Internal report on the incredibly dangerous, and necessary, work of building a Share Croppers’ Union in Alabama during the 1930s.

‘Negro Share Croppers Building Their Union’ from Party Organizer (C.P.U.S.A. Internal Bulletin). Vol. 6 No. 1. January, 1933.

THE work among the Negro share croppers in the Black Belt was begun more than a year ago. But before August of this year, there was no proper form of organization, no system of meetings, initiations and dues payments, no basically established locals with a captain, secretary and literature agent, and what is more important, there were no concrete, planned or conscious activities being carried on by the members. Their meetings were held in vacant houses where they would listen to long and radical speeches made by the comrade working among them. Many of the croppers would walk distances of six to seven miles. After the meetings, all the members would leave without any particular tasks assigned except that all would pledge to be present at the next meeting.

Strengthening the Union

But now, all the members understand that they belong to the Share Croppers Union. Four months ago we had only 22 locals established, but now these have increased to nearly 50. The share croppers’ union is built as follows. Series of small locals are formed and each local consists of 10 members (with the exception of certain territories where 12 or 13 live near each other). One cropper is captain, another secretary and a third is literature agent. The main task of these three functionaries is to see that the local functions, takes up the immediate problems of the croppers and decides what steps to take on these issues and to build other locals, women’s auxiliaries and youth sections of the union. The leading body also sees that all its members attend the meeting, read the Daily Worker, write articles, pay dues and help to educate the membership.

The local meets weekly. The captains of the various locals meet at separate meetings, make full reports of the work of their locals and lay plans for future activities. Previously the captains of one section which is seven miles from the other section would walk to the captains’ meeting and it would sometimes be 11 or 12 o’clock before they would get back home after the meeting. This system of meeting soon developed irregular attendance, and as a result, the following change was made. All captains in a particular section meet together. Each group of captains has selected one comrade to represent their section to the county captains’ meeting. This comrade is known as the County Committee Captain of a particular section. Also another comrade is elected by the captains of the same section as sub-committee captain whose duty is to assist the committee captain. Generally the committee captain works on one end of the section while the sub-committee captain works on the other end. Once every two weeks the committee captain and the sub-committee captain meet together with the captain and sub-captain of the other sections and check up on all the work in the sections.

The Demands of the Share Croppers’ Union

The Negro share croppers are the lowest strata of agricultural toilers. For generations they have been kept in virtual slavery by a system of “furnishing” which kept the cropper family always in debt to his landlord. The prices of supplies, the rates of interest (sometimes 60 per cent) are determined by the landlord. No matter how high cotton prices rose, the landlord did the arithmetic and the cropper family was kept always in debt. Now the landlord class has no market for its cotton. The croppers are left starving in their cabins. No furnishing or production credit is given. Evictions for non-payment of rent take place regularly. The landlord can confiscate the stocks or serve attachments for the farm implements when the share cropper fails to pay his debts.

It is on the basis of these conditions and grievances that the Share Croppers Union formulated the demands, around which it is rallying larger and larger numbers of Negro share croppers:

A minimum price of 10 cents per pound for cotton
The right to sell our own cotton
No forced “pooling” of cotton
No confiscation of the livestock or attachments of farm implements
No evictions; no forced collection of debts.
Free school buses for the children of the croppers and tenants without discrimination against the Negro children;
The right to organize for bread and fight against terror and war.

Already, the landowners are beginning to recognize the force of organization. After the distribution of leaflets (which because of the terror must be done illegally) the recognition of the landowners that the croppers and tenants were organizing into the Share Croppers Union, the right to sell their own cotton has been won on one plantation. A share croppers’ committee was elected also to present the demands for clothing and shoes for a cropper and his family. When the committee went up to the landowner he was forced to grant this demand. The secretary of the landowner immediately issued an order for the clothes for this cropper and his family and in addition the cropper was given $11 in cash and his wife $12. All the members of the family were thus supplied with the necessities of life to tide them over the winter.

On another plantation the croppers and tenants have won the demand of debt cancellation. Some croppers and tenants here according to the landowner’s figures owed as much as $300. The landowner had told them to vacate their homes and move nothing off the place. But since the distribution of the leaflets and seeing that the white tenants were in agreement with the policy of the union and were expressing their willingness to join up, the landowner was compelled to withdraw his threat and in addition cancelled all back debts.

Our Immediate Tasks

But our job has just begun. Our central task now and in the immediate future is to win over for the union a broad section of the white tenants and croppers as well as the majority section of the Negro croppers and tenants. There are great possibilities to draw the most militant white croppers and tenants into the union on the basis of united action of white and Negro croppers. Today the white tenants visit the Negro croppers and tenants, eat at their homes, go hunting with them and help them gather their crops, etc. Since last year’s struggle at Camp Hill the whites express a different attitude toward the Negroes. Prior to the Camp Hill struggle, the whites did not mingle with the Negroes as they do now. They say that the landowners had told them that the Negroes were organizing against them—the white tenants—and they believed them. But since then, they understand that the union is fighting for them as well as for the Negro tenants and croppers and they want to join. But there still remains some mistrust among the Negro croppers towards the white tenants because of the role played by the misled white tenants in the past. However, the very conditions in the Black Belt is undermining this distrust and forging the unity of the white and Negro croppers and tenants.

We plan to develop a system of white locals of the Tenants League with an interchange of delegates from the Share Croppers Union. The white captains of the tenants’ local will attend the local of the Negro share croppers. The Negro captain will attend the white local. In this manner, we will weld the unity of the white and Negro share croppers and tenants.

The next step is the organization of plantation committees on the large plantations where we have tremendous possibilities.

We are also planning to secure simple and popular literature as a step in the education of the share croppers. The Weekly Farm News Letter will be sent to all white tenants as a method of breaking them into the movement.

The strengthening of the Party is an important task. Already there are three Party units which have been organized in the various sections. The comrades who are Party members are the best elements for the Party, the most developed, loyal and active comrades, many of them played an active and important part in the struggles here. But many more members can and should be won for the Party.

The Party Organizer was the internal bulletin of the Communist Party published by its Central Committee beginning in 1927. First published irregularly, than bi-monthly, and then monthly, the Organizer was primarily meant for the Party’s unit, district, and shop organizers. The Organizer offers a much different view of the CP than the Daily Worker, including a much higher proportion of women writers than almost any other CP publication. Its pages are often full of the mundane problems of Party organizing, complaints about resources, debates over policy and personalities, as well as official numbers and information on Party campaigns, locals, organizations, and periodicals making the Party Organizer an important resource for the study and understanding of the Party in its most important years.

PDF of issue (large file): https://files.libcom.org/files/Party%20Organizer%206.pdf