A Different Day Page 34

  91. Gordon McIntire to G. Warburton, 14 November 1939, 1–3, file 3, reel 13, CLJP; “Pointe Coupee Farmers Organize,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 13 June 1940, 1; M. L. Wilson to H. C. Sanders, 9 June 1943, 1–3, file “Dir. La. 1.43–6.43,” box 886, General Correspondence of the Extension Service and Its Predecessors, June 1907–June 1943, Correspondence, Records of the Federal Extension Service, RG 33, NA; Rosen, “Alabama Share Croppers Union,” 79.

  92. “Memorandum concerning Economic and Employment Conditions in Louisiana, Notes on Individual WPA Districts,” June 1941, frames 0753–55, reel 6, LWPA; “Louisiana and National Defense, Second Report,” 30 April 1941, 3, file 3, box 13, SHJP; Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1945, Volume 1, Part 24, 4, 10. Approximately 60,000 rural people, representing more than one-quarter of Louisiana's farm population, left the land between 1940 and 1945.

  93. Gordon McIntire to Members and Friends of the Farmers’ Union in Louisiana, 10 March 1942, 4–5, file 3, reel 13, CLJP; FBI, “Louisiana Farmers’ Union (Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of America, Louisiana Division),” 6 August 1943, 1, LFU—FBI.

  Chapter Six

  1. See, e.g., Garfinkel, When Negroes March; Finkle, Forum for Protest; Buchanan, Black Americans; and Wynn, Afro-American.

  2. “No Crooked Talk in Such a Fix Says St. Landry Tenant,” Southern Farm Leader, December 1936, 3.

  3. Sepia Socialite, Negro in Louisiana, 50.

  4. Edgar A. Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 5 April 1943, 5, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44.

  5. Chicago Defender, 11 April 1942, quoted in “Weekly Media Report No. 11,” 18 April 1942, 46, loose in box, box 1720, WMRRD, RG 44. Hundreds of documents in the record collections of wartime agencies held at the National Archives testify to the government's concern about African American attitudes toward the war.

  6. Hill, FBI's RACON, xvii.

  7. See, e.g., “Preliminary Appraisal of the Present Negro Situation,” 9 March 1942, 2–4, 6, file “Surveys Div. Rep. No. 7,” box 1786, Reports of the Division, 1942–44, RMRD, RG 44; “Current Problems of Negro Morale,” 16 May 1942, 8, file “Sur. Div. Sp. Rep. No. 10,” box 1784, ibid.; and “The Grievance Pattern: Elements of Disunity in America,” 25 June 1942, 28, file “Sur. Div. Sp. Rep. No. 15a,” box 1786, ibid.

  8. FEPC, First Report, 96; Hill, FBI's RACON, 34. See also Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding Courage, and Lemann, Promised Land.

  9. “Negroes Called from Here Going to Armed Forces,” Madison Journal, 28 May 1943, 6.

  10. “Many Volunteer after Colored Soldiers Pass,” Madison Journal, 11 April 1941, 3.

  11. “Courses in Many Subjects Offered WAAC Trainees,” Madison Journal, 5 March 1943, 1. See also “Booths Provided Here to Recruit Women for WAAC,” ibid., 12 February 1943, 1; “Special Effort Will Be Made to Recruit WAC's,” ibid., 1 October 1943, 1; “WAC Anniversary” and “WACs to Stage Recruiting Drive in Louisiana,” ibid., 12 May 1944, 2. Nationwide, approximately 6,500 African American women served in the WAC during the war. Martha S. Putney (When the Nation Was in Need) provides a useful account of the experiences of black women in the auxiliary corps.

  12. Brown interview; Young interview; Veterans’ Administration News Release, 14 March 1945, 2–3, file “Negro Problems—Misc. Material,” box 386, OFWCL, RG 228; Wynn, Afro-American, 28.

  13. “Army to Continue Use of WPA Aid, Says Gen. Hodges,” Madison Journal, 14 February 1941, 4; “Louisiana and National Defense, Second Report,” 30 April 1941, 2, file 3, box 13, SHJP; J. H. Crutcher to Malcolm J. Miller, 2 June 1941, frame 1092, reel 6, LWPA; “Memorandum concerning Economic and Employment Conditions in Louisiana,” March–April 1942, frame 0956, reel 6, LWPA; Leon Robinson, Annual Narrative Report, Negro Agent, St. Landry Parish, 1943, 24, vol. 509, AESP; J. B. Garrett and H. B. Fairchild, Annual Narrative Report, County Agents, West Feliciana Parish, 1943, 9, reel 64, FESR. In the 1940s Baton Rouge became the state's fastest-growing city, reporting an increase in the number of manufacturing establishments from thirty-one in 1939 to sixty-two in 1947 and an increase in population from 34,719 to 125,629 between 1940 and 1950. Shreveport's population increased by 30 percent, from 98,167 to 127,206, and the city gained eighteen new industries. Rapides Parish experienced a similar boom, stimulated by the location of a military training center (Camp Clai-borne) near Alexandria. Bureau of the Census, Census of Manufactures: 1947, Volume 3, 252, and Seventeenth Decennial Census . . . Population: 1950, Volume 2, Part 18, 7; Hill, FBI's RACON, 326.

  14. Bernhardt, Sugar Industry and the Federal Government, 263, 275–76; “1942 Sugar Cane Wage Rates,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 29 October 1942, 1; U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Digest of Clippings on Agriculture from the Negro Press,” 13–20 June 1943, 2, file “Publications 1-1, Negro Press,” box 25, General Correspondence, March–July 1943, Correspondence, Records of the Office of Labor (War Food Administration), RG 224, NA. Wage rates (without board) for farmworkers in Louisiana for 1941–42 averaged $25.79 per month, compared with $21.72 per month for the years 1935–40. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Crops and Markets, 119.

  15. Bartlow, Louisiana Study, 61. The higher wage bill was also shared among fewer laborers—18,954 in 1945 compared with 56,712 in 1940. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1945, Volume 1, Part 24, 4.

  16. “Food for Freedom Program,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 6 November 1941, 1; “Farmers Hold Annual State Convention,” Louisiana Weekly, 8 November 1941, 2.

  17. “Pointe Coupee Parish U.S.D.A. Defense Board,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 6 November 1941, 1, 8 (first quotation); Claude A. Barnett and F. D. Patterson to Claude R. Wickard, 26 June 1942, 2, file “Negroes,” box 3, GCN, RG 16.

  18. Sepia Socialite, Negro in Louisiana, 143, 16.

  19. Hill, FBI's RACON, 315.

  20. Ibid., 320–25, 462, 464; Louisiana State Conference of NAACP Branches, “Proposed Yearly Budget for State Office,” 4 January 1947, file 1, box 9, APTP.

  21. Iberville Parish Improvement Committee, “Petition to Iberville Parish School Board,” 21 April 1943, 1–2, file 1, box 35, APTP; J. K. Haynes to Sam H. Jones, telegram, 15 June 1943, file 6, box 4, SHJP.

  22. “Current Problems of Negro Morale,” 16 May 1942, summary page, file “Sur. Div. Sp. Rep. No. 10,” box 1784, RSD, RG 44; “March on Washington Movement among Negroes,” 12 May 1942, 7, ibid.; Finkle, Forum for Protest, 90, 96–97.

  23. Office of Facts and Figures, Bureau of Intelligence, “Survey of Intelligence Materials No. 25,” 27 May 1942, 9, file “Negroes,” box 3, GCN, RG 16.

  24. Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding Courage, 76–78, 153–77; Buchanan, Black Americans, 15–27; Sitkoff, Struggle for Black Equality, 11; Finkle, Forum for Protest, 96–97.

  25. Winn, Afro-American, 49–54; John A. Davis to Malcolm Ross, 29 February 1944, file “New Orleans,” reel 76, Tension File, July 1943–October 1945, Headquarters Records, RFEPC.

  26. Lena Mae Gordon to Civil Service Commission, 2 February 1943, 1–2, file “Q.M. Laundry, Camp Claiborne, La. 10-GR-148,” reel 100, Closed Cases, August 1941–March 1946, Field Records, RFEPC; Edith A. Pierce to FEPC, 6 November 1944, file “Port of Embarkation 10-GR-433,” ibid.

  27. Finkle, Forum for Protest, 163–82; Wilson, Jim Crow Joins Up, 7–9, 11, 99; Treadwell, Women's Army Corps, 589–601; Putney, When the Nation Was in Need, 4, 50.

  28. Samuel Bonery to Gloster B. Currant, 19 August 1942, frame 0442, reel 11, ser. B, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro; Edgar B. Holt to Mr. Gibson, 14 October 1943, in McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, 66; George V. Grant to NAACP, 4 May 1943, frames 0242–45, reel 12, ser. B, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro; Milton Adams to W. H. Hastie, 13 May 1942, in McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, 149.

  29. Quoted in Putney, When the Nation Was in Need, 81.

  30. Dorothy C. Bray to War Department, 4 October 1944, frames 0467–70, reel 1, ser. C, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro; Darnell Harris to Walter White, 3 May 1942, frame 0344, reel 12, ser. B, pt. 9, ibid.

  31. P
eery, Black Fire, 173; Edgar A. Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 5 April 1943, 1, 3, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44. See also Kelley, Race Rebels, 55–75.

  32. “Memorandum from Office of Commanding Officer, Headquarters Polk Louisiana,” n.d. [ca. 1940s], frame 0440, reel 11, ser. B, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro.

  33. Edgar A. Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 5 April 1943, 1–2, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44; Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 3 April 1943, 5, ibid.; Schuler, “Tension Area Analysis: Racial Problems,” 22 January 1943, 2, ibid.; Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 5 April 1943, 4, ibid.

  34. Edgar A. Schuler, “Summary of Tension Area Analysis: Racial Problems,” 22 January 1943, ibid.; Aunt Ollie to Hattye, 3 March [1942], 2, file 2, box 1, John Hamilton and Harriet Boyd Ellis Papers, HML (resident of Tangipahoa Parish); Schuler, “Summary of Tension Area Analysis: Racial Problems,” 22 January 1943, and “Tension Area Analysis: Racial Problems,” 22 January 1943, 1, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44. Howard Odum of the University of North Carolina collected hundreds of similar reports from across the South in his wartime study, Race and Rumors of Race.

  35. John Beecher to Lawrence W. Creamer, memorandum, 7 March 1942, 7, file “1-1 Reports—John Beecher,” reel 48, Central Files of the FEPC, August 1941– April 1946, Headquarters Records, RFEPC; Beecher to Creamer, memorandum, n.d. [ca. March 1942], 1, ibid. (quotation); Beecher to Creamer, memorandums, 16 March 1942, 2, n.d. [ca. March 1942], 1–2, and 7 March 1942, 6—all in ibid.

  36. FEPC, First Report, 65; Peery, Black Fire, 154; Hill, FBI's RACON, 34; Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census . . . 1940, Population, Volume 3, Part 3, 264, 357, and Seventeenth Decennial Census . . . Population: 1950, Volume 2, Part 18, 225.

  37. John Beecher to Lawrence W. Creamer, memorandum, 7 March 1942, 7, file “1-1 Reports—John Beecher,” reel 48, Central Files of the FEPC, August 1941– April 1946, Headquarters Records, RFEPC (quotation); Clarence M. Mitchell to George Johnson, memorandum, 24 July 1945, file “Tension Report Region XIII,” reel 63, ibid.

  38. Edith A. Pierce to War Department, 6 November 1944, 1, file “Port of Embarkation 10-GR-433,” reel 100, Closed Cases, August 1941–March 1946, Field Records, RFEPC; Joseph A. Prevost to FEPC, 13 October 1942, file “Port of Embarkation 10-GR-147,” ibid.

  39. “Louisiana and National Defense, Second Report,” 30 April 1941, 3, file 3, box 13, SHJP; S. S. McFerrin, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, St. Helena Parish, 1942, 10, reel 62, FESR; A. B. Curet, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Pointe Coupee Parish, 1942, 9, reel 61, FESR; “Every Citizen Is Asked to Aid in Harvesting Crops,” Madison Journal, 9 October 1942, 6.

  40. Edgar Schuler, “Tension Area Analysis: Racial Problems,” 22 January 1943, 2, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44; “Crops and Labor,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 12 August 1943, 3; “Tax Losses,” Madison Journal, 19 March 1943, 2. See also Woodruff, “Pick or Fight,” 75.

  41. A. J. Bouanchard to Sam Houston Jones, 14 September 1942, file “Pointe Coupee,” box “Governor's File, New Orleans-St. Mary,” SHJP.

  42. Philleo Nash to Eugene Katz, memorandum, 3 October 1942, 1–2, file “Groups and Organizations Section, Bureau of Intelligence, OWI,” box 1788, RSD, RG 44.

  43. Woodruff, “Pick or Fight,” 78–80; “Labor Freezing Covers Agriculture,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 20 May 1943, 1 (quotations); “McKenzie Says Farm Labor Cannot Migrate,” Madison Journal, 17 September 1943, 1.

  44. C. E. Kemmerly Jr., Annual Narrative Report, Extension Farm Labor Program, Louisiana, 1943, 9, vol. 589, AESP.

  45. “Nazi-Like Interpretation Given to ‘Work or Fight Order’ by City Official,” Louisiana Weekly, 24 April 1943, 1 (first quotation); Social Science Institute at Fisk University, “A Monthly Summary of Events and Trends in Race Relations,” September 1943, 3, file “Tension Areas Reports,” box 389, OFWCL, RG 228.

  46. C. E. Kemmerly Jr. to Meredith C. Wilson, 18 June 1943 (consolidated with Wilson to Kemmerly, 26 June 1943), file “La. K–O,” box 887, General Correspondence of the Extension Service and Its Predecessors, June 1907–June 1943, Correspondence, Records of the Federal Extension Service, RG 33, NA (Extension Service administrators); “State Summary of County Statistical Reports, Louisiana,” 1943, 4, vol. 589, AESP; A. B. Curet, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Pointe Coupee Parish, 1944, 5, reel 66, FESR; G. B. Martin, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, St. Landry Parish, 1944, 5, reel 67, FESR; “Annual Report of Farm Labor Program, Louisiana,” 1944, 4, vol. 589, AESP; “Eight Camps Set for Sugar Areas,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 9 October 1943, 16 (proponents of the camps); Max McDonald, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Madison Parish, 1944, 25, reel 66, FESR.

  47. Max McDonald, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Madison Parish, 1945, 25, vol. 245, AESP; “Rapid[e]s Parish Points the Way,” Madison Journal, 15 September 1944, 2; Farrell M. Roberts, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, East Feliciana Parish, 1945, 4, vol. 146, AESP; “The Big Shift,” Pointe Coupee Banner, 16 December 1948, 2; Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1959, Volume 1, Part 35, 11–16.

  48. Arthur Lemann, interview by Bernard Lemann, FCC—NOPL; “Mechanization Spreads,” Madison Journal, 19 January 1945, 2; Bernhardt, Sugar Industry and the Federal Government, 282; R. J. Badeaux, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Iberville Parish, 1945, 18, vol. 181, AESP.

  49. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1959, Volume 1, Part 35, 7, 6, Sixteenth Census . . . 1940, Agriculture, Volume 1, Part 5, 138, and Census of Agriculture: 1945, Volume 1, Part 24, 10; B. B. Jones, “Weekly Market News Letter,” St. Francisville Democrat, 27 December 1946, 1; C. P. Seab, Annual Narrative Report, County Agent, Concordia Parish, 1949, 4, vol. 119, AESP.

  50. Edgar A. Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 3 April 1943, 5, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44.

  51. C. L. G. and J. A. D., “The Fair Employment Practice Committee and Race Tensions in Industry,” n.d. [ca. 1940s], 8, file “The FEPC and Race Tensions in Industry,” box 426, RFDRA, RG 228.

  52. “Opinions about Inter-racial Tension,” Division of Research Report No. C12, 25 August 1943, 13, file unlabeled, box 1719, RMRD, RG 44.

  53. John A. Davis to Malcolm Ross, 29 February 1944, 1, file “New Orleans,” reel 76, Tension File, July 1943–October 1945, Headquarters Records, RFEPC; Copy of article from Sepia Socialite, 27 May 1944, file “New Iberia,” ibid.; “A Disgusted Negro Trooper” to Cleveland Call & Post, 16 August 1944, in McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, 196. On the January 1942 riot, see Sepia Socialite, Negro in Louisiana, 30–31, 33; Hill, FBI's RACON, 326–27; and Finkle, Forum for Protest, 106.

  54. Prentice Thomas to Nora Williamson, 14 January 1943, frame 0485, reel 14, ser. B, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro; Fred Hoord to Chicago Defender, n.d. [ca. June 1943], frames 0241–42, reel 13, ibid.; Francis Biddle to Mrs. Roosevelt, 17 May 1944, 1, file “144–33–14,” box 17589, CSF, RG 60; George M. Johnson and S. Bradley to National Legal Committee, NAACP, 17 March 1944, frame 0548, reel 14, ser. B, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro.

  55. Edgar A. Schuler, “Weekly Tensions Report,” 20 March 1943, 5–6 (quotation, p. 5), and 3 April 1943, 5, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44; G. P. Bullis to Perry Cole, 21 January 1943, file “Request for Organizing,” and A. B. Crothers to Cole, n.d. [June 1943], file “Ferriday, La.,” Louisiana State Guard Records, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge.

  56. Peery, Black Fire, 170, 173–218.

  57. R. Keith Kane to Reginald Foster, memorandum, 25 November 1942, 10, file “Civilian Problems,” box 1790, Special Memoranda of the Division, 1942–44, RMRD, RG 44 (quotation); Thurgood Marshall to Tom C. Clark, 5 May 1944, frame 0556, reel 14, ser. B, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro.

  58. Quoted in “Information Roundup, No. 7,” 24 April 1944, 23–24, loose in box, box 1712, RMRD, RG 44.

  59. Transcript of Oral History Interview, Addendu
m, [Spring 1967], 55, file “Oral History Interview with John H. Scott and Related Material,” John Henry Scott Papers, Archives, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Department, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans, New Orleans.

  60. Arthur to Mother, 18 November 1943, file 18, box 8, APTP; “R. L. Betz Assaulted by a Negro Soldier,” Madison Journal, 8 February 1946, 1; Statement of Cora Mae Harris, n.d. [February 1946], frames 0222–23, reel 20, ser. C, pt. 9, PNAACP—Micro.

  61. “March on Washington Movement among Negroes,” 12 May 1942, 7, file “Sur. Div. Sp. Rep. No. 8,” box 1784, RSD, RG 44.

  62. “Preliminary Appraisal of the Present Negro Situation,” 9 March 1942, 2–4, 6, file “Surveys Div. Rep. No. 7,” box 1786, RSD, RG 44; “Current Problems of Negro Morale,” 16 May 1942, 8, file “Sur. Div. Sp. Rep. No. 10,” box 1784, RSD, RG 44; “The Grievance Pattern: Elements of Disunity in America,” 25 June 1942, 28, file “Sur. Div. Sp. Rep. No. 15a,” box 1786, RSD, RG 44; Hill, FBI's RACON, 3.

  63. Buchanan, Black Americans, 76; Wilson, Jim Crow Joins Up, 125; “A Disgusted Negro Trooper” to Cleveland Call & Post, 16 August 1944, in McGuire, Taps for a Jim Crow Army, 196.

  64. Carr, Federal Protection of Civil Rights, 163–76; Buchanan, Black Americans, 9–10, 125–26; Hill, FBI's RACON, 8–9; Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern, 33; Brundage, Lynching in the New South, 251.

  65. Darlene Clark Hine, Black Victory, 212–42; Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern, 33–34.

  66. Von Eschen, Race against Empire, 109–13; Wynn, Afro-American, 117–20; Finch, NAACP, 116–18. See also Berman, Politics of Civil Rights.

  67. Southwest Region NAACP Newsletter, 20 November 1948, 1, file 26, box 15, APTP.

  68. William A. Caudill, “Negro GI's Come Back,” n.d., 2, file “Negro GI's Come Back,” box 426, RFDRA, RG 228. See also Edgar A. Schuler, “Weekly Report,” 5 April 1943, 2, file “Edgar Schuler—Field Reports,” box 1824, FRSD, RG 44, and Albert Anderson, “Reactionaries and Progressives in Showdown Fight,” Louisiana Weekly, 2 February 1946, 12.