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The Black Worker During the Era of the National Labor Union—Volume 2: Part VII: Black Socialism and Greenbackism

The Black Worker During the Era of the National Labor Union—Volume 2
Part VII: Black Socialism and Greenbackism
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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

VII

BLACK SOCIALISM AND GREENBACKISM

During the 1870s, the black worker was caught in the vortex of contracting alternatives. The federal government began, and finally completed, its withdrawal from the commitmemt to full equality for freedmen. As the federal government retreated from Radical racial policies, white southerners regained home rule and succeeded in all but eliminating blacks from political power. Moreover, at that very moment when black workers were most in need of white union support, those same unions became even more vigorous in excluding blacks from the ranks of the organized.

Against this general background, it is not surprising to find some blacks concluding that a major change in the American political and economic system was in order. One of the black leaders was Peter H. Clark of Cincinnati. Clark’s grandfather, William Clark, was the “Clark” of the Lewis and Clark Expedition sent by Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to explore the continent and find a route to the Pacific. In 1849 Peter Clark became a teacher in the city’s colored public schools, and after a brief flirtation with African colonization, decided to stay in Cincinnati. He launched his own newspaper in 1855, the Herald of Freedom, and in 1866 became principal of Gaines High School (colored). Although an ardent Republican prior to and during the Civil War, in the immediate post-war years Clark steadily moved to the left. In a speech delivered on March 26, 1877, Clark became the first Afro–American to identify himself publically with socialism, announcing his support for the Workingmen’s Party of the United States, the first Marxist political party in this country (Doc. 2). Peter Clark’s basic ideas are presented in Documents 1–5.

The Greenback Party emerged from a series of agrarian conventions in 1875, and pledged itself to a repeal of the resumption of specie payment act as a means for improving the farmers’ economic position. In other developments, the brutal force used to break the great strikes of 1877 taught many mechanics that some form of political action outside the traditional party structure was necessary. Consequently, workers’ parties sprang up across the country. Out of mutual necessity, they soon began to merge with the Greenback Party in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. The election returns of 1877 accelerated the formulation of a national unity platform for the farmers and the mechanics, which finally took place in Toledo, Ohio, in February 1878. Both groups agreed in principle that the economic woes of laboring men resulted from the machinations of speculators and monopolists, and they agreed upon the need to reduce the hours in a work day, and both demanded an expansion in the money supply. Yet, the alliance between Labor and the Greenbackers essentially was unstable. The Greenbackers believed that financial reform would cure all of society’s ills. On the other hand, workers wanted much more, demanding that the government operate the railroads and other public facilities upon which the unemployed would be put to work, ownership of land and prohibition of large accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few, and other goals such as the shorter work day, direct elections, and a graduated income tax. Inevitably the two groups split and by 1879 the joint Greenback-Labor movement was all but dead.

Still, here was a platform with which black workers could readily identify even if the greenback panacea aroused little interest among them. The extent to which southern blacks supported the movement is open to further study, but as historian Herbert G. Gutman has suggested (see note 71), many southern blacks undoubtedly shifted their hopes to the Greenback-Labor movement as a reaction to the Republican retreat from Radical Reconstruction. A majority of the Greenback clubs in Mississippi and Texas, for example, were probably composed of blacks. At least some of the Nationals in Arkansas and Alabama also found support among black radicals. The letters reproduced as Documents 6–35 reveal that probably more blacks than whites were attracted to the movement in Alabama. Nationals at Helena, Jefferson Mines, and Warrior Station, located in the coal fields near Birmingham, exemplified a progressive inclination for working–class solidarity among black and white coal miners who belonged to the movement.

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