It’s 1935 and tension is rising in Arkansas. In front of 1,500 black and white sharecroppers, the radical Methodist minister Ward Rodgers declares, “I can lead a crowd to lynch any planter in Poinsett County.” The audience cheers.
These white and black sharecroppers, who toiled, lived, and perished within the remains of the Southern plantation system, were familiar with fear. The previous night, a group of planters and deputy sheriffs had assaulted a class taught by Rodgers. The landowner class, the banks, the police, and a faction of the Ku Klux Klan known as the Nightriders had been conducting a harsh crackdown on the members of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.
Not to be outdone, the youthful and slim Harry Leland Mitchell took the stage. H. L. Mitchell was a union organizer and co-founder of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU), one of the first mixed-race and most influential unions in the South. In the town square, Mitchell defended the Methodist minister, stating, “Ward Rodgers is staying at my house. If a group of individuals with their heads covered in fabric come to my house, they will be confronted.”
The STFU would expand to thirty-one thousand members across the South, challenging the Southern landowning class and the Jim Crow white supremacist order, and leaving an undeniable mark on both the labor movement and the civil rights movement.
Mitchell took the title of his autobiography, Mean Things Happening in This Land, from a song of the same name penned by the poet, singer, and STFU member John Handcox, whose poetry is scattered throughout the book. Mean Things Happening in This Land not only recounts battles won and lost, but also provides a vivid depiction of what democratic socialist Michael Harrington termed the “splendor of regular people.” The brave actions of poor individuals, regardless of skin color, standing up to the planters and Nightriders are placed alongside risqué jokes, tales of alcohol-fueled nights, and everyday occurrences.
Mean Things Happening in This Land is a book about the broad scope of history, frequently interrupted by everyday life. Its characters are courageous, but not in a fairy-tale manner. They were common individuals, desiring only the essentials for a contented, ordinary existence. What set them apart was their bravery in fighting for it.
The STFU exemplifies the connection between social and economic justice as well as the pivotal role that community must play in sustaining workers’ movements challenging the affluent and influential. We would do well to examine the union today, and Mitchell’s autobiography is as good a starting point as any.
“His drawl was genuine his simplicity was not”
H.L. Mitchell was born in 1906 in Western Tennessee to a modest working-class family. As a young boy, he listened to a speech by a supporter of the socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs. The speaker’s statement, “I had rather be Eugene V. Debs in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta than Woodrow Wilson in his mansion in Washington,” left a lasting impact on Mitchell. He was too young to vote in the election, but it sparked a dedication to socialism. As a young man, he became a voracious reader, immersing himself in the writings of Karl Marx and Shakespeare. Mitchell swiftly ascended within the socialist movement, eventually being elected secretary of the Arkansas Socialist Party.
H. L. Mitchell used his social talents to garner sympathy for Southern workers, putting on a show to win the hearts and pocketbooks of sympathetic Northerners to the cause of the tenant farmers.
Mitchell’s self-education and his ordinary charm earned him numerous admirers. Later in life, he used his social talents to elicit empathy for Southern workers, staging performances to win the support of sympathetic Northerners for the tenant farmers’ cause. As Evelyn Munro Smith wrote, “He used his country boy mannerism to enlist and disarm others, whether consciously or unconsciously,” adding that while “his drawl was genuine his simplicity was not.”
By the 1930s, Mitchell found himself living in eastern Arkansas, operating a small laundry and organizing with the Arkansas Socialist Party. During a meeting with Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party leader told Mitchell and his long-time friend Clay East that while their activities in the Socialist Party were appreciated, what was truly needed was an organization of the sharecroppers in the region.
Life of a tenant farmer
Life for sharecroppers entailed long days, meager wages, and substantial debt. After a modest breakfast, work commenced under the supervision of the plantations’ “riding boss.” In eastern Arkansas, the riding boss was frequently a deputy sheriff who, as H.L. Mitchell described, “replaced the slave driver of the pre–Civil War days.”
This system was governed by both debt and force.
At the start of the season, workers would procure food and supplies for the growing season, at inflated prices and on credit, often paying 40 percent interest over the year. Additional work could be obtained and was compensated with credit at the company store.
In the summer, after the planting was finished, it was time for large revivals. Traveling “hellfire” preachers would organize segregated events for black and white individuals. The landowners would provide extra payment to the preachers to conduct the events, so that field hands could hear their problems attributed to their sinful ways, rather than to the economic circumstances in which they lived.
At the end of the season, the plantation bosses would calculate the cotton produced and deduct that from the workers’ debt. They often ended up in debt. If they attempted to flee, they would bepursued by the armed overseers and returned to the plantation. Even if they managed to leave freely, there was little work available in the towns. This was the reality in Arkansas and across the South.
Power in a labor association
For a long time, this system persisted through the ups and downs of Southern farming. However, the Great Depression and the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) changed everything. The AAA aimed to raise prices in agriculture, primarily benefiting landowners over Southern sharecroppers. It led to the eviction of nearly a million sharecroppers.
“In July of 1934, eighteen men formed the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU), emphasizing interracial organizing given the memory of the Elaine Massacre, where soldiers and white vigilantes killed two hundred black people for organizing.”
Toward the end of 1934, the STFU had about a thousand members and faced violence when two organizers were confronted during a meeting in Arkansas. The union’s call for help to the American Civil Liberties Union went unanswered. They then devised a plan, and their show of solidarity led to the release of a jailed member.
The STFU’s dedication to interracial organizing attracted more members from the black community and contributed to the union’s growth.
The STFU on the move
In the fall of 1935, planters announced a cut in cotton pickers’ wages, leading to a strike by STFU members. Through leaflets and pressure campaigns, the union successfully negotiated higher wages for most workers.
In addition to fighting for higher wages, the STFU also lobbied in Washington to ensure New Deal benefits reached sharecroppers. They faced opposition from officials, but their advocacy led to more urgent action.
The success of the STFU drew support from various quarters, including individuals like Lucien Koch of Commonwealth College, who faced danger while supporting the union.
A legacy of inclusive working-class resistance
The early STFU proposed the collectivization of cotton production in Arkansas, which rattled plantation owners and drew intensified attacks from the Nightriders.
The STFU confronted internal challenges, including attempts to split the union along racial lines. Despite these challenges, the union continued its advocacy for the working class.View collected funds to purchase land for sharecroppers in Mississippi, naming it the Delta and Providence Cooperative Farms. The most lucrative crop on the farm, reportedly, was the money contributed by visitors from the North. Around thirty families, comprising eighteen black and twelve white individuals, established a life in this community. Though faced with scandal and harassment, the community carried a promising vision of an alternative South.
At its peak, the STFU amassed thirty-one thousand members. As tenant farming waned due to agricultural mechanization, so did the STFU. The union was distinctive in its support for members to relocate and secure employment across the United States.
Over time, the STFU evolved into the National Farm Labor Movement, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and notably expanded into California. Mitchell devoted his life to the union’s cause, championing the rights of fruit pickers in California and fishermen in Louisiana. He also participated in labor missions to Europe and Cuba, where he adamantly declined to shake hands with the dictator Fulgencio Batista.
In contrast to the prevalent sentimentality about rural America and the South, Mitchell adopted a forward-thinking approach. He perceived the evolving world as a force to be harnessed for the benefit of ordinary people. “Eventually agriculture, America’s largest industry, must be socialized and operated for the benefit of those who work on the land and those who consume its products,” he conveyed, believing this to be the true wave of the future.
In 1935, four STFU organizers were detained in Lepanto, Arkansas, following a raid by local police at their union meeting based on dubious trespassing accusations. Despite this, the detainees defiantly sang the Internationale, captivating half the town. Their refusal to yield or be silenced attributed to the STFU’s triumph. The seemingly insurmountable feat of a group of indigent tenant farmers challenging the planter class, Jim Crow, law enforcement, the Nightriders, and even the federal government was made possible through unity, valor, and aspiration for a brighter tomorrow. Their legacy remains a source of inspiration today.