Green Social Thought

Produce less. Distribute it fairly. Create a greener world for all.

Subscribe
Donate

When Black And White Tenant Farmers Joined Together

The Southern Tenant Farmers Union was founded on the principle of interracial organizing. It challenged the Southern landowning class and the Jim Crow white supremacist order, leaving a proud legacy for both the labor movement and the civil rights movement.  It’s 1935 and class war is brewing in Arkansas. Standing before 1,500 black and white…

Written by

David Griscom

–

–

Originally Published in

The Southern Tenant Farmers Union was founded on the principle of interracial organizing. It challenged the Southern landowning class and the Jim Crow white supremacist order, leaving a proud legacy for both the labor movement and the civil rights movement.  It’s 1935 and class war is brewing in Arkansas. Standing before 1,500 black and white sharecroppers, the radical Methodist minister Ward Rodgers thunders, “I can lead a mob to lynch any planter in Poinsett County.” The crowd erupts with applause.