Southern Tenant Farmers Union

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which was intended to alleviate the economic fallout from the Great Depression, did not benefit all segments of society equally. To boost agricultural prices and, thus, farm incomes, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) paid landowners to take land out of production. Because landowners received the government's payments and because they controlled the local administration of the AAA, tenant farmers and Sharecroppers received relatively little of this money and, worse, found themselves either out of work or transformed into wage laborers.

In 1934 Arkansas socialists Harry Leland Mitchell and Clay East tapped into the ensuing frustration and formed the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU). The union sought to use peaceful means, such as lawsuits, speeches, and books and pamphlets to highlight income inequality in southern agriculture. STFU members protested their treatment by landowners and also the local institutions that they believed were responsible for their degraded economic condition, including local school boards, police departments, relief agencies, health agencies, the courts, and poll taxes. After some two years of recruitment and expansion into neighboring states, the STFU still represented highly localized interests. In 1937 it sought broader exposure through an association with the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packinghouse and Allied Workers of America, a CIO affiliate. Conflicts between the STFU and the union and factional fights within the STFU depleted its ranks and ultimately its ability to revive the local activities responsible for its initial organizational success.

The STFU was a reactionary response to economic hardships that southern farmers, particularly non-landowning farmers, faced during the Great Depression. Yet it left a lasting legacy. With its strong religious undertone, its integration of African Americans and women into its membership, and its nonviolent means, the STFU set the stage for the civil rights movement almost three decades later.

Bibliography

Auerbach, Jerold S. "Southern Tenant Farmers: Socialist Critics of the New Deal." Labor History 7 (1966): 3–18.

Dyson, Lowell K. "The Southern Tenant Farmers Union and Depression Politics." Political Science Quarterly 88 (1973): 230–252.

Grubbs, Donald H. Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union and the New Deal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971.

Mitchell, H. L. "The Founding and Early History of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 32 (1973): 342–369.

Naison, Mark D. "The Southern Tenants' Farmers' Union and the CIO." In "We Are All Leaders": The Alternative Unionism of the Early 1930s. Edited by Staughton Lynd. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU) was founded as a civil farmer's union to further organize the tenant farmers in the Southern United States.

Originally set up during the Great Depression in the United States, the reasons for the establishment of the STFU are numerous, although they are all largely centered upon money and working conditions. Predominantly, the STFU was established as a result of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA itself was designed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help revive the United States' agricultural industry and to recharge the depressed economy.

The AAA called for a reduction in food production, which would, through a controlled shortage of food, raise the price for any given food item through supply and demand. The desired effect was that the agricultural industry would once again prosper due to the increased value and produce more income for farmers. In order to decrease food production, the AAA would pay farmers not to farm and the money would go to the landowners. The landowners were expected to share this money with the tenant farmers. While a small percentage of the landowners did share the income, the majority did not. This led to the formation of the STFU, whose existence serves historically as evidence that such a problem existed.

STFU was one of few unions in the 1930s that was open to all races. Promoting not only nonviolent protest for their fair share of the AAA money, the STFU also promoted the idea that blacks and whites could work efficiently together. Because these ideas were highly controversial at the time, the STFU met with harsh resistance from the landowners and local public officials and STFU leaders were often harassed and ignored.

Sources

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2008)

• Auerbach, Jerold S. "Southern Tenant Farmers: Socialist Critics of the New Deal." Labor History 7 (1966): 3–18.

• Cobb, William H. "The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=35

• Dyson, Lowell K. "The Southern Tenant Farmers Union and Depression Politics." Political Science Quarterly 88 (1973): 230–252.

• Grubbs, Donald H. Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union and the New Deal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971.

• Kester, Howard. Revolt among the Sharecroppers. New York: Covici-Frede, 1936.

• Mitchell, H. L. "The Founding and Early History of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 32 (1973): 342–369.

• Naison, Mark D. "The Southern Tenants' Farmers' Union and the CIO." In "We Are All Leaders": The Alternative Unionism of the Early 1930s. Edited by Staughton Lynd. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

• Ross Jr., James D. "I ain’t got no home in this world": The Rise and Fall of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union in Arkansas. Ph.D. diss., Auburn University, 2004.

External links

• Inventory of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union Records, 1934-1991, in the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.

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