Some real insights here from Mississippi-born Wobbly lumber worker Phineas Eastman, a member of the General Executive Board. Eastman wrote many articles attacking anti-Black racism in the workers movement for the Industrial Worker, the Lumberjack, Voice of the People, and others. As he himself writes, ‘The writer is doing all in his power to bring these forces together, and really works more on that proposition than on any other feature of organization work.’ Light years from the vast majority of Socialist Party labor activists, with notable exceptions, and many wobblies of the time. Photo of comrade Eastman entering Leavenworth prison in 1919.

‘Down with Race Prejudice’ by Phineas Eastman from Industrial Worker. Vol. 4 No. 40. December 26, 1912.

The boys at Merryville, La., where a strike has been on for over a month, “are sitting tight,” and the N.I.U. of P.&L.W. and the I.W.W. may feel proud of the solidarity displayed by these fighting timbermen and their wives and daughters. Especially was this shown when the bosses tried, as they always do, to inject race prejudice into the ranks of the strikers.

For, be it known, that the many colored men belonging to Local 218, are standing pat with their white fellow slaves; and also be it known that the writer has realized for years that all the colored workers needed was for the white workers ”to meet them half way,” and they will always respond, eager and anxious to fight to better their condition.

The drawbacks to amalgamation of the white and colored men on the industrial battlefield has been the contempt and hatred of the white workers for the colored race, born, of course, of the need so cunningly sown in his ignorant mind by the Capitalist class, and always kept blooming to bear fruit for that class in the shape of low wages.

The bosses never did object to yoking up a white and a colored worker together on the job- and the poor white wage slave in our (?) Southern country has just awakened to the bitter truth that he has been made a sucker by the bosses’ cry of “white supremacy” and “negro equality.” The formation of the N.I.U. of P.&L.W. (formerly B.T.W.) is to be thanked for this eye-opener. The writer is doing all in his power to bring these forces together, and really works more on that proposition than on any other feature of organization work.

Here, in the South, we can’t dwell on this question too often, for it is vital to the growth and ultimate victory of the Forest and Lumber Workers’ organisation.

All organizers working in the South must not overlook this proposition. Dwell upon it in your talks, public and private, and remember that many white workers agree with me. Many, on account of years of estrangement from the colored race, do not know how to be friendly with their colored fellow workers, although they earnestly wish to.

The white worker is something like the schoolboy who has had a scrap and is told by his teacher to make up with his chum, he wants to, but feels abashed and is afraid he will be made fun of.

The writer also asks his fellow workers’ of the South if they wish real good feeling to exist between the two races (and each is necessary to the other’s success), to please stop calling the colored man” N*** “—the tone some use is an insult, much less the word. Call him Negro if you must refer to his race, but “fellow worker” is the only form of salutation a rebel should use.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n40-w196-dec-26-1912-IW.pdf