A Different Day Read online

  29. “Ecology of East Feliciana Parish,” n.d. [ca. 1940], 7, file 5, box 225, CSJP (quotations); Neyland, “Negro in Louisiana,” 78; Anderson, Education of Blacks in the South, 153–56.

  30. Palmer, “Evolution of Education,” 29.

  31. Laws, “Negroes of Cinclare Central Factory,” 117; Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding Courage, 138 (Ruth Cherry); James C. Scott, Moral Economy of the Peasant, 240. See also Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, 189–212, 418–29, and “Moral Economy of the English Crowd.”

  32. “Some Cultural Traits of Louisiana Families,” n.d. [ca. 1940], 15, file 8, box 226, CSJP.

  33. Frazier, Negro Church in America, 46; Johnson, Louisiana Educational Survey, 26; E. W. Grant, “Social Agencies,” n.d. [ca. 1940], 3–5, file 8, box 226, CSJP.

  34. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 326–28; Saxon, Dreyer, and Tallant, Gumbo Ya-Ya, 483–84 (quotation).

  35. “Some Cultural Traits of Louisiana Families,” n.d. [1940], 14–17, file 8, box 226, CSJP; E. W. Grant, “Social Agencies,” n.d. [ca. 1940], 3–5, ibid. For a useful discussion of the black church's dual role as an agent of social control and social change, see Williams, “A Mighty Fortress.”

  36. Wilkie, Ethnicity, Community, and Power, 83; Sepia Socialite, Negro in Louisiana, 89; “Women's 4th Dist. Home Mission Baptist Association,” 26 July 1938, 148, file 11–6, reel PP2.9, RTC; “50 Year History of the Knights and Ladies of Peter Claver,” Claverite, November–December 1959, 12, file 38, box 6, APTP.

  37. “Types of Organizations Engaging Interest and Participation of Rural Negro Families in Louisiana,” n.d. [ca. 1940], file 10, box 226, CSJP (quotation, p. 12).

  38. Muraskin, Middle-Class Blacks, 123–32; Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 268; Lewis, In Their Own Interests, 70–73; Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 4–13; Beito, “Black Fraternal Hospitals,” 112–13; [Constitution], St. Mary Parish Benevolent Society, [23] October 1891, file 1, box 1, DTP; Oshinsky, “Worse Than Slavery,” 127, 131; Rebecca Field, Promissory Note, 5 September 1898, file 1, box 1, DTP; Record Book, 1922–24, Bethel Baptist Church Records, HML.

  39. “The Negro,” Madison Journal, 28 April 1928, 2.

  40. W. T. Meade Grant Jr. to FDR, 20 March 1934, and enclosed petition, file “158260 Sub 10, 2-12-34-4-15-34,” box 1278, SNF. These connections are discussed in more detail in Chapters 5 and 7. See also Speech Delivered by Daniel E. Byrd at the [NAACP] National Convention, 27 June 1946, 5, additions file, box 8, DEBP; Fairclough, Race and Democracy, 69–72; Beito, “Black Fraternal Hospitals,” 123–24; and Muraskin, Middle-Class Blacks, 219–36.

  41. Unknown author to NAACP, n.d. [ca. 1921], frame 0418, reel 12, ser. A, pt. 7, PNAACP—Micro.

  42. Walter White to John Garibaldi Sargent, 26 January 1926, frames 0755–56, reel 11, PFUS.

  43. D. W. Taylor to NAACP, 11 August 1934, frames 0096–98, reel 12, ser. A, pt. 7, PNAACP—Micro; Bond and Bond, Star Creek Papers, 122–26.

  44. Similar incidents are reported in “Man Hunt Starts for Negro Slayer,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 4 July 1914, 1; “Tie Negro to Auto, Then Throw on Speed,” ibid., 6 August 1914, 7; “Two More Deaths Added to Long List,” ibid., 10 August 1914, 12; “I. H. Cain Stabbed by Negro,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 9 April 1921, 3; “C. E. Speed Is Shot by Negro,” Madison Journal, 15 March 1924, 1, 4; “Bad Negro Captured,” St. Francisville Democrat, 1 December 1934, 3; “Negro Attacks White Farmer of Woodside in Palmetto Friday,” Opelousas Clarion-News, 1 August 1935, 3; “Four Negroes Convicted,” newspaper clipping, source unknown, n.d. [January 1936], frame 0013, reel 12, ser. A, pt. 7, PNAACP—Micro; “Negro Evades Arrest,” St. Francisville Democrat, 10 September 1938, 3; and “I. E. Darnell's Head Cut Open by Negro,” Madison Journal, 3 March 1939, 1. Violent attacks on white people might have occurred more often than this list suggests. Black newspapers suppressed news of these events for fear of causing the culprits to be lynched, and white newspapers usually reported them only after the attacker had been caught and punished. See Bond and Bond, Star Creek Papers, 126.

  45. Jones interview, 63; Lolis Elie, interview by Kim Lacy Rogers, 23 June 1988, ARC.

  46. Walter White to FDR, 12 January 1935, file “15820, Sub 26, Jan 1935 Only,” box 1280, SNF, RG 60; Bond and Bond, Star Creek Papers, 126; “Negro Taken to Pen via Eunice,” St. Landry Clarion-Progress, 20 February 1926, 11; James A. Ray to President [Woodrow Wilson], 27 February 1912, file “158260, Section 1, #3,” box 1276, SNF, RG 60; John R. Shillady to R. G. Pleasant, 25 June 1918, frame 0319, reel 12, ser. A, pt. 7, PNAACP—Micro; “Kill Innocent Colored Men in Louisiana,” clipping, Philadelphia Tribune, 16 June 1928, frame 1152, reel 11, ser. A, pt. 7, PNAACP—Micro; “Somebody Ought to Pay These Mob Bills,” clipping, Chicago Defender, 26 May 1928, frame 0436, reel 12, ibid.

  47. Guzman, Negro Yearbook, 308.

  48. See, e.g., [Henry M. Stewart] to [Annie L. Allain], letters dated n.d. [November 1898], 3; 29 November 1898, 4; 18 April 1900, 2; 8 February 1906, 7; 30 March 1906, 4; 26 June 1906, 4; and 27 December 1906, 1–3, files 14–19, box 8, TAFP. (No wonder she never married him.)

  49. Peter [Henry M. Stewart] to Annie [L. Allain], 21 January 1908, file 21, 3, box 8, ibid.

  50. Notes on Home Visits of Lucille Cook Watson, 6 November 1933, file 11, box 5, ser. 1, Cross Keys Plantation Records, Manuscripts Division, HTL.

  51. Bond and Bond, Star Creek Papers, 91–94.

  52. Ibid., 77–79 (quotation, p. 79); H. H. Long, “Washington Parish,” n.d. [ca. 1940], 21–22, file 8, box 225, CSJP.

  53. Wells-Barnett, Southern Horrors, 42; [W. E. B. Du Bois], “Cowardice,” Crisis, October 1916, 270–71; “Tulsa—A Horror and a Benediction,” Baltimore Afro-American, 10 June 1921, 2.

  54. “Straight Talk,” Louisiana Weekly, 15 March 1930, sec. 1, 6.

  55. “Signs of the New Negro,” ibid., 29 August 1931, sec. 1, 6.

  56. Rogers, “ ‘You Came Away with Some Courage,’” 179; Elie (Rogers) interview; Jerome Smith, interview by Kim Lacy Rogers, ARC.

  57. Lewis interview.

  Chapter Four

  1. See, e.g., Gottlieb, Making Their Own Way; Grossman, Land of Hope; Marks, Farewell—We're Good and Gone; and Sernett, Bound for the Promised Land.

  2. U.S. Department of Labor, Division of Negro Economics, Negro at Work, 10.

  3. “Labor Agents Warned,” Madison Journal, 26 December 1914, 4; Untitled article, ibid., 2 June 1917, 4; Grossman, “Black Labor Is the Best Labor,” 51–52.

  4. Charles S. Johnson, “Negro Migration,” n.d. [ca. 1930s], file 31, box 167, CSJP (quotations, pp. 6–8). More recent scholarship on black migration to the North supports Johnson's analysis. See, e.g., Gottlieb, Making Their Own Way, 1–11; Grossman, Land of Hope, 66–97; and Sernett, Bound for the Promised Land, 36–86.

  5. Unknown writers, 24 April 1917 (p. 296) and 18 April 1917 (p. 330), in Emmett J. Scott, “Letters of Negro Migrants”; Unknown writer, 30 April 1918, in Scott, “Additional Letters of Negro Migrants,” 448.

  6. Unknown writers, 13 May 1917 (p. 417), 6 June 1917 (p. 413), 12 August 1916 (p. 423), in Emmett J. Scott, “Additional Letters of Negro Migrants.”

  7. A. G. Smith, “Holding Labor on the Farms in the South,” n.d. [ca. 1918–19], frame 00075, reel 22, BWEGM.

  8. Unknown writers, 23 April 191[7] (p. 434), 5 May 1917, (p. 433), in Emmett J. Scott, “Additional Letters of Negro Migrants.”

  9. Unknown writers, 20 May 1917 (p. 450—first quotation), 23 May 1917 (p. 449—second quotation), ibid.; John R. Shillady, Address Delivered at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the NAACP, 23 June 1919, frame 0504, reel 8, pt. 1, PNAACP—Micro; Scherer, Nation at War, 66–67; Tolnay and Beck, “Rethinking the Role of Racial Violence,” 29–30.

  10. Marks, Farewell—We're Good and Gone, 138; Tindall, Emergence of the New South, 541; Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln, 78–95; Sitkoff, New Deal for Blacks, 88–101.

  11. Grossman, Land of Hope, 3–4.
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br />   12. Shillady, Address Delivered at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the NAACP, frames 0499–0500, reel 8, pt. 1, PNAACP—Micro. See also Garfinkel, When Negroes March, 31, and Finch, NAACP, 24–27.

  13. Fairclough, Race and Democracy, 8; Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census . . . 1910, Volume 2: Population, 790, and Fourteenth Census . . . 1920, Volume 3: Population, 399; A. W. Hill to NAACP, 1 June 1914, file “Shreveport, La. 1914–1917,” box 83, ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC; Application for Charter, Alexandria Branch, 27 November 1918, file “Alexandria, La. 1918–1930,” box 79, ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC; Application for Charter, Baton Rouge Branch, 10 March 1919, frames 0194–95, reel 13, ser. A, pt. 12, PNAACP—Micro; Application for Charter, Monroe Branch, 18 November 1927, frames 0651–53, reel 13, ser. A, pt. 12, PNAACP—Micro.

  14. Application for Charter, St. Rose Branch, 15 July 1918, file “St. Rose, La. 1918,” box 83, ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC; Application for Charter, [Clarence Branch], n.d. [ca. 1922], file “Clarence, La. 1922,” box 79, ibid.

  15. Shreveport Branch, NAACP, to Luther E. Hall, 11 August 1914, file “Louisiana—1914,” box 357, ser. C, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the governor finally sent investigators to Caddo Parish after several more lynchings occurred there toward the end of the year, but this action failed to persuade local authorities to punish those responsible for the murders.

  16. George E. Lewis to [John] Shillady, 17 February 1919, 2, file “Shreveport, La. 1918–1919,” box 83, ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC; Forest Trottie to [Robert] Bagnall, 13 January 1922, file “Clarence, La. 1922,” box 79, ibid.

  17. George G. Bradford, “Save,” Crisis, May 1918, 7; Marks, Farewell—We're Good and Gone, 95; Henri, Bitter Victory, 88.

  18. [W. E. B. Du Bois], “The Black Soldier,” Crisis, June 1918, 60, and “Close Ranks,” Crisis, July 1918, 111; “The Negro's Reward,” Vindicator, 3 September 1918, frame 0212, reel 14, ser. A, pt. 12, PNAACP—Micro.

  19. T. G. Garrett to [NAACP], [September] 1917, file “Shreveport, La. 1914–1917,” box 83, ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC.

  20. Emmett J. Scott, American Negro, 93, 103–4; Marks, Farewell—We're Good and Gone, 97; Henri, Bitter Victory, 47–51; Reich, “Soldiers of Democracy,” 1485.

  21. James B. Aswell, Entry for 25 September 1918, Diary, September 23– October 4 [1918], MS vol. 3, James B. Aswell and Family Papers, HML.

  22. Henri, Bitter Victory, 38, 44; Tuttle, Race Riot, 208–41; Seligmann, Negro Faces America, 56.

  23. Ray C. Burrus to Arthur Woods, 3 May 1919, frame 00366, reel 21, BWEGM.

  24. “Planters Resist Exodus of Labor,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, 25 March 1914, 7.

  25. “Exodus of Negroes,” New Orleans Times Democrat/Daily Picayune, 12 April 1914, 8 (reprinted from Houma Courier); “Labor Agents Warned,” and “Notice to Labor Agents,” Madison Journal, 26 December 1914, 4.

  26. House of Representatives of . . . Louisiana, Official Journal . . . May 13, 1918, 136–37; Louis Posby to T. W. Gregory, 17 October 1916, frames 09948–50, reel 19, BWEGM; Henderson, Negro Migration, 45–46; Grossman, “Black Labor Is the Best Labor,” 57–58; Wayne G. Borah to Attorney General, 3 February 1925, frame 1083, reel 9, PFUS (quotation).

  27. State of Louisiana, Act No. 139, 9 July 1918, frame 0382, reel 23, pt. 10, PNAACP—Micro; Walter F. White, “ ‘Work or Fight’ in the South,” New Republic, 1 March 1919, 144; Winn Parish Police Jury Resolution, 2 July 1918, reprinted in Louisiana Historical Records Survey, Inventory of the Records, 19; Lafayette Parish Police Jury Resolution, 1 August 1918, reprinted in Louisiana Historical Records Survey, Inventory of the Records, 15; Louisiana State Council of Defense, Minutes of the Meeting . . . September 24, 1918, 8.

  28. Louisiana State Council of Defense, Minutes of the Meeting . . . September 24, 1918, 11–12; George E. Haynes to Felix Frankfurter, 21 August 1918, frame 00505, reel 19, BWEGM; [Frankfurter] to Haynes, 28 August 1918, frame 00507, ibid. (quotation).

  29. White, “ ‘Work or Fight,’” 144–46; [Walter White], “Louisiana,” [16 December 1918], frames 0332–33, reel 23, pt. 10, PNAACP—Micro; George E. Haynes to Secretary, Department of Labor, 20 March 1919, frame 00004, reel 14, BWEGM.

  30. U.S. Department of Labor, Division of Economics, Negro Migration, 32.

  31. H. George Davenport to Roy Nash, 5 May 1917, frame 0143, reel 14, ser. A, pt. 12, PNAACP—Micro.

  32. Shillady, Address Delivered at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the NAACP, frame 0504, reel 8, pt. 1, ibid.; Francis Williams, “Louisiana's Sugar Industry Revives,” Country Gentleman, 3 November 1917, 1696; Henderson, Negro Migration, 49; Tolnay and Beck, “Rethinking the Role of Racial Violence,” 29–30.

  33. Leo M. Favrot, “Some Problems in the Education of the Negro in the South and How We Are Trying to Meet Them in Louisiana,” n.d. [June 1919], frames 0597–0603, reel 8, pt. 1, PNAACP—Micro (quotation, frame 0599).

  34. Daniel, Breaking the Land, 3–22.

  35. Cotton, Lamplighters, 12; Crosby, “Building the Country Home,” 59–64.

  36. “T. J. Jordan Ag. Extension Leader Retires after 34 Years of Service,” Louisiana Weekly, 2 October 1948, 12; J. S. Clark, “A Supplement to the Annual Report of the Agricultural Extension Service as Performed by Negroes,” 1920, 3, 2 (last quotation), reel 5, FESR; Oscar G. Price, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, St. Helena Parish, 1921, reel 8, FESR (first quotation).

  37. Mason Snowden, Annual Narrative Report, State Agent, 1916, 348, reel 1, FESR. See also Baker, County Agent, 191–206; Daniel, Breaking the Land, 9–12; Crosby, “Building the Country Home,” 9, 104, 165; and Cotton, Lamplighters, 89–100.

  38. Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent; Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore (Gender and Jim Crow) provides another very useful account of black middle-class activism.

  39. Adolph B. Curet, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Pointe Coupee Parish, 1919, reel 4; O. G. Price, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, St. Helena Parish, 1919, reel 5; T. J. Watson, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Madison Parish, 1921, reel 7; State Agent's Report, Louisiana, 1922, 7, reel 8—all in FESR.

  40. Harrison and Earnestine Brown, interview by author, THWC—LSU.

  41. “T. J. Jordan Ag. Extension Leader Retires after 34 Years of Service,” Louisiana Weekly, 2 October 1948, 12; Leon Robinson, Annual Narrative Report, Negro Agent, St. Landry Parish, 1938, 23, reel 49, FESR.

  42. S. W. Vance, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, South Madison and Tensas Parishes, 1915, reel 1, and 1917, reel 3, FESR.

  43. Cotton prices increased from 7¢ per pound in 1914 to 36¢ per pound in 1919, then dropped to 14¢ per pound in 1920. Similarly, the average price per pound for raw sugar rose from 4¢ in 1914 to 13¢ in 1920, then fell to 5¢ in 1921. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture 1930, 680, 703. For some narrative accounts of economic conditions in the rural South during and after World War I, see Barton W. Currie, “Sky-High Cotton,” Country Gentleman, 17 February 1917, 310–11; Francis Williams, “Louisiana's Sugar Industry Revives,” Country Gentleman, 3 November 1917, 1696; and Mertz, New Deal Policy, 1–15.

  44. J. E. Ringgold, Annual Narrative Report, Negro Agent, West Feliciana Parish, 1925, 1–2, reel 15, FESR.

  45. Nine parishes (Bienville, Caddo, Claiborne, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Lincoln, St. Landry, Washington, and West Feliciana) had extension agents working with black farmers between 1925 and 1930. The increases in black farm ownership in those parishes ranged from 10 to 71 percent and averaged 33 percent. In the same period, black farm ownership in the state increased by 10 percent. But at the same time, the number of tenants in each parish and in the state increased at a much greater rate than landowners. Between 1925 and 1930 the proportion of black farmers who were tenants rose by 7 percent for the state and by an average of 5 percent for the parishes with extension agents. T. J. Jordan, Annual Narrative Report, Assistant State Agent, Negro Extension Work, 1931, 10, reel 29, FESR;
Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census . . . 1930, Agriculture, Volume 2, Part 2, 1219–23, 1275–80.

  46. L. W. Wilkinson, Annual Narrative Report, State Agent, Negro Extension Work, Louisiana, 1931, 9, reel 29, FESR.

  47. J. E. Ringgold, Annual Narrative Report, Negro Agent, West Feliciana Parish, 1921, reel 8, FESR.

  48. Myrtis A. Magee, Annual Narrative Report, Negro Agent, Washington, Tangipahoa, St. Tammany, and St. Helena Parishes, 1936, 12, vol. 510, AESP. See also L. J. Washington, Annual Narrative Report, Assistant State Agent for Work with Negroes, Franklin, Richmond, and Tensas Parishes, 1934, vol. 499, AESP, and T. J. Jordan, Annual Narrative Report, Assistant State Agent for Work with Negroes, 1945, 8, vol. 484, AESP.

  49. O. G. Price, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, St. Helena Parish, 1918, reel 4, and 1921, reel 8, FESR; J. E. Ringgold, Annual Narrative Report, Negro Agent, West Feliciana Parish, 1920, reel 6, FESR; “Extension Agent, M. Magee, Dies,” Louisiana Weekly, 17 February 1940, 6.

  50. Crosby, “Building the Country Home,” 35; “Negro Work in Louisiana, 1920–21,” n.d. [1921], 1, filed with State Administration Reports, reel 6, FESR; Cotton, Lamplighters, 102, 13. For a detailed study outlining the unequal allocation of federal funds and the poor quality of service provided to black farmers, see Wilkerson, Agricultural Extension Services among Negroes.

  51. “Negro Work in Louisiana, 1920–21,” n.d. [1921], 1, filed with State Administration Reports, reel 6, FESR; Annual Narrative Report, State Agent, Louisiana, 1924, 10, reel 13, FESR; Baker, County Agent, 198–99; W. B. Mercier to J. A. Evans, 10 March 1930, file “Director La. 1929–1930,” box 193, General Correspondence of the Extension Service and its Predecessors, June 1907–June 1943, Correspondence, Records of the Federal Extension Service, RG 33, NA.