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The Black Worker During the Era of the National Labor Union—Volume 2: References to the 1873 Alabama Negro Labor Convention

The Black Worker During the Era of the National Labor Union—Volume 2
References to the 1873 Alabama Negro Labor Convention
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table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Series Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Foreword
  6. Preface
  7. Table of Contents
  8. I: Black Workers form a National Organization
  9. Part I: The Call and the Response
    1. Call for the Colored National Labor Union
      1. 1. National Labor Convention of the Colored Men of the United States
    2. The Response
      1. 2. Labor Meeting in Macon, Georgia
      2. 3. The Negro Labor Union
      3. 4. The Colored Labor Convention, II
      4. 5. The Negro Convention on Georgia Outrages
      5. 6. The Colored Labor Convention, III
      6. 7. The Colored Labor Convention, IV
      7. 8. The Colored Labor Convention, V
      8. 9. The Colored Convention, VI
      9. 10. Organization Among the Colored People
      10. 11. "At Last the Colored Laboring Men of Georgia Are United"
      11. 12. Fruits of the Labor Convention
      12. 13. "No Movement is More Important"
      13. 14. Letter to Georgia Newspaperman, J. E. Bryant
      14. 15. Meeting of the Colored Mechanics and Laboring Man's Association of Cass County, Georgia
      15. 16. Blacks Select Delegates in Rhode Island
      16. 17. From the Newport Daily News
      17. 18. The Virginia Convention
      18. 19. Maryland Blacks Select Delegates
      19. 20. The Labor Convention of Colored Men
      20. 21. The South Carolina Convention
      21. 22. The Labor Convention
      22. 23. A Pennsylvania Meeting
      23. 24. Another Pennsylvania Meeting
      24. 25. Labor Reform Union – New York
      25. 26. Black Workers Convene in Texas
      26. 27. Colored Labor Convention – Galveston
      27. 28. Organization – The Colored People
      28. 29. The Colored Labor Convention
      29. 30. An Appeal to the Labor Convention
  10. II: Formation of the Colored National Labor Union and the Bureau of Labor
  11. Part II: Formation of the Colored National Labor Union and the Bureau of Labor
    1. Formation of the Colored National Labor Union and Bureau of Labor
      1. 1. Proceeding of the (Colored) National Labor Union Convention
      2. 2. Constitution of the Colored National Labor Union
      3. 3. Address of the National Labor Union to the Colored People of the U. S.
      4. 4. Prospectus of the National Labor Union and Bureau of Labor of the United States of America
      5. 5. Visit of a Delegation of the Colored National Labor Convention to the President on Saturday
    2. Comments on the National Colored Labor Convention
      1. 6. The Colored Convention
      2. 7. Observations of Samuel P. Cummings, a White Labor Unionist
      3. 8. "An Important Step in the Right Direction"
      4. 9. From Missouri
      5. 10. An Appeal to Overcome Prejudice
  12. III: The Second and Third Conventions of the Colored National Labor Union
  13. Part III: The Second and Third Conventions of the Colored National Labor Union
    1. The Second Colored National Labor Union Convention, January 1871
      1. 1. Address to the Colored Workingmen of the United States, Trades, Labor, and Industrial Unions
      2. 2. National Labor Union
      3. 3. Resolutions Adopted by the Labor Convention
      4. 4. National Labor Union
      5. 5. The National Labor Union
      6. 6. Sound Policy
      7. 7. The National Labor Convention
      8. 8. Editorial Correspondence
      9. 9. Address
      10. 10. The Other Side
      11. 11. Senator Sumner to the Colored Men
      12. 12. The Labor Convention
  14. IV: State Black Labor Conventions
  15. Part IV: State and Local Black Labor Meetings
    1. State Conventions of Black Workers
      1. 1. Mass–Meeting at Metropolitan Hall, Richmond
      2. 2. Call for a New York State Labor Convention
      3. 3. New York State Colored Labor Convention
      4. 4. The Saratoga Labor Convention
      5. 5. Condition of the New York Colored Men
      6. 6. Racial Prejudice in New York
      7. 7. New York Colored Labor Bureau
      8. 8. The Long Shore Men
      9. 9. Proceedings of the Alabama Labor Union Convention
      10. 10. Testimony of John Henri Burch
    2. References to the 1873 Alabama Negro Labor Convention
      1. 11. The Labor Convention
      2. 12. Plan to Organize Labor Councils
      3. 13. What Does Mr. Spencer Mean?
  16. V: Local Black Militancy, 1872–1877
  17. Part V: Local Black Militancy, 1872–1877
    1. Organized Local Activism
      1. 1. Strikes in Alabama
      2. 2. British Vice Consulate
      3. 3. British Vice Consulate
      4. 4. Department of State
      5. 5. Department of State
      6. 6. Department of State
      7. 7. Colored Trouble at Stretcher's Neck
      8. 8. Labor and Capital
      9. 9. Strikes and What They Teach
      10. 10. Strike at the Saw Mills
      11. 11. A Strike in the Railroad Shops
      12. 12. Strike in Jacksonville
      13. 13. Colored Communism
      14. 14. How the Radical Party in the Legislature Attempted to Effect a Virtual Confiscation of Lands
      15. 15. What Does it Mean?
      16. 16. They Know Not What They Do
      17. 17. Trouble in Terrebonne
      18. 18. War in Terrebonne
      19. 19. Laborers' Strike in Louisiana
      20. 20. Labor Troubles
      21. 21. War in Terrebonne
      22. 22. The Labor Question in Louisiana
      23. 23. Trouble in the Sugar Fields
      24. 24. The Terrebonne War
      25. 25. Full History of the Affair
      26. 26. The Terrebonne Prisoners
      27. 27. The Longshoremen's Protective Union Association
      28. 28. Strike of Rice Harvesters
      29. 29. Robert Small on the Combahee Strike
      30. 30. Labor Movement
      31. 31. Strike in St. Louis
      32. 32. The Galveston S–rike of 1877
      33. 33. Black Washerwomen Strike in Galveston, Texas
      34. 34. Report of Meeting of Amalgamated Trade Unions, New York City, July 26, 1877
      35. 35. Meeting of Black Workers in Virginia
      36. 36. Colored Waiters' Protective Union
      37. 37. Oyster Schuckers Strike
      38. 38. Formation of the Laboring Man's Association of Burke County, Georgia
    2. The New National Era and the Labor Question, 1870–1874
      1. 39. Horace H. Day to the Editor of the New National Era
      2. 40. The Workingman's Party
      3. 41. The True Labor Reform
      4. 42. The Labor Question
      5. 43. "To Let Live"
      6. 44. Co–operative Societies
      7. 45. A One–Sided View
      8. 46. Letters to the People – No. 1
      9. 47. The Folly, Tyranny, and Wickedness of Labor Unions
      10. 48. From Alabama
      11. 49. Labor Union
  18. VI: The Ku Klux Klan and Black Labor
  19. Part VI: The Ku Klux Klan and Black Labor
    1. The Ku Klux Klan and Black Labor
      1. 1. Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, Spartanburgh, S. C.
      2. 2. Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, Columbia, S.C.
      3. 3. Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, Yorkville, S.C.
  20. VII: Black Socialism and Greenbackism
  21. Part VII: Black Socialism and Greenbackism
    1. Peter H. Clark and Socialism
      1. 1. Clark Addresses the Workingmen's Party of the United States
      2. 2. The Workingmen's Party Mass Meeting in Robinson's Opera House Last Night
      3. 3. Socialism: The Remedy for the Evils of Society
      4. 4. An Editorial Reply
      5. 5. A Plea for the Strikers
    2. The Greenback–Labor Party
      1. The "Alabama Letters" to the Editors of the National Labor Tribune
      2. 6. From Warren Kelley, June 25, 1878
      3. 7. Note on W. J. Thomas, July, 1878
      4. 8. From Warren Kelley, July, 1878
      5. 9. From Warren Kelley, July 29, 1878
      6. 10. From Warren Kelley, July 29, 1878
      7. 11. From Warren Kelley, July 30, 1878
      8. 12. From Warren Kelley, August 17, 1878
      9. 13. From "Dawson," December 28, 1878
      10. 14. From W. J. Thomas, January 20, 1879
      11. 15. Note from a member , March 1, 1879
      12. 16. From "Dawson," March 28, 1879
      13. 17. From "A Close Looker," March 28, 1879
      14. 18. From "Dawson," April 16, 1879
      15. 19. From "Reno," May 13, 1879
      16. 20. From W. J. Thomas, May 24, 1879
      17. 21. From Warren Kelley, May 24, 1879
      18. 22. From "Reno," June 30, 1879
      19. 23. From "A Close Looker," July 6, 1879
      20. 24. From "Dawson," July 25, 1879
      21. 25. From "Dawson," August 5, 1879
      22. 26. From D. J., August, 1879
      23. 27. From "A Close Looker," August 27, 1879
      24. 28. From "Olympic," September 15, 1879
      25. 29. From "Olympic," October 4, 1879
      26. 30. From "New Deal," October 20, 1879
      27. 31. From Michael F. Moran, November 17, 1879
      28. 32. From Henry Ovenlid, December 9, 1879
      29. 33. A Black Minister Explains his Shift from the Republican to the Greenback–Labor Party
      30. 34. The People's League
      31. 35. Arkansas Greenbackers
  22. VIII: Black and White Labor Relations, 1870–1878
  23. Part VIII: Black and White Labor Relations, 1870–1878
    1. Race Relations between Black and White Workers
      1. 1. A Question of Color
      2. 2. "A Fellowship That Shall Know No Caste"
      3. 3. "Loyalty" and "The Nigger"
      4. 4. Appeal to Colored Labor Unions
      5. 5. The Fifteenth Amendment
      6. 6. "Damned Niggerism"
      7. 7. Convention of the Bricklayers' National Union, January 9, 1871
      8. 8. Editorial Against the Bricklayers' Stand on the Race Question
      9. 9. Laborers' Strike Settled
      10. 10. Resolutions of the National Labor Union Convention, 1871
      11. 11. The Eight–Hour Demonstration in New York
      12. 12. Negro Hate Triumphant
      13. 13. More Convict Labor Wanted
      14. 14. Procession in Nashville
      15. 15. Women of Color
      16. 16. Memorial Parade in New York
      17. 17. The Apprentice Question
      18. 18. Interrogatory
      19. 19. International Workingmen's Meeting, I
      20. 20. International Workingmen's Meeting, II
      21. 21. The Internationals – John McMakin's Address
      22. 22. To the International Society
      23. 23. The Colored National Labor Union and the Labor Reform Party
      24. 24. Closed Against Us
      25. 25. Report of Commencement Exercises at Philadelphia Institute of Colored Youth
      26. 26. Delegates to Founding Convention of the Industrial Congress
      27. 27. A Mechanic's Ideas
      28. 28. Colored Labor
      29. 29. Negroes Working the Coal Mines
      30. 30. Negro Competition
      31. 31. Coal Miners' Strike
      32. 32. From Kentucky
      33. 33. "Turned Out Upon the Charity of the World"
      34. 34. Our Colored Brothers in the South
      35. 35. Capitalistic Press
      36. 36. Convict Labor in Georgia
      37. 37. Adolph Douai's Suggestion to the International Labor Union
      38. 38. "Ignorant, Docile and Peaceable"
      39. 39. Labor in the South
      40. 40. House Committee Testimony
    2. The Labor League
      1. 41. Address of the Central Council of the Labor League of the United States to His Excellency Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States
  24. IX: The Black Exodus
  25. Part IX: The Black Exodus
    1. The Exodus of Black Labor from the South
      1. 1. The Negro Emigration Movement
      2. 2. Contract for Agricultural Laborers, Alabama, 1874
      3. 3. Resolution Adopted by Negro Convention – Montgomery, Alabama, December 1, 1874
      4. 4. Deluded Negroes
      5. 5. The Labor Question in the South
      6. 6. "150,000 Exiles Enrolled For Liberia"
      7. 7. Richard H. Cain to Hon. Wm. Coppinger
      8. 8. The Labor Question South
      9. 9. The Land That Gives Birth to Freedom
      10. 10. W. P. B. Pinchback Describes the Exodus
      11. 11. An Appeal for Aid
      12. 12. Leaving Misery Behind
      13. 13. Why Blacks are Emigrating
      14. 14. Urging the Negroes to Move
      15. 15. The Southern Fugitives
      16. 16. The Western Exodus
      17. 17. The Southern Refugees
      18. 18. Freedom in Kansas
      19. 19. Colored Labor in the South
      20. 20. Report of the Committee on Address to the National Conference of Colored Men of the United States, May, 1879
      21. 21. Negro Colonization
      22. 22. The Negro's New Bondage
      23. 23. Southern Labor Troubles
      24. 24. An Englishman's Perceptions of Blacks in Kansas City
      25. 25. Colored Immigrants in Kansas
      26. 26. Blacks in the West
      27. 27. The Appeal from Kansas
      28. 28. The Colored Refugees
      29. 29. The Tide of Colored Emigration
      30. 30. The Exodus to Liberia
      31. 31. Wrongs of the Colored Race
      32. 32. The Arkansas Refugees, I
      33. 33. The Arkansas Refugees, II
      34. 34. The Arkansas Refugees, III
      35. 35. The Exodus Question
      36. 36. Testimony of Henry Adams Before the Select Committee of the United States Senate.
      37. 37. Nicodemus
      38. 38. "The Advance Guard of the Exodus"
      39. 39. Labor in the Far South
      40. 40. Interview with Sojourner Truth
  26. Notes
  27. Index

REFERENCES TO THE 1873 ALABAMA NEGRO LABOR CONVENTION

11. THE LABOR CONVENTION

The colored folks held a meeting this week to select delegates to attend a Labor Convention. We understand the question of future wages was discussed, and that the conclusions reached was, that field hands should demand one dollar per day.

We want to see labor fairly compensated, and we have no objection to field hands receiving the wages they ask; provided, they can find employment at such rates and earn them. But it strikes us that just at this time our colored friends might be more profitably employed considering where they are to find employment next year? It is a poor time to strike for higher wages, when the demand for labor is decreasing, and tens of thousands of laborers North and South, are being discharged from employment. A man has a right to fix the price of his services; and another has a right to employ him or not, as he pleases.—Livingston Journal.

The Convention met at the Capital yesterday and its proceedings will be given to the public, as far as we are able to get them. The remarks of the Livingston Journal are exceedingly pertinent and are worthy of the serious consideration of the members of the Convention.

Montgomery Advertiser and Mail, November 11, 1873.

12. PLAN TO ORGANIZE LABOR COUNCILS

The negro Labor Convention met yesterday pursuant to adjournment.

The Committee on the Condition of the Colored People reported that the Colored people of the State were deprived of the free enjoyment of all their rights as citizens, and recommended the passage of Mr. Sumner’s Civil Rights Bill by Congress and a similar bill by the Alabama Legislature.

A resolution inviting Jas. T. Rapier and B. S. Turner to address the Convention was adopted.

The Committee on Local Organizations, in obedience to a resolution of instructions, reported a plan of organization for Labor Councils for each county. The plan provided for the election of an agent for the State at large, and one for each Congressional District, and for the appointment of an agent for each county by the President of the Convention, to organize Councils in each county.

The report of the Committee was adopted. There was considerable excitement in the contest for Agent for the State at Large, the candidates being William V. Turner and Laddie Williams. After a great deal of electioneering and changing of votes during the call of the roll, the Secretary finally announced the result as thirty–four votes for Turner and thirty for Williams.

Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and Mail, November 14, 1873.

13. WHAT DOES MR. SPENCER MEAN?

The attention of the people has already been called to the following mysterious dispatch sent by Mr. Geo. E. Spencer, claiming to be a United States Senator from Alabama to the Negro Labor Convention which has been in a sort of Bedlam Session at the Capital for several days past. It reads as follows:64

I regret my inability to attend and participate in your Convention to–day. My feelings and sympathies are with you and your cause. I am opposed to all monopolies, and particularly to the Land Monopoly that to–day curses the South. GEO. E. SPENCER.

The jargon of the writer of this furious communication must have some intended meaning. Until Mr. SPENCER “rises to explain,” we have a right to put upon its language what appears to us to be its obvious construction. It is simply an incendiary document. It denounces the titles and possession of the lands of the State, in the hands of those holding lawful deeds and patents for the same, as an unjustifiable and outrageous monopoly! His sentiments indicate an effort to cast odium on the deeds of possession of the planters and all others holding lands in Alabama, and are designed to encourage the negroes not to labor contentedly for fair wages upon the lands, but to envy their possessors, and even to regard them, in some sense, as a set of Monopolistic Tyrants depriving the negroes of something they themselves should enjoy. He can have no reference, of course, to the large body of Public lands in the State still opened to the settlement of white and black men indiscriminately. His allusion is distinctly to the private lawful possessions of the planters, and he regards their tenures consecrated by the law itself as an odious Land Monopoly. Had such a dispatch been addressed to a Convention of Planters and Landowners in either South, Middle or North Alabama, it would have been arrogant and insulting, but it would, in that case, have been addressed to a body of men having the right to consider the subject. But he well knows the sentiments entertained by the negroes toward the white land owners of the State, and he deliberately attempts to stimulate that hostile sentiment for his own base political purpose. He has already greatly injured the landowners of Alabama, and aided in a large degree to bring the poor, stupid negroes to the door of starvation. The sentiment of distrust and hatred of the great body of the white people of the Commonwealth, such wicked politicians as SPENCER have bred and fixed in their ignorant minds, may be distinctly seen in the spirit of the verbiage employed by WILLIAMS, the Chairman to President GRANT, begging for “rations” during this winter. We give an extract from that Report.

Therefore your committee do urge upon the delegates to this Convention the adoption of the memorial herewith presented. Your committee would respectfully inform the Convention that without the adoption of the memorial, that many of us, in all portions of the State, will be left in a starving condition, which will necessarily compel many of us to emigrate to other States, which would leave many of our friends in the hands and control of their political enemies, for the reason of their inability to emigrate from county to county, more less from State to State. Knowing the members of this Convention to be the people’s representatives from all parts of the State, knowing the wishes of the people, your committee hope the following memorial will be unanimously adopted by this Convention, and properly signed and forwarded to the executive department at Washington.

Respectfully submitted,

A. E. WILLIAMS, Ch’n.

It will be observed that the Negro Labor Convention, this WILLIAMS, the Chairman of the Committee on Memorial, regard themselves as “the people” of the State, and Mr. SPENCER’S “Land Monopolists,” as their “political enemies.” It is to a strictly Negro Convention in its officers, organization and delegates, that the so–called Senator sends his Land Monopoly denunciations. No one can reasonably entertain a doubt that any Land owner in Alabama who has lands for sale would sell to an African and be glad to do it for a proper price. No one has ever refused to do so to our knowledge. Mr. SPENCER must also know this. If he means that the land owners should give the negro laborers their lands, his appeal should have been made to those who are expected to do such a profitless and disinterested thing. In this sense is it not, when addressed to the Capitol Labor gathering, the baldest kind of demagoguism? The negroes at the Capitol all taken together do not own two hundred acres of land. They have no land to give away. Mr. SPENCER knows that they can settle under the provisions of the laws of the United States on the Government lands, and that they can purchase lands from private individuals provided they will present the price. He makes no suggestion to the land-owners to give for either charitable or economical reasons, a portion of their property to the blacks. But he denounces the landowners by plain and designed inference, as Monopolists, to the landless negro laborers! There can be but one construction put upon this impudent and ill–timed despatch. For especial reasons of his own Mr. GEO. E. SPENCER revives the old ridiculous idea of “Forty acres and a mule.”

It is for this poor creature—to make him Senator from Alabama in the Congress of the United States—that a number of the Landholders of Alabama helped the negroes last year to bring the present State Administration into power. It was SPENCER who ruled the Nominating Convention and fashioned the ticket, and all to elect himself Senator. It was SPENCER who brought troops into the State during the election. It was SPENCER who brought money into the State and bribed “loyal claimants” and instigated Kuklux prosecutions, and caused citizens of Alabama to be immured in a Northern penitentiary. It was SPENCER that an Insurrection against the rightful Legislature of the State was aided and abetted by LEWIS, the Governor of Alabama, at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars! It was for GEORGE E. SPENCER several “land Monopolists,” native Alabamians, or men identified with the State by long residence, voted in a Court House room in this city, in the face of all propriety and in contempt of the laws and dignity of the State, for Senator of the United States from Alabama! They are now well repaid for their criminal folly.

Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and Mail, November 15, 1873.

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