A Different Day Page 32

  52. Brunner and Yang, Rural America and the Extension Service, 68–70; “Minority Report of W. L. Blackstone, Special Statements by Individual Members of the Special Committee on Farm Tenancy,” n.d. [February 1937], 1–2, file “Tenancy (Jan 1–Feb 1),” box 2661, GCOS, RG 16.

  53. Henri, Bitter Victory, 112–13, 115–17; Gottlieb, Making Their Own Way, 89–116; Cohen, “Great Migration,” 73, 76; Matthews, “American Negro Leadership,” 72; Emmett J. Scott, American Negro, 465.

  54. Kellogg, NAACP, 235.

  55. John R. Shillady to R. G. Pleasant, 15 February 1919, frame 0031, reel 12, ser. A, pt. 7, PNAACP—Micro; “Discharged Soldier Lynched and Burned,” clipping, Brooklyn Standard Union, 1 September 1919, frame 0027, ibid.; Ernest J. Gaines, Gathering of Old Men, 104. For references to similar incidents in real life, see Henri, Bitter Victory, 113–14; Matthews, “American Negro Leadership,” 73; and Reich, “Soldiers of Democracy,” 1485.

  56. Anonymous to Mr. Officer of Bigness [President], 18 March 1919, file “158260, Section 1, #1,” box 1276, SNF; Anonymous to White House (via Dearborn Supply Co.), 15 September 1921, file “158260, Section 3, #2,” SNF.

  57. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism, 345–408; Dawley, Struggles for Justice, 254–94; MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry; Tuttle, Race Riot, 3–31. For federal agencies’ efforts to curtail the activities of black civil rights organizations during and after the war, see Kornweibel, “Seeing Red.”

  58. Mary White Ovington, Bogalusa (New York: NAACP [1920]), frames 0002–5, reel 10, pt. 10, PNAACP—Micro; Frank Duffy to District Councils and Local Unions of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, 9 January 1920, frames 0007–10, ibid.; Norwood, “Bogalusa Burning.”

  59. Report of the Secretary, December 1920, frame 0120, reel 4, pt. 1, PNAACP—Micro; Robert Bagnall, Report of Field Work, 9 May 1921, frame 0171, ibid.; “Parker and the Klan,” Madison Journal, 2 December 1922, 2; “Comparative Statements of July 31, 1920 and August 31, 1920,” frame 0102, reel 4, pt. 1, PNAACP—Micro (quotation); Record, Race and Radicalism, 31–33, 44. See also Reich, “Soldiers of Democracy,” 1498–1504.

  60. Director of Branches to B. V. Jennings, 11 August 1924, frame 0202, reel 13, ser. A, pt. 12, PNAACP—Micro; H. C. Hudson to Robert W. Bagnall, 27 March 1923, 1–2, file “Shreveport, La. 1920–1927,” box 83, ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC (quotation); O. B. F. Smith to Robert Bagnall, 3 May 1926, file “Alexandria, La. 1918–1930” (box 79), “Shreveport Branch N.A.A.C.P. Sleeping,” 7 April 1928, file “Shreveport, La. 1928–1932” (box 83), and N. H. Baker to Walter White, 3 February 1933 (box 83)—all in ser. G, pt. 1, PNAACP—LC.

  Chapter Five

  1. Baldwin, Poverty and Politics, 32; Mertz, New Deal Policy, 1–15; Holley, Uncle Sam's Farmers, 10–14; Moses Williams, interview by author, THWC—LSU.

  2. Taylor, Louisiana, 149–66; Brinkley, Voices of Protest, 15–35. T. Harry Williams (Huey Long) offers a sympathetic account of Long's regime, arguing that his ruthless tactics were necessary to oust the reactionaries from power. More critical assessments are given in Sindler, Huey Long's Louisiana; Hair, Kingfish and His Realm; and Jeansonne, Messiah of the Masses.

  3. “Huey Long Is Dead,” Louisiana Weekly, 14 September 1935, 8; Sepia Socialite, Negro in Louisiana, 2. Like most of his southern white contemporaries, Long commonly referred to black people as “niggers.”

  4. Daniel, Breaking the Land, 65–68; Sullivan, Days of Hope, 3. See also Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements, 12.

  5. Olson, Historical Dictionary of the New Deal, 177–78, 549; Leuchtenburg, Roosevelt, 118–42.

  6. Douty, “FERA and the Rural Negro,” 215; Sitkoff, New Deal for Blacks, 59–75; Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln, 220–21; Sullivan, Days of Hope, 41–67; Barnard, Outside the Magic Circle, 127; Willie Dixon to U.S. Attorney General, 24 April 1939, frame 0987, reel 9, PFUS (quotation).

  7. “Final Enrolling of State CCC Begins July 6th,” Madison Journal, 3 July 1936, 1–2; “Tells of Work CCC Boys Have Done in State,” Madison Journal, 6 October 1939, 2; Martin Williams, interview by author, THWC—LSU (first quotation); CCC, Office of the Director, The Civilian Conservation Corps and Colored Youth (Washington, D.C.: [CCC], 1939), frames 0530–33, reel 1, pt. 10, PNAACP—Micro; Gordon P. Hogan and John Percy Bond, Monthly Educational Report, June 1935, 1, file “La. L-72, New Roads,” box 89, CIR, RG 35; “Youth Impressions (Regarding Negroes),” 27 September 1941, 1, file “Special Reports Re: Negroes,” box 4, Project Files, 1940–45, Records of the Division of Program Surveys, Divisional Records, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, RG 83, NA (second quotation).

  8. Douty, “FERA and the Rural Negro,” 215; James H. Crutcher, “Prosperity Returns to Louisiana,” Work, October 1936, 3; “Chicago Mill Veneer Plant Burns Monday,” Madison Journal, 4 December 1936, 1. In 1930 African Americans made up 71 percent of workers employed in sawmills and planing mills in Madison Parish. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census . . . 1930, Population, Volume 3, Part 1, 999.

  9. “Chicago Mill Is Operating under NRA Agreement,” Madison Journal, 25 August 1933, 1. The rate works out at $1.92 per day or $38.40 per month, compared with an average wage rate of $17.31 per month (without board) for Louisiana farm laborers in 1933. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Crops and Markets, 119.

  10. Martin Williams interview; Harrison and Earnestine Brown, interview by author, THWC—LSU. Between 1930 and 1940 Tallulah grew in population from 3,332 to 5,712. African Americans comprised 86 percent of the increase, numbering 2,043. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census . . . 1930, Population, Volume 3, Part 1, 992, and Sixteenth Census . . . 1940, Population, Volume 2, Part 3, 419.

  11. Sepia Socialite, Negro in Louisiana, 74, 79; “Literacy,” Work, February 1937, 18 (first quotation); George Washington, “Adult Education among Negroes in Louisiana,” Louisiana Colored Teachers’ Journal, February–March 1939, frame 0322, reel 3, LWPA; “Adult Classes Proving Popular,” Work, October 1936, 6 (second quotation); “School Days,” Work, April 1938, 4 (last quotation).

  12. J. H. Chapmon to FDR, 12 April 1938, frame 0665; Leola Dishman to FDR, 18 February 1939, frame 0794; and Annette Nelson to Harold S. Hopkins, 29 May 1936, frame 0430—all in reel 29, LWPA.

  13. In its second year of operation, e.g., the FSA received 147,972 applications for the 7,000 loans that were available. In 1940 the 6,678 families who were receiving help from the agency's tenant purchase program represented only 2 percent of tenants in the United States. Baldwin, Poverty and Politics, 199.

  14. “Works Progress Administration of Louisiana,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 23 July 1936, 1.

  15. Charlie Young to Richard Leche, 15 December 1936, file “Public Welfare (T–Z),” box 36; Lillie Pearl Jackson to Leche, 15 December 1936, file “Public Welfare (J–L),” box 36; and Charlie Hines et al. to Leche, 23 March 1938, file “A,” box 7—all in RWLP.

  16. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln, 50–59; Daniel, Breaking the Land, 80–81; Baldwin, Poverty and Politics, 196–97, 200–201, 279–80; “The Differential Labor Policy,” Louisiana Weekly, 7 October 1933, sec. 1, 8 (first quotation); Louis Israel to A. P. Tureaud, 11 December 1933, file 6, box 1, APTP; “WPA Chief Tells of Racial Problem in U.S. Relief Work,” Louisiana Weekly, 7 December 1935, 1, 7.

  17. “Personnel of West Feliciana Parish Board of Public Welfare Selected by Police Jury at Meeting,” 6 January 1937, file “Public Welfare Personnel—Parish Directors and Staff,” box 36, RWLP; M. L. Wilson to W. W. Alexander, 10 December 1938, 15, file “Tenancy 2.1 (County Committee),” box 2902, GCOS, RG 16; “Personnel of Pointe Coupee Parish Board of Public Welfare Selected by Police Jury at Meeting,” 4 January 1937, file “Public Welfare Personnel—Parish Directors and Staff,” box 36, RWLP; Gordon McIntire, Statement on Sugar Cane Wages, Federal Hearing, 16 June 1939, 7, 11–12, file 3, reel 13, CLJP; Clyde Johnson, interview by Bob Dinwiddie, transcript, 4 April 1976, 46, file 1, reel 13, CLJP; Daniel, Breaking the Land, 91–109; Con
rad, Forgotten Farmers, 39–42.

  18. Clay Jackson to Alfred Edgar Smith, 11 March 1938, frame 0386, reel 29, LWPA (first quotation); C. L. Kennon to Richard Leche, 15 February 1936, file unlabeled [5], box 60, RWLP; Fritz Falcon to Henry Wallace, 23 March 1936, file “AD 510 Appeals for Aid, Louisiana Counties,” box 193, GCCO.

  19. W. F. Oakes to Alfred Edgar Smith, 2 November 1937, frame 0095, reel 5, LWPA; Cornelia Edge to Howard Sinclair, memorandum, 17 December 1941, frames 0316–17, reel 7, LWPA (first quotation, by Walter F. Craddock); J. B. Garrett, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, West Feliciana Parish, 1940, 21, reel 56, FESR (second quotation); Guy Campbell to Allen J. Ellender, 8 August 1941, frame 0453, reel 7, LWPA.

  20. “Cooperation,” Work, September 1936, 4; Frank H. Peterman to Harry L. Hopkins, 10 August 1935, frame 0059, reel 1, LWPA (first quotation); Mildred Taylor, Narrative Report—Monroe District, Sewing Projects, 15 September 1936, frame 0818, reel 26, LWPA; Clay Jackson to Alfred Edgar Smith, 11 March 1938, frame 0386, reel 29, LWPA; Edgar A. Schuler, Weekly Tensions Report, 20 March 1943, 5, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44.

  21. Anonymous letter, no addressee (referred to Department of Justice), n.d. [ca. December 1933–January 1934], file “158260, Sub 46, 12/20/33–1/10/34,” box 1291, SNF; Neill McL. Coney Jr., Camp Report, 11 September 1933, 2, file “La. L-61, Krotz Springs, Co. #1481,” box 88, CIR, RG 35; John P. Davis to Robert H. Jackson, 11 March 1940, 1, file “198589, Section 8,” box 3034, SNF, RG 60.

  22. N. Watts Maddux to Lewis B. Hershey, 30 September 1941, frame 0464, reel 7, LWPA; W. D. Haas to A. Leonard Allen, 21 October 1942, frame 0470, LWPA; “Resolution of Caddo Parish Police Jury,” 24 September 1942, file 5, box 9, SHJP.

  23. W. F. Oakes to David K. Niles, 14 May 1937, frames 0864–65, reel 4, LWPA.

  24. C. C. Huffman to Sam H. Jones, 27 October 1942, file 5, box 9, SHJP. As Cindy Hahamovitch (“Standing Idly By,” 16) has noted, decisions about whether or not labor shortages really existed were “inherently political” and rested on subjective judgments more than empirical measurements. Planters who were accustomed to a large and therefore cheap supply of workers were likely to perceive labor “shortages” whenever competition between employers caused wage rates to rise, regardless of the actual number of farmworkers who were available.

  25. J. H. Crutcher to District Directors, memorandum, 26 August 1936, file “Federal—Public Works Administration,” box 34, RWLP; “Workers Told by WPA Chief to Take Jobs,” Opelousas Clarion-News, 19 November 1936, 8; Weekly News Letter, WPA of Louisiana, 23 August 1938, frames 0816–18, reel 1, LWPA; “WPA Will Guard against Scarcity of Farm Labor,” Madison Journal, 9 September 1938, 1; “Welfare Office to Co-operate with Farmers,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 3 September 1942, 1.

  26. Aiken, Cotton Plantation South, 100–104; Sitterson, Sugar Country, 386–87; Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census . . . 1940, Agriculture, Volume 1, Part 5, 121; Wright, Old South, New South, 234.

  27. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1954, Volume 1, Part 24, 11; Conrad, Forgotten Farmers, 58–82; Grubbs, Cry from the Cotton, 23–25; Mertz, New Deal Policy, 23; Tensas Parish Department of Public Welfare, “For the Welfare of Tensas Parish,” 15 March 1937, 7, Tensas Parish Scrapbook, 1937–75, MS vol. 9, Gladys Means Loyd and Family Papers, HML (quotation); Maude Barrett to Loula Dunn, 11 September 1935, frames 0015–16, reel 1, LWPA.

  28. Conrad, Forgotten Farmers, 50–63; Grubbs, Cry from the Cotton, 21–23; Clyde Johnson interview, 47; Brown interview.

  29. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe; Grubbs, Cry from the Cotton; Flamm, “National Farmers Union”; Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost, 151–52; Holley, Uncle Sam's Farmers, 82–104; Mertz, New Deal Policy, 20–44. For a firsthand account of these struggles, see Rosengarten, All God's Dangers.

  30. Clyde Johnson interview, 48, 29; Kelley, Hammer and Hoe, 168–69, 63, 172; Tom [Clyde Johnson] to H. L. Mitchell, 31 January [1936], reel 1, STFUP (quotation); Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 89, 138–39; C. L. Johnson, “The Sharecroppers Union,” Louisiana Weekly, 16 May 1936.

  31. Johnson later became involved in organizing beet workers in Colorado, pecan shellers and oil workers in Texas, and electrical workers in Pittsburgh before taking a job as a carpenter and union official in California in the 1950s. According to Robin Kelley, after his election as business agent for Local 550 of the Carpenters’ and Millmen's Union, Johnson turned the local into “a powerful force for civil rights, trade union democracy, and antipoverty work in the Bay Area.” Kelley, Hammer and Hoe, 63, 169, and “Lifelong Radical,” 254–58 (quotation, p. 257).

  32. Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 4, 89, 138–39; Reuben Cole, “Southern Farm Students Praise College for Workers,” Southern Farm Leader, February 1937, 2; Tex [Gordon McIntire] to Clyde and Anne [Johnson], 13 April 1956, file 3, reel 13, CLJP; Johnson, “Brief History,” 18; FBI, “Louisiana Farmers’ Union (Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of America, Louisiana Division),” 27 September 1941, 8, file 100–45768, LFU, FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  33. “Southern Farm Leader,” Southern Farm Leader, May 1936, 1; Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 89 (Johnson).

  34. “Share Croppers Union Expresses Its Thanks to Secretary Johnson,” Southern Farm Leader, August 1936, 5; “Your Paper—Our Bow,” Louisiana Union Farmer, November 1939, 4 (McIntire).

  35. “For Unity in the South,” Southern Farm Leader, May 1936, 4; Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 99–106. Noncommunist contemporaries as well as many historians of New Deal era social movements viewed the part that communists played in these struggles with ambivalence. Communist Party members received funding and direction from the Soviet Union for their activities, raising concerns about their underlying motives and goals. Rigid adherence to the party line and the efforts of some members to gain control over the noncommunist organizations they belonged to antagonized more moderate activists and contributed to the weakening of the American left in the 1940s. On the other hand, the party provided many of the most dedicated and effective organizers in the labor movement, and its members were among the few white people who openly supported racial equality in the decades before World War II.

  H. L. Mitchell's and others’ suspicions notwithstanding, the organizers of the SCU and LFU bore little resemblance to the uncompromising ideologues depicted in some accounts of communist activity. The decision to seek alliances with other liberal and left-wing organizations was reached independently of Soviet influence and antedated the Communist International's formal proclamation of the Popular Front by more than a year. Although they might have started out with the goal of transforming southern sharecroppers and tenants into the vanguard of an American workers’ revolution, organizers ultimately became more concerned with helping rural people to achieve a measure of comfort and security in their daily lives. By early 1935, Johnson stated, “all of the pretense of running party units á la New York was given up,” and union organizers’ contacts with the Communist Party leadership were minimal. Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 3–4, 95–96 (quotation, p. 96). For some historical analyses of the role of communists in the freedom struggle, see Kelley, Hammer and Hoe; Record, Race and Radicalism; Naison, Communists in Harlem; Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights; and Horowitz, “Negro and White, Unite and Fight!.”

  36. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe, 169–72; Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 86–87, 99–107, 112–13.

  37. A union newsletter explained, “The charter gives the local the legal right to hold closed meetings and it is unlawful for anyone who is not a member to break in a meeting.” “Organization Information,” Union News, 30 April 1937, 2, file 2, reel 13, CLJP.

  38. Clyde Johnson to J. M. Graves, 15 May 1937, 1, ibid.; “S.C.U. Locals Transferring to Farmers’ Union,” Southern Farm Leader, February 1937, 2.

  39. Clyde Johnson interview, 48; [Clyde Johnson] to G. S. Gravlee, 23 September 1936, file 2, ibid.

>   40. SCU leaders strongly supported working with organized labor, encouraging members to form local farmer-labor cooperatives and to support candidates of the Farmer-Labor Party when they ran for political office. In return, leaders of the AFL and the CIO promised support for the struggles of rural people in the South. At its annual convention in April 1937, the Louisiana State Federation of Labor endorsed the LFU's efforts. The editor of the state AFL's newspaper, William L. Donnells, provided office space for LFU organizers and helped produce the Southern Farm Leader for more than a year before the farm union's failure to pay its bills caused him to withdraw this support. “Farmers’ Union National Convention,” Louisiana Farmers’ Union News, 1 December 1937, 1–2; Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of America, National Program, December 1937, file 3, reel 13, CLJP; “Washington Hears Farm Workers’ Plea for Recognition,” Southern Farm Leader, May 1936, 1; “A New Party Is Needed to Battle for Justice,” Southern Farm Leader, August 1936, 5; “Louisiana Labor Pledges Support for Farm Union,” Southern Farm Leader, April–May 1937, 1; “New Office for Louisiana Farmers’ Union,” Louisiana Farmers’ Union News, 15 January 1938, 1; Gordon McIntire to Mack, Bob, and Clyde [Johnson], 23 June [1938], file 3, reel 13, CLJP.

  41. “For Unity in the South,” Southern Farm Leader, May 1936, 4.

  42. Although UCAPAWA represented agricultural workers at federal hearings and before government agencies concerned with labor, most of its organizing activity centered on the processing industries. [Clyde Johnson], “Activities in United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, 1938,” 3 July 1976, 1–2, file 4, reel 13, CLJP; Kelley, Hammer and Hoe, 172; UCAPAWA Yearbook, December 1938, 8, 14, file 5, reel 13, CLJP; Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 113–15.