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  Nonetheless, the IWA continued its efforts into the next decade and eventually managed to establish union locals in Lake Charles, Zimmerman, Long Leaf, Castor, Clayton, Alexandria, Eunice, and Tallulah. In June 1952 union members at the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company in Tallulah opened negotiations with their employers, asking for a 9¢ wage increase, paid holidays, and insurance benefits. Receiving no relief from the company, they went on strike at the end of October and stayed out for two weeks. This action gained them a 2.5¢ wage increase, and further negotiations in September 1953 yielded another increase of 3.5¢.62

  As small as such gains were, they were more than most business and political leaders were willing to concede. Throughout the decade employers, local officials, and state legislators discouraged unionization in Louisiana. Foremen at the Bentley Lumber mill in Zimmerman hired only those job applicants who agreed not to join the union. Lumber operators in Eunice and Winnfield threatened to fire workers or evict them from company-owned homes if they were spotted at union meetings. In 1953 plantation owners in southern Louisiana responded to a strike by sugar workers belonging to the National Agricultural Workers’ Union (NAWU) by cutting off utility services to the homes of the families involved, issuing eviction notices, and (assisted by the police) violently attacking union members. The strike was crushed after planters obtained a court order preventing the union from picketing or any other activity.63

  Plantation owners also lent their formidable organizational power to lobbying efforts to gain passage of a state right-to-work law. The AFBF had consistently opposed compulsory unionism, arguing that labor leaders were “more interested in a contest for personal and political power and a reckless race for dues” than in workers’ welfare. In 1947 the Taft-Hartley Act weakened the labor movement by outlawing closed shops (workplaces where only union members could be employed), but the AFBF continued to push for the abolition of union shops (where employees were required to join a union after being hired) as well. A resolution adopted at its annual meeting in 1952 stated: “State laws guaranteeing the right to work should be enforced. States which have not done so should be encouraged to enact legislation guaranteeing the right to work.”64

  Following the 1953 sugar strike, the Louisiana Farm Bureau took over the state's right-to-work campaign “lock, stock, and money bag,” according to one source.65 Farm Bureau president Malcolm Dougherty assumed the chairmanship of the Louisiana Right to Work Council when it was formed in April 1954 and set about trying to convince legislators that the law was necessary to prevent “strikes and violence” from harming the state's industry, farming, and business interests. The right-to-work campaign received widespread support from planters and business owners, and police juries in several parishes endorsed the measure. A few months later, conservative governor Robert Kennon signed the legislation into law. Labor leaders led a successful campaign to repeal the act in 1956, but only after making a compromise with powerful senators from the sugar parishes that meant agricultural workers were not freed from its restrictions. At the same time that the state's politicians passed the bill repealing the original legislation, they enacted a separate right-to-work law covering agricultural workers only.66

  Along with legislative attacks, opponents of the labor movement manipulated racism to discourage white workers from joining unions. Anti-union employers and politicians emphasized the CIO's support for black civil rights, arguing that the organization was as great a threat to southern racial hierarchies as the NAACP. After the Supreme Court's historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declaring school segregation unconstitutional, it was not difficult to incite white southerners to a state of panic on the race issue. A CIO representative in Louisiana reported that “statements connecting us with the N.A.A.C.P. and the segregation fight in this state” were being used to divide white and black workers, adding to the already difficult task of union organizing.67 Throughout the South in the 1950s employers and politicians used the race-baiting tactic very effectively to hinder unionization in their states.68

  In a detailed analysis undertaken in 1956, agricultural union organizer H. L. Mitchell outlined the relationship between racism and antilabor elements in the South. Some of the strongest opposition to black civil rights and federal intervention came from the southern elite, including plantation owners, lawyers, bankers, industrialists, judges, and politicians. Many prominent segregationists were also active in efforts to prevent union organizing in their states. In Louisiana, former Right-to-Work Councils provided the basis for the formation of white supremacist groups like the White Citizens’ Councils, the Southern Gentlemen, and the Ku Klux Klan. Racist rhetoric threatened to splinter the fragile coalitions that working-class white and black people had forged during the 1930s and 1940s. In areas where the Klan and Citizens Councils had established themselves, Mitchell noted, it was becoming increasingly difficult to organize unions. He concluded that white political and economic leaders aimed to destroy not just the civil rights movement, but the labor movement as well.69

  In addition to exposing the connections between civil rights and labor organizations, conservatives sought to equate both of these social movements with communism. Opponents of the freedom struggle pointed out that some union organizers and civil rights activists were or had been members of the Communist Party, arguing that these people were taking their orders from Soviet leaders who aimed to foment civic unrest to prepare the United States for invasion. An editorial printed in two Louisiana newspapers explained that the best way to destroy a nation was to divide its people—by encouraging “racial controversy,” for example, or attacking the Constitution “under the guise of protecting minorities.”70 Conservative propaganda conflated labor unions, the NAACP, and communism into one massive subversive threat, discouraging people who might otherwise have been sympathetic toward the struggle from lending their support.71 Anticommunism also created dissension within the movement, as liberals tried to distance themselves from radicals whose presence made organizations vulnerable to attack. Unions and civil rights groups purged communists from their ranks in an effort to ensure respectability, leading to the loss of many dedicated and experienced members that progressive causes could ill afford.72

  Southern segregationists capitalized on the repressive political climate to attack the NAACP. In 1956 Louisiana attorney general Fred LeBlanc charged that communists had infiltrated the organization and attempted to force local branches to make their membership lists public by invoking an old law that had been passed to combat Klan activity in the 1920s. NAACP leaders refused to reveal members’ names for fear of making them vulnerable to reprisals by white supremacists. A state court then enjoined the NAACP from operating in Louisiana until the membership lists were disclosed. Though they could not meet openly, local people maintained support for civil rights activity by sending money to the national office and establishing alternative organizations to continue the struggle in their own communities. With the state threatening further legal action unless the NAACP filed its membership lists by 31 December, a few branches complied with the attorney general's request. Fear of reprisals caused many people to withdraw from open affiliation with the NAACP. Between 1955 and 1957 membership in Louisiana dropped from 13,190 to 1,698, and most branches outside of the major cities disintegrated. At the end of the decade one report stated that the NAACP had been “grievously injured to the extent of almost total extinction” by legislative proceedings, economic reprisals, and other forms of intimidation against its members and supporters.73

  In the late 1950s and early 1960s white supremacists rolled back many of the gains in voter registration that black Louisianans had made in the post-war years. The Citizens’ Councils began a campaign to purge African Americans from the rolls by challenging the registration of “unqualified” people, pressuring registrars to administer the literacy and constitutional interpretation tests more stringently, and intimidating black people to discourage them from attempting to register. In April 1956 Da
niel Byrd reported: “Make no mistake about it the Citizen's Council[s] are following the pattern instituted by the White South during reconstruction. . . . Unless we can stop them, in the next several months almost all Negroes will be disfranchised in Louisiana.” Byrd's prediction came close to being realized in East Feliciana Parish, where registrar Charles S. Kilbourne was ordered to join the local Citizens’ Council or lose his job. Kilbourne resigned from the position rather than comply with the request, and in 1958 council leaders replaced him with Henry E. Palmer. The Citizens’ Council then challenged the registration of every voter in the parish, forcing people to reregister. Many residents failed to pass the tests Palmer administered, and within two years the number of black people registered in East Feliciana dropped from 1,361 to 82. Statewide, the Citizens’ Councils succeeded in removing more than 15,000 African Americans from the rolls between 1956 and 1959.74

  The purges of black voters were part of the councils’ campaign of massive resistance to school desegregation, an effort that received support from state and local officials as well as thousands of white activists across the state. Political leaders and newspaper editors condemned the Supreme Court's Brown decision, complaining that it violated the rights of state governments to manage their own internal affairs and predicting civil unrest if the federal government tried to force southerners to integrate. Louisiana congressman F. Edward Hebert stated: “The decision of the supreme court has set race relations back in the south 50 years and it is definitely a blow against those of us who sincerely believe in proper race relations. . . . Now a seed has been planted for the renewal of strife and which will generate unnecessary hatred and prejudice.”75

  Immediately after the Court's ruling was announced, Louisiana legislators indicated their intention not to comply with the law. House representatives voted 84–3 to continue segregation in the schools and created the Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation to study ways to circumvent Brown. Between 1954 and 1961, following suggestions by the committee, Louisiana officials enacted no fewer than eighty laws designed to prevent school desegregation. The new measures included a system of pupil placement by superintendents, educational grants for parents of children wishing to attend private academies, a requirement that all students entering public colleges and universities be certified as having “good moral character” by a principal or superintendent, and a law allowing parish authorities to close public schools to avoid integration. Perhaps the most ingenious piece of legislation was an act invoking the state's police power to maintain separate schools “to promote and protect public health, morals, better education, and peace and good order in the state and not because of race.”76

  The lengths that white people were prepared to go to protect their children's “health” and “morals” were made clear to African Americans in St. Helena Parish after the NAACP filed a school desegregation suit there in 1952. Officials first tried to persuade the plaintiffs to content themselves with the equalization of facilities instead of pushing for integration and offered five members of the group ten thousand dollars each to supervise the building of a new school. Lawyers for the school board then asked federal judge J. Skelly Wright to allow them extra time to file a reply to the suit while they waited to see how the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown case. When no progress had been made by June 1955, A. P. Tureaud wrote to Attorney General LeBlanc requesting a move toward the desegregation of schools in St. Helena Parish in accordance with the federal law. No action was taken except that the Joint Committee on Segregation met to discuss ways to block the NAACP's efforts.77

  Having failed to bribe the plaintiffs to abandon the lawsuit, the school board next tried intimidation. Parish officials rescinded black teacher Lucille Overton Johnson's appointment for the coming session because her father, Fred Overton, was a party to the lawsuit. The brother of another plaintiff was fired from his job as a janitor, and the superintendent visited others who were involved in the case and advised them to withdraw. In July, a group of white supremacists established a chapter of the Southern Gentlemen in St. Helena Parish, adding to the pressure on the black families who had instigated the suit. Southern Gentlemen chairman N. H. Singleton threatened Fred Overton, warning him that he might be physically harmed if he continued to press for school desegregation. Reminding Overton of the recent murders of some black activists in Mississippi, Singleton stated, “you know about the Ku Klux Klan well we are the same as the Klan.” Daniel Byrd reported on these developments in August, concluding, “Some Negroes are in fear, great fear for their lives.”78

  Others, like black landowner John Henry Hall, were not so afraid. Several members of the Hall family remembered the night their father received a visit from some white men who wanted to know if it was true that he planned to send his children to St. Helena Parish's white schools. On learning that this was indeed the case, the men said, “We want you to know that we will wade neck-deep in blood before we see that.” Hall replied, “Well, y'all get your wading boots ‘cos mine's coming.” Hall was an active member of the local NAACP branch and carried a loaded gun with him whenever he traveled to civil rights meetings. When white vigilantes shot into their home, the Halls returned their fire. Lawrence Hall explained, “We never was afraid because we knew how to use ammunition just like they did.”79

  For farmers like John Henry Hall, owning firearms had been a normal part of rural life throughout the twentieth century. After World War II, the practice spread, especially among people who were involved in the emerging civil rights movement. In 1950 LCTA president J. K. Haynes decided to purchase a weapon after a white service station owner beat him over the head for drinking at the wrong water fountain. Haynes recalled, “I was crazy, and I went to Monroe that day and bought the biggest pistol I could find to go back and shoot that sleazy white man.” After calming down, he decided against the action, but he kept his .45 automatic in case of further trouble. Activists in Madison Parish also armed themselves in this decade, as did those in Pointe Coupee Parish. In 1956 the Opelousas Daily World reported that white people in one Baton Rouge neighborhood had announced their intention to shoot any black child who dared to enter their school, and that there had been “reports of Negroes storing guns and ammunition.”80

  The use of armed self-defense in the early civil rights movement was not unique to black activists in Louisiana. In her study of an averted lynching in Columbia, Tennessee, in 1946, Gail Williams O'Brien notes that one reason for the failure of mob violence in this case was that African Americans in the community organized and armed themselves to protect the young war veteran whose life was threatened. O'Brien suggests that increasing militancy among African Americans and a growing determination to defend themselves from violence contributed to the decline of lynching after World War II. Similarly, in the 1950s Robert Williams of North Carolina organized his local NAACP branch into an armed militia to deter attacks by the Ku Klux Klan. Though his actions brought him into conflict with the NAACP's national leadership and eventually led to his expulsion from the organization, Williams and many other local activists throughout the South remained convinced that armed self-defense was a legitimate tactic in the freedom struggle.81

  Returning World War II and Korean War veterans contributed to the increasing use of armed self-defense in the postwar decades.82 At the same time that former soldiers’ economic resources helped to power the civil rights movement, their military expertise helped to protect participants from violence. Robert Lewis recalled that the first time he saw African Americans in Concordia Parish make a stand against injustice was in the 1950s, when the black citizens of Ferriday organized to defend themselves against a police attack on their community. They had angered a deputy by taking a flashlight he had broken on a black man's head, hiding it, and refusing to give it back to him since they planned to use it as evidence in a lawsuit against the policeman. According to Lewis, the deputy called the other members of the police force together and they went downtown to administer punishment, but when
they got there, “On both sides of that street . . . it was loaded with blacks . . . and they didn't have sticks and bottles—they had guns.” The law enforcement officers of Ferriday decided to leave the black people alone.83

  Meanwhile, developments at the national level were moving in a somewhat different direction. In 1955 and 1956 a year-long boycott of segregated buses by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, received widespread publicity and resulted in the formation of a new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by the charismatic Martin Luther King Jr. Inspired by Mohondas Gandhi's use of “passive resistance” in the struggle to free India from British colonial rule, King articulated an approach to the problem of racism that he hoped would gnaw at the consciences of white Americans and force them to end discrimination. Taking as its motto “To Redeem the Soul of America,” the SCLC aimed to expose the contradictions between the nation's expressed ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality and the actual treatment of black people in the United States.84