A Different Day Read online

  A Different Day

  A Different Day

  African American Struggles for Justice in Rural Louisiana, 1900–1970

  Greta de Jong

  THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

  Chapel Hill and London

  © 2002 The University of North Carolina Press

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz and set in Century Expanded type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

  The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  De Jong, Greta.

  A different day : African American struggles for justice in rural Louisiana,

  1900–1970 / Greta de Jong.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-8078-2711-8 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8078-5379-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. African Americans—Civil rights—Louisiana—History—20th century. 2. Civil

  rights movements—Louisiana—History—20th century. 3. African American

  civil rights workers—Louisiana—History—20th century. 4. African Americans—

  Louisiana—Politics and government—20th century. 5. African Americans—

  Louisiana—Social conditions—20th century. 6. Rural population—Louisiana—

  History—20th century. 7. Louisiana—Race relations. 8. Louisiana—Rural

  conditions. 9. Louisiana—Politics and government. I. Title.

  E185.93.L6 D38 2002

  323.1’1960730763’0904—dc21 2001057824

  cloth 06 05 04 03 02 5 4 3 2 1

  paper 06 05 04 03 02 5 4 3 2 1

  For mum and dad

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Abbreviations

  Introduction

  1 And Did Not Pay Them a Cent: Reconstruction and the Roots of the Twentieth-Century Freedom Struggle

  2 Our Plight Here Is Bad: The Limits of Protest in a New South Plantation Economy

  3 They Will Not Fight in the Open: Strategies of Resistance in the Jim Crow Era

  4 We Feel You All Aut to Help Us: Struggles for Citizenship, 1914–1929

  5 With the Aid of God and the F.S.A.: The Louisiana Farmers’ Union and the Freedom Struggle in the New Deal Era

  6 I Am an American Born Negro: Black Empowerment and White Responses during World War II

  7 The Social Order Have Changed: The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1960

  8 To Provide Leadership and an Example: The Congress of Racial Equality and Local People in the 1960s

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Illustrations, Tables, and Maps

  Illustrations

  Children picking cotton, location unknown, n.d. 26

  Women cutting sugarcane, Baton Rouge, April 1939 28

  “Home of a negro plantation worker,” New Roads, Louisiana, October 1938 30

  Plantation store and post office, Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940 37

  Bar and juke joint, Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940 44

  African American family moving, Opelousas, Louisiana, October 1938 47

  Rosenwald school under construction, Millikens Bend, Louisiana, n.d. 51

  Inside a plantation worker’s home, Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940 54

  Civilian Conservation Corps camp, location unknown, n.d. 89

  Adult literacy class, Louisiana, 1938 91

  African American company of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, Fort Des Moines, Iowa, May 1943 123

  Black laborers awaiting transport, Camp Livingston, Louisiana, December 1940 124

  National defense training program, Baton Rouge, 1941 131

  Workers on a lunch break at Higgins shipyard, New Orleans, June 1943 133

  Cultivators with mules and drivers, Schriever, Louisiana, June 1940 147

  Cultivating sugarcane with tractor and driver, Schriever, Louisiana, June 1940 147

  Tables

  2.1 African American Farm Operators in Louisiana, 1910 and 1930 25

  4.1 African American Migration in Louisiana during World War I 72

  6.1 African American Migration in Louisiana during World War II 120

  6.2 African American Farm Operators in Louisiana, 1940–1960 137

  7.1 African American Employment in Louisiana, 1940–1960 154

  Maps

  I.1 Parishes, Principal Cities, and Rivers of Louisiana 3

  1.1 African American Population as a Percentage of Total Population in Louisiana Parishes, 1900 12

  1.2 Agricultural Regions of Louisiana, 1900–1930 14

  Acknowledgments

  I am profoundly indebted to all of the freedom fighters who allowed me to interview them for this project: Ronnie Sigal Bouma, Harrison and Earnestine Brown, Wilbert Guillory, Clifton Hall, Eual Hall, John Henry Hall, Lawrence Hall, Lorin Hall, Eunice Hall Harris, Robert and Essie Mae Lewis, Eunice Paddio-Johnson, Meg Redden, Clarence Reed, Lola Stall-worth, Martin Williams, Moses Williams, and John Zippert. Their courage, intelligence, and insights contributed enormously to black people’s struggles for justice in Louisiana and to this book.

  As with the freedom movement itself, economic factors played a significant part in shaping the possibilities and final results of my work. The Department of History and the Research and Graduate Studies Office at the Pennsylvania State University provided funding that helped me to complete much of the research for this project. Writing the first few drafts was greatly facilitated by a two-year predoctoral fellowship awarded by the Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. The J. N. G. Finley postdoctoral fellowship at George Mason University enabled me to work on revising the manuscript for publication, and some additional funds provided by the Department of History assisted in further research. At the turn of the millennium, a visiting assistant professorship at the University of Nevada, Reno, saved me from deportation just as my visa was due to expire and I thought my world was going to end. I am very grateful for the financial support I received from all of these institutions.

  I will never be able to repay my debt to the commissary of my dissertation adviser and friend, Professor Nan Elizabeth Woodruff. I thank her with all my heart for her strong encouragement, rigorous criticisms, outrageous jokes and stories, and home-cooked meals. Thanks also to the other members of my doctoral committee, Professors Gary Cross, Thavolia Glymph, Daniel Letwin, and Clyde Woods, who carefully read the initial versions of this book and offered many thoughtful suggestions for improvement. Professor Charles Payne of Duke University made time in his busy schedule to serve as a special member on my committee, and his comments and assistance were greatly appreciated.

  It is hard to imagine a more supportive environment than the one I enjoyed in the Department of History at the Pennsylvania State University during my graduate years. Faculty and fellow graduate students alike warmly welcomed me into their community, making the 6,700 mile separation from my Pacific island homeland much easier to endure than it might have been. When I left Pennsylvania, I never thought I would be so fortunate again—yet, incredibly, I was. Since 1997 I have relocated to a different university and a different part of the country almost every year, and every time I have found myself once more among extremely likable, generous, humorous, and inspiring colleagues. Through both formal seminars and informal conversations over coffee or lunch, their ideas and suggestions have helped to shape my thinking and contributed to the analysis presented in this book. Thank you Bill and Mary A
nn Blair, Clarissa and John Confer, Gary and Eileen Gallagher, Charles (Middleton) Holden, Isabel Knight, Lynn Vacca, and Melissa Westrate at the Pennsylvania State University; Eve Agee, Reginald Butler, Lisa Lindquist Dorr, Scott French, John Gennari, Natasha Gray, Andrew Lewis, Rolland Murray, Vânia Penha-Lopes, Ian Strachan, Lisa Severson Swales, Phillip Troutman, and Robert Vinson at the Woodson Institute; Jack and Jane Censer, John Cheng, Robert DeCaroli, Matthew Karush, Alison Landsberg, Lawrence Levine, Roy Rosenzweig, Suzanne Smith, and Jeffrey Stewart at George Mason University; Scott Casper, Linda Curcio, Richard Davies, Andy Donson, Dennis Dworkin, Jerome Edwards, Frank Hartigan, Martha Hildreth, Carolyn Knapp, Bruce Moran, Elizabeth Raymond, Bill Rowley, Hugh Shapiro, Kevin Stevens, and Barbara Walker at the University of Nevada, Reno; and John Buenker, Frank Egerton, Laura Gellott, Jerry Greenfield, Oliver Hayward, and Steve Meyer at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Very special thanks to Mary Hebert at Louisiana State University, who assisted greatly with logistical matters during my research trips to Louisiana and who generously shared with me ideas and sources that grew out of her project on the civil rights movement in Baton Rouge.

  I could not have asked for better administrative support than I received from the staffs of the universities where I worked, especially those whose jobs involved dealing with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service on my behalf. In addition to answering my many questions and processing paperwork, some of them had to help me out of bureaucratic tangles more than once. If I could, I would give them all huge raises. My profound thanks to Maureen Costello, Karen Ebeling, Darla Franks, Lynn Moyer, Linda Ni-hart, Judy Shawley, and Karin Weaver at the Pennsylvania State University; Mary Farrer and Gail Shirley-Warren at the Woodson Institute; Julia Friedheim and Elizabeth Spencer at George Mason University; Debbie Hammersmith and Margaret Hellwarth at the University of Nevada, Reno; and Cheryl Gundersen and Luella Vines at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

  Librarians and archivists at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Amistad Research Center and the Howard Tilton Library at Tulane University, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Hill Memorial Library at Louisiana State University, the New Orleans Public Library, the Earl K. Long Library at the University of New Orleans, the Center for Regional Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University, the Louisiana State Archives, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Headquarters, the National Agricultural Library, the Southern Labor Archives at Georgia State University, and the Fisk University Library Special Collections Department were universally helpful, often offering valuable advice and assistance as I searched for materials related to my work. In addition to allowing me access to their collections of taped interviews, archivists at the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at Louisiana State University provided the recording equipment and guidance that enabled me to conduct my own. Staff members of the interlibrary loan services of Pattee Library at the Pennsylvania State University and Alderman Library at the University of Virginia displayed considerable tolerance in processing my requests for endless reels of microfilm and in helping me to track down obscure references.

  I am deeply grateful to Pete Daniel of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., as well as the anonymous reviewers for the University of North Carolina Press, for reading and commenting on various versions of the manuscript as it made its way to publication. Thanks also to the editors and production staff who helped to guide me in this process; David Perry, Mark Simpson-Vos, and Paula Wald made this experience less intimidating than I thought it would be, and their patience and understanding were much appreciated as I tried to meet deadlines in between job hunting, preparing courses, and moving from Virginia to Nevada to Wisconsin in the space of two years. Stevie Champion did an excellent job as copy-editor, eliminating many ill-phrased sentences in addition to ensuring consistency in the citations and slashing the number of endnotes in half.

  Throughout my long exile in the United States, family and friends back home in New Zealand have helped me through periods of culture shock and homesickness, keeping me in touch with my kiwi roots through their letters, e-mail messages, and phone calls. My parents, Daphne and Keith de Jong, have supported and encouraged everything I have chosen to do, despite the years of separation this has meant. Lisette, Kris, Martin, and Kimmy de Jong remind me every time I speak to them that “car” is pronounced “cah,” not “carr”; the round things with the chocolate chips are called “biscuits,” not “cookies”; and VEGEMITE RULES. My two best buddies, Megan Claridge and Greg Locke, might have been geographically distant, but they were always present in some way when I needed them.

  To everyone back home: Although I could have done without the phone calls at 2:00 A.M., my time, I thank you all. I love you, and I miss you.

  Abbreviations

  AAA

  Agricultural Adjustment Administration

  AFBF

  American Farm Bureau Federation

  AFL

  American Federation of Labor

  ASCS

  Agricultural Soil Conservation Service

  CAP

  Community Action Program

  CCC

  Civilian Conservation Corps

  CIO

  Congress of Industrial Organizations

  CORE

  Congress of Racial Equality

  FaHA

  Farmers’ Home Administration

  FBI

  Federal Bureau of Investigation

  FEPC

  Fair Employment Practice Committee (President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice)

  FERA

  Federal Emergency Relief Administration

  FFM

  Ferriday Freedom Movement

  FSA

  Farm Security Administration

  GMVPC

  Grand Marie Vegetable Producers’ Cooperative

  IWA

  International Woodworkers of America

  LCTA

  Louisiana Colored Teachers’ Association

  LFU

  Louisiana Farmers’ Union

  MOWM

  March on Washington Movement

  NAACP

  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

  NAWU

  National Agricultural Workers’ Union

  NFU

  National Farmers’ Union (Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of America)

  NRA

  National Recovery Administration

  OEO

  Office of Economic Opportunity

  OWI

  Office of War Information

  PVL

  Progressive Voters’ League

  SAFE

  Students’ Association for Freedom and Equality

  SCC

  Southern Consumers’ Cooperative

  SCLC

  Southern Christian Leadership Conference

  SCU

  Share Croppers’ Union

  SEDFRE

  Scholarship, Education, and Defense Fund for Racial Equality

  SNCC

  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

  STFU

  Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union

  UCAPAWA

  United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America

  VEP

  Voter Education Project

  WAAC

  Women's Auxiliary Army Corps

  WAC

  Women's Army Corps

  WPA

  Works Progress Administration

  A Different Day

  Introduction

  One of the archival sources used in the research for this project was a collection of taped interviews with local black people who became involved in the civil rights movement in rural Louisiana. The interviews were conducted in 1966 by Miriam Feingold, a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who had worked with local activists on voter registration projects in the region for several yea
rs. Taking what would seem to be a logical approach, Feingold began several of the sessions by asking questions like “When did the civil rights movement begin in your community?” or “When did you first become involved in the movement?” Often, the interviewees seemed taken aback or perplexed by these inquiries—as if, to them, the questions did not make sense. Bogalusa Voters’ League leader A. Z. Young paused for a moment, then stated, “I've been involved in the movement all my life.” Zelma Wyche, a veteran of the movement in Madison Parish, referred to “a constant struggle for human rights.” Joseph Carter of West Feliciana Parish told Feingold that his cousin had been killed by some white men when he was a boy, and he had vowed then that one day he would do something “to break up this mess of the white folk shooting the colored people down like they do rabbits.”1

  Like many black people, these activists viewed the civil rights movement as part of an older, broader struggle for freedom and justice, one that they had lived in and participated in for as long as they could remember. Recent scholarship on the black freedom movement has begun to mirror this perspective, shifting our attention away from the events of the 1960s to earlier time periods and to the wide variety of strategies that African Americans used to fight their oppression.2 Zelma Wyche might well have been summarizing an emerging theme in the historiography as much as his own experiences when he told Miriam Feingold, “There were lean years when we didn't do anything, but we were constantly trying to do something.”3

  This book examines black political activism in a rural southern community over seven decades, attempting to show how earlier struggles for citizenship were related to the civil rights movement and how they were shaped by changing social conditions that, at certain times, encouraged a shift from informal resistance to organized protest. The study focuses on the northern and southeastern regions of Louisiana where CORE conducted its voter registration and community organizing efforts in the 1960s. These parishes were chosen for several reasons. Most accounts of African American strategies of resistance in the Jim Crow era have focused on urban areas, whereas black activism in the rural South before the arrival of civil rights workers has largely gone unnoticed. Black farmers in several of the parishes had been involved in union organizing activity in the 1930s, yet little was known about the Louisiana Farmers’ Union (LFU) and its role in the fight for equality. Finally, although CORE workers encountered conditions similar to those endured by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi, their activities in Louisiana have not received nearly the same amount of attention from scholars. This study therefore adds to our knowledge in several areas. In addition, by taking a longitudinal approach and by viewing events as much as possible through the eyes of local black people who lived in the region during the Jim Crow and civil rights eras, I aim to provide a new perspective on the twentieth-century freedom struggle.