The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1934–37

The Great Depression brought many underlying issues to the surface in the United States. As the global recession compounded in the mid-1930s, one of the more pressing concerns in America was the state of organized labor. Although unionization strengthened during the early twentieth-century, glaring omissions remained. Chief among them concerned non-industrial worker representation, which often employed inordinate numbers of non-white men. This paper examines the grassroots organizing of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) from their 1934 inception until their 1937 merger with the United Canary (UCAPAWA), controlled by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). During this period, the STFU developed myriad affiliations and networks that ran parallel to the black freedom struggle in the southern United States. Founded in response to the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) that paid cotton producers to lower their yield, the STFU quickly became known for interracial organizing open to both men and women. An unfortunate side effect of the AAA was many tenant farmers were forced from their land. The STFU lobbied in Washington, D.C. and formed numerous multi-state strikes in an attempt to overturn the AAA. During the organizations peak membership years, the STFU worked close enough with various organizations like the NAACP, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the Socialist Party, the groups essentially intertwined. Additionally, many of the STFU’s black constituents were former members of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) thanks to the black vice president of the STFU, E. B. McKinney. When the STFU merged with the CIO, the organizations formed a symbiotic relationship in which the STFU gained a national union umbrella and the CIO gained important lessons about labor organizing in the South. These mergers and affiliations formed increased avenues for resistance and developed networks used throughout the civil rights era in America.