July 1934
Labor organizingBook sources
Black and white tenants form the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union
Poinsett County, Arkansas; later the Southern United States
Black and white tenants and sharecroppers organized a union against eviction and exploitative crop-sharing arrangements. Interracial organizing challenged the racial order enforced by planters and their allies.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
Integration was an organizing principle, but some later locals were segregated. The Arkansas-based union was distinct from Alabama’s Sharecroppers Union and did not eliminate conflict within its own membership.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 15, pp. 397–399; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union ↗