKINS

Married

Age 45

Has three children. Wife and children in camp.

Previous address Cathron, Mo.

Lately employed at Cathron, Mo., by P. M. Barton as day laborer at $1.00 per day. He worked on this farm three years.

Prior to being employed by Mr. Barton he lived at Marston, Mo., and was employed by Fred Copeland as a share cropper. Previous to this job he worked at Burney, Mo., for Howard Moore, as a share cropper. Never owned a farm.

No cash. A supply of food for one or two days. This food was received from surplus commodities. Only clothes this man has are the ones he is wearing. He has a very fair overcoat.

Has one brother in Arkansas who is a day laborer. He is unable to help this man.

Has not asked for relief, nor made application for WPA employment.

Left the farm on which he was employed because he was unable to care for his family on the wages paid by Mr. Barton. Was not notified to leave the farm.

Wants farm job. Desires to be a share cropper.

JAMES DUPRIEST

Married

Age 40

Four children and wife in camp.

Previous address Mathews, Missouri.

Lately employed on Alvin Earl’s place as day laborer at $1.00 per day.

During the year 1937 worked in Bragg City, Missouri, also worked as share cropper on the farm of Willis Weaver (colored) at Bragg City.

No cash. Has enough food to last 1-1/2 or 2 days. This food he purchased with money from the sale of cotton. He has also received a small supply of commodities from the Surplus Commodities. He has one dress suit, and the clothes he was wearing.

Has an uncle, with three boys, working on WPA. This uncle is unable to assist him.

Has applied for work on WPA but has not anything further regarding this application.

This man states, “The boss man had to move and I had no place to live.” He later stated that the man, on whose place he lived, desired to replace him with an uncle, and this uncle wished to live in the house occupied by James DuPriest.

Wants farm job. “Any good farm where I will be allowed to work.” He prefers to be a share cropper.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

26. MEMORANDUM FROM HERBERT LITTLE TO AUBREY WILLIAMS, JANUARY 16, 1939

SUBJECT:

Eyewitness account of dispersal of roadside camps of farmers by Sheriff in New Madrid County near Sikeston, Missouri, Sunday, January 15, 1939.

W. M. Tanner, part time organizer for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, came from Memphis by bus January 15 and met me at Sikeston, Missouri. He said he and another organizer on a tour of inspection of the roadside camps had been met here the day before by the State Police and escorted out of the state.

Tanner is an Arkansas man, a member of the Executive Board of the S.F.T.U. and lives near Cotton Plant, Ark. He gave me the names of William R. Fisher (white), Doreeno, Missouri, and Rev. J. W. Moore and Willie Scott of Portageville, Missouri, both colored, as leaders of two of the remaining camps.

We drove Tanner to the New Madrid bus station, choosing not to have him along when we started to interview the campers in view of the possible difficulty with the State Police. He said he and Mr. Butler, official of the S.F.T.U. on their trip here January 14 had advised the campers to accept accommodations offered to them by farm owners and leave the Highway if the accommodations were liveable. Mr. Tanner told of one farmer who offered the head of a family of nine a wage of $0.50 a day. Tanner said he did not know how the concentration of the workers had started.

At the largest camp 20 miles south of Sikeston, we witnessed the attempted evacuation by the Sheriff and armed local citizens of more than 200 negroes. There were about twenty five men in the sheriff’s posse, no state police were present.

Sheriff K. F. Stanley said the negroes were demonstrating and trying to get another Farm Security Settlement, that they could all get houses and jobs at $1.00 a day had they stayed on the farm. Sheriff Stanley invited us to watch. He claimed the negroes were armed. His men forced all the Negro men across the Highway while some of them made a careful search of all the thirty or forty make-shift tents occupied by the negroes on the other side. The citizens carried shot guns. One of our party saw a negro struck in the face by one of the citizens. Another negro was put in handcuffs. Sheriff Stanley announced to us it was his intention to move these and the demonstrators from the other camps in New Madrid County to a forty acre plot about eighteen miles away, nines miles off the main road on a farm-to-market road. I asked would the county provide for the negroes. He said no one would provide for them.

I saw one double barrelled shot gun from one of the negroe’s tents. I also saw another rifle or shot gun wrapped in cloth taken from the same tent. At least four shot guns were taken from the tents. This happened at approximately 10:00 A.M. Sunday, January 15 after I and three members of the Missouri N.Y.A. staff has spent nearly two hours taking statements from members of the camp. Seven trucks described as state highway trucks were backed up to move the campers away.

The second largest roadside camp of approximately 50 or 60 people, blacks and whites, was being evacuated by several State Highway Department trucks at 11:00 A.M. No arms were in evidence as we drove by.

The smaller camp of only two tents occupied by whites had not been dispersed at this time. Took a statement from the head of one of the white families at the smaller camp.

One negro at the big camp said cotton planters had imported pickers from Memphis this past season thereby depriving them of work as day laborers. This man also reported that Sheriff Stanley had tried to get them to leave the roadside the previous day. He had told them the planters would take care of them. The workers replied they had no place to return to and declined to leave at that time.

The roadside camps were tattered and make-shift tents totally inadequate for protection against cold weather. The ground was wet from recent rains. Nearly all of the shoes of the campers were worn shapeless and were full of holes. The “Hooverville” of the depression period was the only comparable sight I have seen.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

27. REPORT OF HERBERT LITTLE, DICTATED OVER THE TELEPHONE, JANUARY 16, 1939

Most of the following comes from Captain Sheppard, in charge of the State Highway Police in this area, in the presence of one of the State Highway Commissioners.

The State Public Health Director visited the camps the day after they were formed on January tenth. He ordered them removed from the major highway. One of these highways is North and South, and the other is transcontinental. The reason was to prevent possible widespread disease. It is agreed that at least 400 families with 1200 persons in them, 90% or more Negroes, were in the camps. They were scattered along 38 miles of U.S. Route 60, East and West, and 70 miles of U.S. 61, North and South, forming a cross with Sikestown as the center. The State Police on January fourteenth, after enlisting the aid of sheriffs of the three counties involved, dispersed most of the East-West highway camps by threat of force. One group, estimated by Highway Commissioner Simpson at 10 or 15 families who would not return to their old homes, was established in what Captain Sheppard called a concentration camp in a school house at Charleston, Missouri. Also on January fourteenth local citizens tried to disperse some large camps at Lelbourn. Leaders of this camp refused to disperse. No state police were present. The Negroes objected because they were to be moved in privately owned trucks. On January fifteenth Sheriff Stanley of New Madrid County, with a group of armed but not uniformed citizens, 25 or more in all, captured this camp and transported it away. Captain Sheppard told me later, Sunday, that the 291 persons in this camp and the 121 in a camp at Mathews, also on Route 61, were all taken to a 40 acre tract provided by the County. They were taken in State Highway Department trucks. These camps, isolated from highways, are to be under the local authorities. Captain Sheppard said highway police jurisdiction ended when the Health Department’s orders to move them had been carried out.

Captain Sheppard said he expected the State Health Department to provide one or more physicians to care for the people. He said no one would be allowed in or out of the camp, but later he said he expected those who wanted to leave would be allowed to.

About 25 State Highway Police early Monday cleared out the last camp about one mile from Sikestown and took the 100 or more persons in it to the 40-acre Madrid County tract. There was a WPA investigator there from Louisiana who was present taking pictures and he told me that the State Police offered them the alternative of returning to their former homes. Few, if any, did so.

Captain Sheppard said that from his knowledge of Negroes, he expects the two concentration camps to be dispersed and the occupants to return to their former farms in a few days. He and many others were saying the demonstration really is a strike to obtain a Government Homestead Project for Negroes, like the one at LaForge, a few miles away from Sikestown.

A local Negro preacher, Reverend O. N. Whitfield, with the aid of Southern Tenant Farmers Unions, is said to have organized the protest at a meeting on January eighteenth. The demonstration started on January tenth, Tuesday.

Captain Sheppard also said that one farm owner offered to take back 121 Negroes who left his farm for the camp, but they refused to go.

One newspaper report says the Southern Tenant Farmers Union people promised the sharecroppers a 40-acre farm, a white house, and a dug well on the proposed new project, similar to the facilities on the LaForge project.

Captain Sheppard indicates his officials will permit me to inspect the concentration camps.

On the eviction orders, Captain Sheppard says only one legally served eviction order has been filed with the necessary authorities this year in the three affected counties. He admitted, however, that written notices, and not legally served eviction orders, had been issued to many farmers under the prevailing custom of the farm owners who desire to rearrange their farm personnel.

NOTE: I suggest that you obtain from Mark Childs or Ray Brandt of the Washington Post Dispatch office, a clipping from the editorial page of Sunday’s St. Louis Post Dispatch. It is a description by Josephine Johnson, Pulitzer Prize Novelist, describing vividly her visit to the camp and presenting the conflicting versions of the sharecroppers and the land owners.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

28. MEMORANDUM FROM AUBREY WILLIAMS TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, JANUARY 16, 1939

SUBJECT:

Missouri Sharecropper Encampment

Following your request for information I sent Herbert Little, former newspaperman, now a member of the staff of the National Youth Administration, to investigate the situation of sharecroppers encamped along two highways in Missouri. I am enclosing material submitted by Mr. Little and call your attention particularly to the individual case histories which he has secured.

In brief the situation is as follows: This is the season when southern landlords either renew or discontinue contracts with their tenants and sharecroppers. This year many landlords failed to renew contracts, preferring, because of the necessity of making AAA payments to sharecroppers, the responsibility for carrying them through the season and the uncertainty of the cotton market to release them and rely on day labor for next year’s labor requirements. This has resulted in many virtual evictions of former sharecroppers and tenants throughout the south.

In the area of south eastern Missouri centering around New Madrid County a substantial number of families apparently received written notices to move from their present homes. It appears that these evictions led to a meeting in Sikestown on January eighth, at which local leadership in some way connected with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union is supposed to have urged these evicted families to encamp along two highways forming a cross at Sikestown.

In any case on January tenth a series of encampments began to form along these highways. Approximately 450 families, of whom at least 90% were Negro, were found to be living in tents or improvised shelters with very inadequate food supply in these camps. These groups were composed in part of those persons who had been forced out of their former homes and in part of persons who joined them voluntarily out of profound dissatisfaction with the arrangements under which they were living and working. This has led to confused reports as to whether these people were actually homeless.

It is reported that the group had been led to believe that this demonstration of their need would lead the Farm Security Administration to establish a project for them similar to one operating at LaForge, Missouri, but Mr. Little found no evidence that they had neither formed a cohesive organization nor presented definite demands to any public agency.

Efforts to disperse these groups by persuasion and threats having proved ineffective, on January fourteenth, and sixteenth the camps were broken up by armed citizens under the direction of the State Police and County Sheriffs and in part by State troopers. The State assumed jurisdiction on the grounds that these encampments on State Highways constituted a menace to public health.

It is estimated that approximately half of the families actually dispersed. The other half were moved to what the State Police described as “Concentration camps,” one in a Charleston, Missouri, schoolhouse and the other on a forty acre tract without shelter or facilities of any kind located ten miles off the highway. These camps are under county rather than state control. It is believed that individuals in them have been placed under technical arrest although definite information on this point is not yet available. It was stated that no one would be permitted to visit them, but that they would be permitted to leave under certain conditions.

Apparently no relief has been extended these persons other than limited surplus commodities which have been made available by the local relief to individual families applying at the offices in person. This has proved impossible for most families.

This situation, serious as it is for the individual families and the communities in which they are located, is even more serious as a symptom of the widespread situation existing throughout the South. It has been conservatively estimated that at least a quarter of a million families are being forced off farms in the South this year. Not only does this situation present a serious unmet relief problem, but the Missouri situation clearly demonstrates that local communities, faced with a grave economic situation which they are powerless to solve alone, will take measures toward the individuals made most desperate by that situation which ignores the civil rights and liberties our government is supposed to guarantee.

As further reports are submitted by Mr. Little, I will send them to you.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

29. AUBREY WILLIAMS TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, JANUARY 19, 1939

Dear Mr. President:

Here is my report summarizing facts and conclusions on major issues involved in the sharecropper demonstration in southeastern Missouri in January of 1939.

Causes: The primary cause is the feeling of the workers, sharecroppers, ex-sharecroppers, renters and day laborers all, that their economic condition is intolerable. They say they had just as well starve and freeze on the highways, or in their present concentration camps, as in their shacks. Their cotton picking money and sharecropping payoffs are all gone. After that, all that most of them have in prospect is 100 days work a year, at $1.00 a day - some of the farmers pay only seventy-five cents. As far as our man can learn, there is no credit available to them.

This condition has become increasingly serious in recent years, through the action of land-owners in switching from sharecropping and renting to operation of their land by day labor. The principal reason for this is to enable the land-owner to retain all of the AAA benefit money, which otherwise would go to the renter or in part to the sharecropper. In addition, many land-owners are reducing the amount of land given sharecroppers to operate, apparently in line with acreage reduction. In two cases interviewed, sharecroppers produced “wildcat cotton” and were deprived of any return, the landowner explaining that the penalty tax took all the crop money.

Of the 102 family heads interviewed, some spoke of their hope that the government would set them up in cotton growing. The movement as yet has formulated no definite demand for a resettlement project, however. It is quite likely that the hope for such a project is responsible to a considerable extent for their action. Their determination to hold out against returning to their former status is indicated by the fact that about one-half of the 1200 persons on the highways went to the concentration camps off the highways when evacuated by State Highway Police, instead of returning to farm shacks as proposed by the land-owners and the authorities.

Southern Tenant Farmers Union activities may have had some part in organizing the protest, although the persons interviewed in many cases were apparently unacquainted with the organization.

The 102 histories demonstrate the falsity of the charge that the demonstrators were day laborers from Arkansas. Most of them are or have been in recent years, sharecroppers or renters in this section of Missouri.

As to the charge that wholesale eviction orders caused the protest, this is not literally true. State Highway Police said that only one legally-served eviction order (in Mississippi County, Missouri) has been registered with the proper legal authorities. In substance, however, the charge is true. Our investigator was shown at least three notices, couched in legal language, in the concentration camp near Wyatt, Missouri. The 102 personal histories are full of statements, obviously truthful because of the circumstantial details given to the interviewer, that farmowners orally informed these folk that (1) he was switching from sharecropping to day labor basis, (2) that he wanted the house for a larger family, (3) that he would not be wanted next year. There are many variations, nearly all of which gave the worker to believe that there was nothing for him to do at that place.

It seems to me that the mere presence in the vicinity of the LaForge cooperative colony, (Farm Security, 100 homesteads including 80 white and 20 black families) was a large factor in leading the workers to make their demonstration.

Civil Liberties: There appear to have been numerous violations of civil liberties. The action of the State Highway Police in escorting organizers of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union out of the state on January fourteenth is one. The forcible removal of the demonstrators from the public highways, in one instance by Sheriff Stanley of New Madrid County, and in the others by the State Highway Police, in State Highway Department trucks in all instances, is another. This was done under the pretext of the order by the State Public Health Commissioner that they were a menace to public health. In fact, their living conditions in the two concentration camps to which they were moved are as conducive to serious epidemic sickness, if not more so, than in their highway camps. The seizure of the campers’ shotguns and a few rifles, necessary to enable them to add rabbits, squirrels, etc. to their diet, is another example. Sheriff Stanley reported this seizure, and our men there witnessed a part of it. One Negro was struck by two men in Sheriff Stanley’s posse during the highway evacuation, being clubbed in the face and gashed by blows from a pistol in one man’s hand and a can in another’s. See Case 45. In addition, there is an apparent guard, or at least a consciousness of compulsion for the demonstrators to remain at the two concentration camps, away from the highways. Several white men were present at the levee camp during most of January seventeenth, and a uniformed State Highway Policeman visited the camp and inquired what was our purpose in interviewing these people, although our man had previously called on Highway Police Captain Sheppard in Sikeston and explained his mission of information gathering. Captain Sheppard was frank in expressing hope and belief that the demonstrators would return to their previous farm existence in a few days. He commented that our man did not appear to be a southerner and might not understand what was necessary in “handling niggers.”

Relief Possibilities: These people will not starve for a few weeks, and may continue indefinitely, as a few are getting $10 relief checks from the Farm Security Administration. The Farm Security Administration, however, is understaffed and slow to clear applications. The regional FSA man has informed the regional relief man in Sikeston that he is planning to do something definite soon to prevent difficulties. In addition, surplus commodities are being distributed at relief centers, such as New Madrid, ten or twelve miles away from the levee camp, to those who apply in person. A few of them have old automobiles and trucks. However, their egress for this purpose may be shut off by the unsumpathetic whites in the neighborhood and by the landowners. One member of the New Madrid County Advisory Committee on Relief has complained against the County Supervisor because of this issuance of food. No inquiry was made as to whether Farm Security Administration has any long range plan to provide for them.

Effect of Interviews: Nearly all those interviewed indicated by their manner a rather child-like confidence that the federal government would act to relieve their condition. Many appeared to feel that giving their name and the other information would place them in a position for early aid.

One other item may be noted: Ryland, the Missouri director of the National Emergency Council, was reported in the Missouri press as having stated, after a visit to the highway camps, that he was investigating “subversive influences” in connection with the demonstration.

Press Attitude: Most of the news and headlines noted, as usual in such circumstances, were based on statements and activities of the authorities and land-owners. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat displayed active bias against the demonstrators in its reports, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did a full and complete job of reporting both sides and an accurate report of conditions as seen by our investigator.

Basic remedy: This is a boil that has come to a head, indicating a widespread condition in the cotton region. It is probable that nothing less than a great resettlement campaign, involving both housing and land, could materially improve living conditions among these folk.

Sincerely yours,

Aubrey Williams, Administrator
National Youth Administration

Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, New York.

Part III: The Black Worker During World War II

Notes

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