John M. Giggie
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195304039
- eISBN:
- 9780199866885
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195304039.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century, History of Religion
This book explores religious transformation in the lives of ex-slaves and their descendants living in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta between the end of Reconstruction and the start of the Great ...
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This book explores religious transformation in the lives of ex-slaves and their descendants living in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta between the end of Reconstruction and the start of the Great Migration. It argues that Delta blacks, who were overwhelmingly rural sharecroppers and tenant farmers, developed a rich and complex sacred culture during this era. They forged a new religious culture by integrating their spiritual life with many of the defining features of the post‐Reconstruction South, including the rise of segregation and racial violence, the emergence of new forms of technology like train travel, the growth of black fraternal orders, and the rapid expansion of the consumer market. Experimenting with new symbols of freedom and racial respectability, forms of organizational culture, regional networks of communication, and popular notions of commodification and consumption enabled them to survive, make progress, and at times resist white supremacy. The book then evaluates the social consequences of these changes and shows in particular how the Holiness‐Pentecostal developed in large part as a rejection of them. It ends by probing how this new religious world influenced the Great Migration and black spiritual life in the 1920s and 1930s.Less
This book explores religious transformation in the lives of ex-slaves and their descendants living in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta between the end of Reconstruction and the start of the Great Migration. It argues that Delta blacks, who were overwhelmingly rural sharecroppers and tenant farmers, developed a rich and complex sacred culture during this era. They forged a new religious culture by integrating their spiritual life with many of the defining features of the post‐Reconstruction South, including the rise of segregation and racial violence, the emergence of new forms of technology like train travel, the growth of black fraternal orders, and the rapid expansion of the consumer market. Experimenting with new symbols of freedom and racial respectability, forms of organizational culture, regional networks of communication, and popular notions of commodification and consumption enabled them to survive, make progress, and at times resist white supremacy. The book then evaluates the social consequences of these changes and shows in particular how the Holiness‐Pentecostal developed in large part as a rejection of them. It ends by probing how this new religious world influenced the Great Migration and black spiritual life in the 1920s and 1930s.
Robin D. G. Kelley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469625485
- eISBN:
- 9781469625508
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625485.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book studies the history of the “long Civil Rights movement,” and tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 1940s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for ...
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This book studies the history of the “long Civil Rights movement,” and tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 1940s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. This book reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals. After discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, the book reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.Less
This book studies the history of the “long Civil Rights movement,” and tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 1940s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. This book reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals. After discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, the book reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.
Robin D. G. Kelley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469625485
- eISBN:
- 9781469625508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625485.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on the establishment of the Share Croppers' Union (SCU) on August 6, 1931. Al Murphy, appointed as SCU secretary, was a tremendous asset to the fledgling organization. ...
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This chapter focuses on the establishment of the Share Croppers' Union (SCU) on August 6, 1931. Al Murphy, appointed as SCU secretary, was a tremendous asset to the fledgling organization. Recognizing the need to expand into the black belt, he established headquarters in Montgomery where he worked closely with the city's leading black Communists. Murphy also developed strategies that emphasized self-preservation and cunning, in line with croppers' underground tradition of resistance. These include no meetings to be held in empty houses; SCU members were told not to walk in large crowds nor engage in armed action. The cotton pickers' strike in 1934 marked the SCU's first major victory since its creation.Less
This chapter focuses on the establishment of the Share Croppers' Union (SCU) on August 6, 1931. Al Murphy, appointed as SCU secretary, was a tremendous asset to the fledgling organization. Recognizing the need to expand into the black belt, he established headquarters in Montgomery where he worked closely with the city's leading black Communists. Murphy also developed strategies that emphasized self-preservation and cunning, in line with croppers' underground tradition of resistance. These include no meetings to be held in empty houses; SCU members were told not to walk in large crowds nor engage in armed action. The cotton pickers' strike in 1934 marked the SCU's first major victory since its creation.
Dale Maharidge
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159319
- eISBN:
- 9780231500586
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159319.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This essay reviews the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), by James Agee and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men explores the daily lives of Alabama sharecroppers during the Great ...
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This essay reviews the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), by James Agee and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men explores the daily lives of Alabama sharecroppers during the Great Depression. Agee affects those who read him. For Jimmy Carter, the impact of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men seemed to be moral and religious. For Tad Mosel, Agee's presence was supernatural. Mosel's 1961 Pulitzer-winning play, All the Way Home, was adapted from Agee's posthumously published novel, A Death in the Family. Agee literally informs And Their Children After Them (1989), the book in which Dale Maharidge and the photographer Michael Williamson documented the lives of the survivors and descendants of the three families with whom Agee lived in Alabama. Agee was also a strong influence on the New Journalism of the 1960s.Less
This essay reviews the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), by James Agee and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men explores the daily lives of Alabama sharecroppers during the Great Depression. Agee affects those who read him. For Jimmy Carter, the impact of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men seemed to be moral and religious. For Tad Mosel, Agee's presence was supernatural. Mosel's 1961 Pulitzer-winning play, All the Way Home, was adapted from Agee's posthumously published novel, A Death in the Family. Agee literally informs And Their Children After Them (1989), the book in which Dale Maharidge and the photographer Michael Williamson documented the lives of the survivors and descendants of the three families with whom Agee lived in Alabama. Agee was also a strong influence on the New Journalism of the 1960s.
Omar H. Ali
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604737783
- eISBN:
- 9781604737806
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604737783.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
Following the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877, African Americans organized a movement—distinct from the white Populist movement—in the South and parts of the Midwest for economic and political ...
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Following the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877, African Americans organized a movement—distinct from the white Populist movement—in the South and parts of the Midwest for economic and political reform: Black Populism. Between 1886 and 1898, tens of thousands of black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers created their own organizations and tactics primarily under black leadership. As Black Populism grew as a regional force, it met fierce resistance from the Southern Democrats and constituent white planters and local merchants. African Americans carried out a wide range of activities in this hostile environment. They established farming exchanges and cooperatives; raised money for schools; published newspapers; lobbied for better agrarian legislation; mounted boycotts against agricultural trusts and business monopolies; carried out strikes for better wages; protested the convict lease system, segregated coach boxes, and lynching; demanded black jurors in cases involving black defendants; promoted local political reforms and federal supervision of elections; and ran independent and fusion campaigns. Growing out of the networks established by black churches and fraternal organizations, Black Populism found further expression in the Colored Agricultural Wheels, the southern branch of the Knights of Labor, the Cooperative Workers of America, the Farmers Union, and the Colored Farmers Alliance. In the early 1890s, African Americans, together with their white counterparts, launched the People’s Party and ran fusion campaigns with the Republican Party. By the turn of the century, Black Populism had been crushed by relentless attack, hostile propaganda, and targeted assassinations.Less
Following the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877, African Americans organized a movement—distinct from the white Populist movement—in the South and parts of the Midwest for economic and political reform: Black Populism. Between 1886 and 1898, tens of thousands of black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers created their own organizations and tactics primarily under black leadership. As Black Populism grew as a regional force, it met fierce resistance from the Southern Democrats and constituent white planters and local merchants. African Americans carried out a wide range of activities in this hostile environment. They established farming exchanges and cooperatives; raised money for schools; published newspapers; lobbied for better agrarian legislation; mounted boycotts against agricultural trusts and business monopolies; carried out strikes for better wages; protested the convict lease system, segregated coach boxes, and lynching; demanded black jurors in cases involving black defendants; promoted local political reforms and federal supervision of elections; and ran independent and fusion campaigns. Growing out of the networks established by black churches and fraternal organizations, Black Populism found further expression in the Colored Agricultural Wheels, the southern branch of the Knights of Labor, the Cooperative Workers of America, the Farmers Union, and the Colored Farmers Alliance. In the early 1890s, African Americans, together with their white counterparts, launched the People’s Party and ran fusion campaigns with the Republican Party. By the turn of the century, Black Populism had been crushed by relentless attack, hostile propaganda, and targeted assassinations.
Aaron D. Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036675
- eISBN:
- 9781621030591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036675.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book describes how, between 1865 and 1914, ten Natchez mercantile families emerged as leading purveyors in the wholesale plantation supply and cotton handling business, and soon became a ...
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This book describes how, between 1865 and 1914, ten Natchez mercantile families emerged as leading purveyors in the wholesale plantation supply and cotton handling business, and soon became a dominant force in the social and economic Reconstruction of the Natchez District. They were able to take advantage of postwar conditions in Natchez to gain mercantile prominence by supplying planters and black sharecroppers in the plantation supply and cotton buying business. They parlayed this initial success into cotton plantation ownership and became important local businessmen in Natchez, participating in many civic improvements and politics that shaped the district into the twentieth century. This book digs deep in countless records (including census, tax, property, and probate, as well as thousands of chattel mortgage contracts) to explore how these traders functioned as entrepreneurs in the aftermath of the Civil War, examining closely their role as furnishing merchants and land speculators, as well as their relations with the area’s planters and freed black population. Their use of favorable laws protecting them as creditors, along with a solid community base that was civic-minded and culturally intact, greatly assisted them in their success. These families prospered partly because of their good business practices, and partly because local whites and blacks embraced them as useful agents in the emerging new marketplace. The situation created by the aftermath of the war and emancipation provided an ideal circumstance for the merchant families.Less
This book describes how, between 1865 and 1914, ten Natchez mercantile families emerged as leading purveyors in the wholesale plantation supply and cotton handling business, and soon became a dominant force in the social and economic Reconstruction of the Natchez District. They were able to take advantage of postwar conditions in Natchez to gain mercantile prominence by supplying planters and black sharecroppers in the plantation supply and cotton buying business. They parlayed this initial success into cotton plantation ownership and became important local businessmen in Natchez, participating in many civic improvements and politics that shaped the district into the twentieth century. This book digs deep in countless records (including census, tax, property, and probate, as well as thousands of chattel mortgage contracts) to explore how these traders functioned as entrepreneurs in the aftermath of the Civil War, examining closely their role as furnishing merchants and land speculators, as well as their relations with the area’s planters and freed black population. Their use of favorable laws protecting them as creditors, along with a solid community base that was civic-minded and culturally intact, greatly assisted them in their success. These families prospered partly because of their good business practices, and partly because local whites and blacks embraced them as useful agents in the emerging new marketplace. The situation created by the aftermath of the war and emancipation provided an ideal circumstance for the merchant families.
Luther Adams
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834220
- eISBN:
- 9781469603865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807899434_adams.5
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on James Wright, the son of sharecroppers and the grandchild of slaves. Seventeen and recently married, he struggled to find a job—like so many other Americans in 1936. While his ...
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This chapter focuses on James Wright, the son of sharecroppers and the grandchild of slaves. Seventeen and recently married, he struggled to find a job—like so many other Americans in 1936. While his wife Gladys worked as a cook in a white home, James alternately cut corn, worked at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, and washed cars at the local Chevrolet dealership in an attempt to make ends meet. Of the latter job he recalled, “You worked like a dog” and the owners, Henry and George Page, “called you nigger.” Over the next few years Wright made no less than three trips to Louisville to find work but returned to Russellville each time without success.Less
This chapter focuses on James Wright, the son of sharecroppers and the grandchild of slaves. Seventeen and recently married, he struggled to find a job—like so many other Americans in 1936. While his wife Gladys worked as a cook in a white home, James alternately cut corn, worked at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, and washed cars at the local Chevrolet dealership in an attempt to make ends meet. Of the latter job he recalled, “You worked like a dog” and the owners, Henry and George Page, “called you nigger.” Over the next few years Wright made no less than three trips to Louisville to find work but returned to Russellville each time without success.
Omar H. Ali
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604737783
- eISBN:
- 9781604737806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604737783.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This chapter explores the role of the African Americans in the establishment of the Populist movement in the late 1800s. It explains that during the late 1800s, multiple African American populist ...
More
This chapter explores the role of the African Americans in the establishment of the Populist movement in the late 1800s. It explains that during the late 1800s, multiple African American populist groups existed. These were composed of farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers. Most of these groups were independent from the white-led populist movement, and the most notable example of African American leadership in populist groups was the Colored Alliance.Less
This chapter explores the role of the African Americans in the establishment of the Populist movement in the late 1800s. It explains that during the late 1800s, multiple African American populist groups existed. These were composed of farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers. Most of these groups were independent from the white-led populist movement, and the most notable example of African American leadership in populist groups was the Colored Alliance.
Lee E. Williams and Lee E. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604731903
- eISBN:
- 9781604738209
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604731903.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
World War I brought changes to America that affected sharecroppers in the delta country of Arkansas and strained racial relations between blacks and whites. Whites reacted violently to blacks’ ...
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World War I brought changes to America that affected sharecroppers in the delta country of Arkansas and strained racial relations between blacks and whites. Whites reacted violently to blacks’ decision to challenge the traditional pattern of economic exploitation by white landlords, culminating in the so-called “Elaine Riot” in early October 1919. The riot occurred in a section of Phillips County known as the “Black Belt” because of its high concentration of blacks, most of whom worked as sharecroppers on the many plantations in the region. The cotton lands around the small town of Elaine were owned by the Gerard B. Lambert Company of St. Louis, Missouri. Robert L. Hill, a black man from Winchester, Arkansas, saw that black tenant farmers needed protection from unscrupulous white landlords and decided to form The Organization of the Progressive Farmers’ and Household Union of America. This chapter examines the Elaine Riot and its causes, as well as the trial of blacks involved in the riot by an all-white jury.Less
World War I brought changes to America that affected sharecroppers in the delta country of Arkansas and strained racial relations between blacks and whites. Whites reacted violently to blacks’ decision to challenge the traditional pattern of economic exploitation by white landlords, culminating in the so-called “Elaine Riot” in early October 1919. The riot occurred in a section of Phillips County known as the “Black Belt” because of its high concentration of blacks, most of whom worked as sharecroppers on the many plantations in the region. The cotton lands around the small town of Elaine were owned by the Gerard B. Lambert Company of St. Louis, Missouri. Robert L. Hill, a black man from Winchester, Arkansas, saw that black tenant farmers needed protection from unscrupulous white landlords and decided to form The Organization of the Progressive Farmers’ and Household Union of America. This chapter examines the Elaine Riot and its causes, as well as the trial of blacks involved in the riot by an all-white jury.
Veronica L. Womack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813039862
- eISBN:
- 9780813043777
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813039862.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Veronica L. Womack argues that white land control, an impoverished working class, and violent race relations resulted in a distinctive form of Black Power in Alabama. African Americans purchased land ...
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Veronica L. Womack argues that white land control, an impoverished working class, and violent race relations resulted in a distinctive form of Black Power in Alabama. African Americans purchased land despite this, but Alabama still had the second lowest rate of black landownership among black farmers in the South in 1900. Most black farmers in the state operated farms on the cash-rent system. Sharecroppers likewise farmed, and they along with agricultural laborers suffered at the hands of merciless landlords. Sharecroppers and laborers briefly allied with the Communist Party during the 1930s and challenged the capitalist system that entrapped them in exploitive monoculture through participation in sharecropper unions. White supremacists responded with violence. These competing agendas between black landowners, cash- and share-rent tenants, and laborers created fertile ground for the emergence of militant Black Power and overtly separatist goals pursued by Black Muslims through the Nation of Islam in the aftermath of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Less
Veronica L. Womack argues that white land control, an impoverished working class, and violent race relations resulted in a distinctive form of Black Power in Alabama. African Americans purchased land despite this, but Alabama still had the second lowest rate of black landownership among black farmers in the South in 1900. Most black farmers in the state operated farms on the cash-rent system. Sharecroppers likewise farmed, and they along with agricultural laborers suffered at the hands of merciless landlords. Sharecroppers and laborers briefly allied with the Communist Party during the 1930s and challenged the capitalist system that entrapped them in exploitive monoculture through participation in sharecropper unions. White supremacists responded with violence. These competing agendas between black landowners, cash- and share-rent tenants, and laborers created fertile ground for the emergence of militant Black Power and overtly separatist goals pursued by Black Muslims through the Nation of Islam in the aftermath of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Chris Myers Asch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807872024
- eISBN:
- 9781469603537
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807878057_asch
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This study of race, politics, and economics in Mississippi tells the story of two extraordinary personalities—Fannie Lou Hamer and James O. Eastland—who represented deeply opposed sides of the civil ...
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This study of race, politics, and economics in Mississippi tells the story of two extraordinary personalities—Fannie Lou Hamer and James O. Eastland—who represented deeply opposed sides of the civil rights movement. Both were from Sunflower County: Eastland was a wealthy white planter and one of the most powerful segregationists in the U.S. Senate, while Hamer, a sharecropper who grew up desperately poor just a few miles from the Eastland plantation, rose to become the spiritual leader of the Mississippi freedom struggle. The author uses Hamer's and Eastland's entwined histories, set against the backdrop of Sunflower County's rise and fall as a center of cotton agriculture, to explore the county's changing social landscape during the mid-twentieth century and its persistence today as a land separate and unequal. The author, who spent nearly a decade in Mississippi as an educator, looks at the South's troubled ties to the cotton industry, the long struggle for civil rights, and unrelenting social and economic injustice through the eyes of two of the era's most important and intriguing figures.Less
This study of race, politics, and economics in Mississippi tells the story of two extraordinary personalities—Fannie Lou Hamer and James O. Eastland—who represented deeply opposed sides of the civil rights movement. Both were from Sunflower County: Eastland was a wealthy white planter and one of the most powerful segregationists in the U.S. Senate, while Hamer, a sharecropper who grew up desperately poor just a few miles from the Eastland plantation, rose to become the spiritual leader of the Mississippi freedom struggle. The author uses Hamer's and Eastland's entwined histories, set against the backdrop of Sunflower County's rise and fall as a center of cotton agriculture, to explore the county's changing social landscape during the mid-twentieth century and its persistence today as a land separate and unequal. The author, who spent nearly a decade in Mississippi as an educator, looks at the South's troubled ties to the cotton industry, the long struggle for civil rights, and unrelenting social and economic injustice through the eyes of two of the era's most important and intriguing figures.
Laura Visser-Maessen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469627984
- eISBN:
- 9781469628004
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627984.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Relating how Moses translated his McComb experiences into a solid method of organizing in 1962-1963 and,in the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), found an instrument to apply his approach ...
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Relating how Moses translated his McComb experiences into a solid method of organizing in 1962-1963 and,in the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), found an instrument to apply his approach across Mississippi, this chapteranalyzes how SNCC’s ideals worked in practice and explores the role that Moses’s singular characteristics, known as the Bob Moses Mystique, played in its effect. By incorporating how SNCC-workersin other states, particularly James Bevel and Charles Sherrod,duplicated his approach, it is demonstrated that Mississippi could develop this organizing approach most consistently, largely due to Moses, his hands-on organizing, and stress onexposure, ownership in learning, ‘credentializing’, and creating familial relationships. It illuminates how Moses’s personality, speech, contacts, and vision helped shape the Mississippi movement’s distinctive culture and why these spurred the universal projection of leadership onto Moses. Using Ruleville as a case study of Moses’s and SNCC’s day-to-day activism, it illuminates the interplay between fulltime activists and locals in producing social change. Central in this discussion is how they, through sophisticated planning and ‘trial and error’ tactics and by turning older tactics into organizing tools in themselves, expanded movement participation especially among sharecroppers like Fannie Lou Hamer and increased participants’ commitment, including their own.Less
Relating how Moses translated his McComb experiences into a solid method of organizing in 1962-1963 and,in the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), found an instrument to apply his approach across Mississippi, this chapteranalyzes how SNCC’s ideals worked in practice and explores the role that Moses’s singular characteristics, known as the Bob Moses Mystique, played in its effect. By incorporating how SNCC-workersin other states, particularly James Bevel and Charles Sherrod,duplicated his approach, it is demonstrated that Mississippi could develop this organizing approach most consistently, largely due to Moses, his hands-on organizing, and stress onexposure, ownership in learning, ‘credentializing’, and creating familial relationships. It illuminates how Moses’s personality, speech, contacts, and vision helped shape the Mississippi movement’s distinctive culture and why these spurred the universal projection of leadership onto Moses. Using Ruleville as a case study of Moses’s and SNCC’s day-to-day activism, it illuminates the interplay between fulltime activists and locals in producing social change. Central in this discussion is how they, through sophisticated planning and ‘trial and error’ tactics and by turning older tactics into organizing tools in themselves, expanded movement participation especially among sharecroppers like Fannie Lou Hamer and increased participants’ commitment, including their own.
Christopher D. Cantwell, Heath W. Carter, and Janine Giordano Drake
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039997
- eISBN:
- 9780252098178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039997.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter gathers a number of local histories and suggests that although many Americans worshipped in churches and worked on shop floors, most lived in the space between the pew and ...
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This introductory chapter gathers a number of local histories and suggests that although many Americans worshipped in churches and worked on shop floors, most lived in the space between the pew and the picket line. This space includes Pentecostal miners who had faith in prosperity and sought miracles at the mine; automobile workers and sympathetic ministers evangelizing one another on the shop floor; and black sharecroppers and white Protestant liberals who saw the creation of a credit union as an investment in a more cooperative capitalism. The chapter covers a vast chronological and geographic scope and draws upon the diverse experiences of the American workforce, arguing that the space between the pew and the picket line is not only where most Americans have lived, but where the contours of both American Christianity and American capitalism have been shaped.Less
This introductory chapter gathers a number of local histories and suggests that although many Americans worshipped in churches and worked on shop floors, most lived in the space between the pew and the picket line. This space includes Pentecostal miners who had faith in prosperity and sought miracles at the mine; automobile workers and sympathetic ministers evangelizing one another on the shop floor; and black sharecroppers and white Protestant liberals who saw the creation of a credit union as an investment in a more cooperative capitalism. The chapter covers a vast chronological and geographic scope and draws upon the diverse experiences of the American workforce, arguing that the space between the pew and the picket line is not only where most Americans have lived, but where the contours of both American Christianity and American capitalism have been shaped.
Laurie B. Green
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807831069
- eISBN:
- 9781469604534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807888872_green.10
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the rise of the freedom movement in Memphis involving black students, sharecroppers, and sanitation workers. It begins with an overview of politics in Memphis following the ...
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This chapter examines the rise of the freedom movement in Memphis involving black students, sharecroppers, and sanitation workers. It begins with an overview of politics in Memphis following the Supreme Court's 1955 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, followed by a discussion of the student sit-in movement and its emphasis on “Freedom Now!,” aimed at the immediate desegregation of all public facilities. The chapter then focuses on two movements that drove working-class blacks further into politics: the African Americans' renewed protest against police brutality and the sanitation workers' protests against the city's treatment of its all-black corps of garbage collectors. It also considers the role of popular music and radio and the burgeoning “youth market” in the intensification of activism that challenged segregated cultural institutions.Less
This chapter examines the rise of the freedom movement in Memphis involving black students, sharecroppers, and sanitation workers. It begins with an overview of politics in Memphis following the Supreme Court's 1955 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, followed by a discussion of the student sit-in movement and its emphasis on “Freedom Now!,” aimed at the immediate desegregation of all public facilities. The chapter then focuses on two movements that drove working-class blacks further into politics: the African Americans' renewed protest against police brutality and the sanitation workers' protests against the city's treatment of its all-black corps of garbage collectors. It also considers the role of popular music and radio and the burgeoning “youth market” in the intensification of activism that challenged segregated cultural institutions.
Harry Haywood
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816679058
- eISBN:
- 9781452947686
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816679058.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in ...
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Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in U.S. history and realized that he’d been fighting the wrong war—the real enemy was right here at home. This book is an eloquent account of coming of age as a black man in twentieth-century America and of his political awakening in the Communist Party. For all its cultural and historical interest, this story is also noteworthy for its considerable narrative drama. The son of parents born into slavery, the text tells of how Haywood grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, found his first job as a shoeshine boy in Minneapolis, then went on to work as a waiter on trains and in restaurants in Chicago. After fighting in France during the war, he studied how to make revolutions in Moscow during the 1920s, led the Communist Party’s move into the Deep South in 1931, helped to organize the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, worked with the Sharecroppers Union, supported protests in Chicago against Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, fought with the International Brigades in Spain, served in the Merchant Marines during World War II, and continued to fight for the right of self-determination for the Afro-American nation in the United States until his death in 1985.Less
Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in U.S. history and realized that he’d been fighting the wrong war—the real enemy was right here at home. This book is an eloquent account of coming of age as a black man in twentieth-century America and of his political awakening in the Communist Party. For all its cultural and historical interest, this story is also noteworthy for its considerable narrative drama. The son of parents born into slavery, the text tells of how Haywood grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, found his first job as a shoeshine boy in Minneapolis, then went on to work as a waiter on trains and in restaurants in Chicago. After fighting in France during the war, he studied how to make revolutions in Moscow during the 1920s, led the Communist Party’s move into the Deep South in 1931, helped to organize the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, worked with the Sharecroppers Union, supported protests in Chicago against Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, fought with the International Brigades in Spain, served in the Merchant Marines during World War II, and continued to fight for the right of self-determination for the Afro-American nation in the United States until his death in 1985.
Harry Haywood and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816679058
- eISBN:
- 9781452947686
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816679058.003.0011
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
In this chapter, Harry Haywood reflects on his work with the Sharecroppers Union to mobilize poor farmers in the deep, Black Belt South during the early 1930s. In the spring of 1933, Haywood ...
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In this chapter, Harry Haywood reflects on his work with the Sharecroppers Union to mobilize poor farmers in the deep, Black Belt South during the early 1930s. In the spring of 1933, Haywood Patterson of the Scottsboro Boys was declared guilty in relation to the alleged rape of two white girls in Alabama in 1931. His conviction sparked a a wave of indignation among Black communities across the country. Mass protest rallies, demonstrations of all sorts, and parades culminated in the Free the Scottsboro Boys March on Washington on May 7–9, 1933.Less
In this chapter, Harry Haywood reflects on his work with the Sharecroppers Union to mobilize poor farmers in the deep, Black Belt South during the early 1930s. In the spring of 1933, Haywood Patterson of the Scottsboro Boys was declared guilty in relation to the alleged rape of two white girls in Alabama in 1931. His conviction sparked a a wave of indignation among Black communities across the country. Mass protest rallies, demonstrations of all sorts, and parades culminated in the Free the Scottsboro Boys March on Washington on May 7–9, 1933.
Stuart Burrows
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816674695
- eISBN:
- 9781452947518
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816674695.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter talks about James Agee’s photo-text Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a study that focused on three “sharecropper” families in Alabama. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men translates into words the ...
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This chapter talks about James Agee’s photo-text Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a study that focused on three “sharecropper” families in Alabama. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men translates into words the economy and simplicity of Walker Evan’s photographs, which featured local expressions of people found in unusual locations and portrayed the American scene from the 1920s to the early 1970s. The chapter concludes with an emphasis on Agee’s view of the unequal relation between writing and photography, claiming that Let Us Now Praise Famous Men would have been better if the book only compiled photographs with no writing at all.Less
This chapter talks about James Agee’s photo-text Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a study that focused on three “sharecropper” families in Alabama. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men translates into words the economy and simplicity of Walker Evan’s photographs, which featured local expressions of people found in unusual locations and portrayed the American scene from the 1920s to the early 1970s. The chapter concludes with an emphasis on Agee’s view of the unequal relation between writing and photography, claiming that Let Us Now Praise Famous Men would have been better if the book only compiled photographs with no writing at all.
