January 8, 2009

African American Labor & Community

Unlike immigrant african americans remained predominatley rural and southern.

• Most were sharecroppers and avid tenant farmers
• African-americans were easily taken advantage of

White landowners forced sharecroppers to accept artificially low prices for their crops and charged high prices for seeds, tools and groceries.

- most sharecroppers were mired in poverty and debt

Some African-americans migrated to the industrial areas of the south to work in iron and coal mines and furniture and cigarett manufacturing. Also as rail road track layers, longshoremen, and as steel workers.

Some African Americans went North to work on the fringe of the industry as janitors, elevator operators, teamsters, longshoremen and servants.

In Southern industry Black's endures hardships and indignitites like being marched to work and being paid only once a month. JIM CROW LAWS (be sure you know the difference b/w these JCL and Black codes!) which lasted 60 yrs. were passed in every southern legeslature in the 1890's. Legalized rigid segregation/serperation of black and whites. The north didnt have Jim Crow Laws, however they did experience extreme cases of prejiduce.

- Industrialist hired european immigrants over migrant blacks.

-even when whites were on strike were they offered work

-european immigrants pushed blacks out of their established jobs, which destroyed black middle class

- residentila areas became more heavily segregated.

northern blacks proved to be very resourceful

- they built black churches, estates agencies, funeral homes, grocery stores, newspapers, resteraunts etc...

(Booker T Washington argued that blacks should devout themselves to self help and self suffiency as first priority)

Community building was more difficult for blacks they were often poor and smaller.

Workers and Unions

-early decades of 20th century factory workers were in fragile economic condition. There only hope lay within unions powerful enough to wrest wage concessions with reluctant employers. Knights of Labor-failes. Federal and state gov. had shown themselves willing to use military force to break them apart. The court repeatledly found unions in violation of the Sherman Anti-TRust Act. Prior to 1916 no federal laws protected the right of workers to organize or required employers to bargain with workers.

The environment made the major labor organizations of the day- AMerican federation of Labor- more timid and conservative. Poured most effort into organizing craft or skilled workers like carpenters, plumbers, painters and machanics.

Employers negotiated contracts and trade agreemants with craft unions that stipulated the wages of workers, the hours they would work and the rules under which new workers could join the trade.

The AFL withdrew from political activism. It's "business Unionism" took most of its force from Samuel Gompers. Still the AFL had limited sucess.

It's 2 million members were only a small portion of the work force and it had distanced itself from unskilled and semi-skilled workers.

Gompers allowed the united mine workers and the international ladies garmet workers union who represented unskilled and semi skilled workers to participate in the AFL.

AFL craftsmen were generally prejudiced against the "new immigrants" from southern and easter europe, and african americans.