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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the ’Thirties: Trends and Policies - 7. Labor Organizations
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Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 263
called Missouri Agricultural Workers Council, contained a reference to
a previous demonstration, which read:
We staged the protest in Missouri,—^not because cotton labor, is treated more
unfairly in Missouri than elsewhere. We know that is not true. We staged it in
Missouri because we had less fear of bloody violence in Missouri.^®
It seems that these organizations grow up largely because of the special
problems brought about through the A.A.A. and the decline in employ-
ment opportunities. The Southern Tenant Farmers^ Union, which is still
the main organization In the field, started around an organized attempt
of sharecroppers, in the neighborhood of Tyronza, Arkansas, to get their
share of the A.A.A. payments and to stand up for their rights not to
be displaced as a consequence of the A.A.A. program.^® Indirectly, the
results of these activities have been significant, in that the limited publicity
around them probably has contributed a great deal to induce the federal
government to take certain actions. The direct results, on the other hand,
seem not to have been important, except in individual cases. The S.T.F.U.
at the beginning of 1942 claimed a membership of 15,000 of which, how-
ever, only 2,000 were members who paid dues regularly.^^ Besides the
general handicaps of organizing Southern farm workers, mentioned a few
pages back, these organizations have been hampered by certain internal
differences, particularly between the leadership of the S.T.F.U. and the
U.C.A.P.A.W.A. The fact that whites and Negroes have been organized
together, has, of course, been a main difficulty, but the pioneers have, on
the whole, met it with success. It would seem that the most important
single difficulty in the way of these movements is the lack of a legal tra-
dition in the plantation South.*’
It is difficult to judge about the future chances of trade unionism in
the plantation South. On the one hand, the economic pressure is likely to
continue and might become aggravated. Reasons for unrest and dissatis-
faction are going to mount in the future as they did during the ^thirties.
And there are indications of a development toward greater respect for
law in the South.** In the political sphere there are reasons to expect an
increase in participation and power for the working masses.® The South
is becoming increasingly industrialized, and in its industries unionism is
pushing ahead. All these trends favor unionization even in the rural South.
On the other hand, the difficulties to be overcome, particularly in the Old
Cotton Belt where the Negroes are concentrated, are tremendous.
* A more complete story of these attempts, interesting and significant though it might be,
would deal more with such problems of law enforcement, or lack of it, that have to be
considered elsewhere in our inquiry rather than with questions more immediately related
to the social and economic conditions of the Negro in agriculture. See Part VI.
See Part VI.
*See Chapters aj and 33
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