Charlotte, North Carolina had one of the most active Communist locals in the South. Here 1000 Black and white unemployed workers march under the auspices of T.U.U.L. for relief in the Great Depression and are met by police violence.

‘Charlotte Gives Bats for Bread’ from Southern Worker. Vol. 1 No. 20. January 3, 1931.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. Carrying signs “Tax the Rich” and Feed the Poor,” “We Demand Work or Bread,” “Give us Milk for the Babies,” and other similar slogans more than 1000 white and colored workers marched to the City Hall to demand immediate unemployment relief.

In answer to the cry for bread, the whole city police force, which had been mobilized for the purpose, used baseball bats and clubs to disperse the demonstration. They were not successful, for speakers of the Unemployed Council of the Trade Union Unity League addressed the crowd of workers near the City Hall.

Bats For Bread

The demonstration had been called by the Unemployed Council for 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, December 23. At about 2:15 p.m., two lines of marchers started towards the City Hall. When they were within a block of the meeting place they were met by squads of police armed with baseball bats, guns and tear bombs. When the unemployed workers refused to disperse on orders from the police lackeys of the Charlotte bosses the police began to swing the baseball bats right and left, shouting “Keep, moving.”

One unemployed Negro Worker was severely beaten over the head by two bully policemen with their base-ball bats. He was then arrested but was later released when the International Defense lawyer appeared to defend him.

Try to Divide Workers

Employing the age-old tactic of the Southern ruling class, the police attempted to keep the Negro workers divided from the whites and brutally maltreated the colored in an effort to stir up a race riot and thus prevent the demonstration against starvation. But black and white stomachs alike feel hunger and no boss race prejudice succeeded in dividing these workers and turning them away from a united struggle.

As the police were attempting to disperse the crowd, W.G. Binkley, of the Trade Union Unity League, began to speak from the steps on a corner lot. He denounced the brutality of the police and showed how the blue coats were the bosses’ tools trying to divide the colored and white workers against each other. “The unemployed workers come here demanding bread,” he said, “and the boss government gives us baseball bats. If the chamber of commerce or a group of bankers or the A.F. of L. fakers wanted to see the mayor they would be greeted by a special reception committee, but when we workers come here to demand relief we are greeted with police billies.”

Call for United Struggle

Other speakers were Russell Knight, one of the original defendants in the Gastonia case and Dewey Martin, organizer of the National Textile Workers Union. The speakers exposed Mayor Wilson’s fake unemployment relief committee, his plan of “register and starve” and called upon the workers to fight for unemployment insurance. Martin spoke for the unity of white and Negro workers, pointing out the necessity of organizing together.

Notwithstanding the brutality of the police thugs about 1,000 persons stood around the street corners and nearby lots listening to the speakers. It is estimated that about 2,000 were kept from attending by the police.

Demand Immediate Relief

The unemployed council of the T.U.U.L. is continuing to organize the unemployed workers and announces that it will call for even greater demonstrations. The council is preparing to send a large delegation to Raleigh, the state capitol, when the legislature meets on January 6, to demand a state unemployment relief bill. The Council is also collecting signatures for the National Unemployment Insurance Bill and will send a delegation to Washington in January which will participate in the nation-wide unemployed conference to be followed by the presentation of the unemployed demands to Congress.

In the meantime the Unemployed Council is demanding the following immediate relief measures from the City government of Charlotte: $5.00 per person a week and $10.00 per family a week; no evictions of the unemployed; free gas, light and water; free meals and free carfare for the school children of the unemployed.

Begun in August, 1930, Southern Worker was a semi-legal regional newspaper of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) primarily aimed at building the Party in the South among Black workers and farmers. Pseudonyms of editors and writers, false publication places, illegal paper drops, and clandestine meetings were a necessary hallmark of the Southern Worker’s life. The paper extensively covered the campaign against lynching and southern unionization efforts. Originally a weekly, it went to a monthly in 1934 and ceased publishing in 1937. Editors included Solomon Auerbach (under the name “Jim Allen”), Harry Wicks, and Elizabeth Lawson.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/southernworker/v1n20-jan-03-1931-sw.pdf