The Making of Black
THE BLACK WORKER [Transition to Industry]
by Lerone Bennett, Jr. for Ebony Magazine, November 1972, pp.150-162.
A new system of
repression--more subtle, more diffuse, but equally effective--replaced slavery.
After
Three major subsystems-- peonage,
disfranchisement, and segregation-- constituted the cutting edge of the new
system, and these subsystems meshed in an overarching framework which relegated
most black workers to a state which was not markedly different from slavery. In
the generation after Reconstruction, tenancy and peonage laws, supplemented by
official and unofficial violence, confined most black workers to Black Belt
plantations, where they continued to harvest the crops of slavery. In 1890, a
generation after slavery, seven out of every eight black workers were still
harvesting cotton and sugar crops in the old plantation settings or performing
domestic work in demeaning urban contexts. Under the provisions of
tenancy and peonage laws, which the
No less effective in the political economy of neo-slavery were the devices of political disfranchisement, which deprived black workers of the power they needed to defend their interests. Another factor in this deliberate and carefully interlinked set of policies was social segregation, which isolated black workers and made it easier for their enemies to deprive them of vital social services. Still another factor in this equation was negative psychological conditioning in an apartheid system which reminded every black worker every hour that he was a pariah and outcast.
In assessing this system, one must be careful to remember that each subsystem complemented the other, enclosing black workers in a negative space, every inch of which was mined and booby-trapped by their enemies. By manipulating educational funds, whites deliberately kept blacks ignorant and available for service in the least desirable jobs. At the same time, black criminals were deliberately manufactured by the legal system which was an adjunct to the notorious prison convict system. On the slightest pretext, and oftentimes with no pretext at all, young' black men were sentenced to long prison terms and leased out to plantation owners, railroad builders, and other businessmen.
This system was no accident; it was a result of will, cunning, and design. And what was the purpose? The purpose was the continuation of slavery in direct defiance of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. More concretely, the purpose was to force a whole race of people to live at a subsistence level while the fruits of their labor were appropriated by others.
By way of illustration, we can cite the workings of the sharecropping system, which bound most black workers to the plantation almost as effectively as slavery. Under this system, which formed the material base for black life until World War I, the black worker entered into an agreement with a planter to work a section of the plantation. The planter provided the land and often times the seed and equipment. He also advanced credit at exorbitant rates of interest for food and other necessities purchased at the plantation store. The sharecropper provided the only thing he had, his labor power, and the labor power of his wife and children. At the end of the year, the planter and tenant settled accounts by dividing the profits. This meant in practice that the planter, who kept the books, subtracted from the tenant's share the amount allegedly advanced for goods, equipment, etc. Somehow the subtracting almost always worked to the disadvantage of the tenant who almost always ended up owing the planter for the privilege of working. Since peonage laws required tenants to remain on the plantation until all debts were cleared, tenants were de facto slaves.
The essence of this system was captured by John Carlson who related a story of a white landlord settling accounts with a tenant and saying, "George, you've worked hard this year, and even though prices have been low, you made out very well. All you owe me is $12."Another story, illustrative of the same point, appeared in the American Mercury in 1932.
The old Negro farmer took off his battered hat and scratched his head meditatively. He was in the throes of achieving his annual settling up with the country storekeeper, who advanced him what he needed in the way of food, clothing and supplies during the year.
"Then,
we's all square?" he
repeated.
"Yes,
J.C., all square," said the white man.
"And I don't owe you nothin'?"
"No."
"And you don't owe me nothin'?'"
"That's
right."
"And yit . . ." J. C. shook his head dubiously. "And yit I still got two bales o' cotton on my hands."
The
storekeeper took out his quid and tossed it into the sawdust box.
"Well,
goddam it, J. C. Why'n you
say so before? Now 1've got to do some more figurin'."
The white man figured, the black man worked, and
the black debt increased. "On the eve of World War I," Dan Lacy
wrote, "the new system of white control had reached its peak of
effectiveness, and it provided a much more efficient and profitable method of
exploiting black labor in commercial agriculture than had slavery. Output per
man-hour of black labor in cotton production was substantially higher than
before emancipation. Sharecropping made the Negro's own meager income dependent
on his productivity and got more work out of him than could any form of
discipline under slavery. . . . At the same. time, the cost of black labor was probably less. Only an
unusual worker in an unusual year could hope to gain more than the subsistence
that had formerly been given all slaves. And the freedom of the planter from
the burden of support of the elderly and invalid and from the necessity of
tying up capital in the purchase of slaves probably actually significantly
lowered his man-hour labor cost in constant dollars." As can be imagined,
all this was enormously profitable to white
To grasp this fact in its fullness, we have to
notice that the new system was national in scope. Basic to the maintenance of
the system was a national consensus on the role and status of black workers.
First of all, and most important of all, there was a tacit agreement between
men of power in the North and South that Southern black labor would not be
"disturbed" by national agitation on the Negro question. There was,
secondly, general agreement that blacks in the North and South would be
confined to menial labor. A third and final point was that Northern and
Southern industrialists would not bid for the services of Southern black
laborers. This was a period, it should be remembered, of feverish industrial
growth; and yet, strangely enough, Northern factory owners made little direct
use of black labor, relying almost completely on white immigrants from
The implications of this national policy were
shrewdly weighed by Paul H. Buck in The Road to
In this light, we can better understand the national white consensus of the 1880s and 1890s, a consensus which was expressed concretely in Supreme Court decisions, Presidential politics, philanthropic activity, and Sunday morning sermons.
Three obvious but important points must be made about this consensus. First, black workers were impoverished and suffered a detederioration in all their social relations. Secondly, black impoverishment was systematically induced by all American institutions. Thirdly, the systematic impoverishment of black workers set cruel and narrow limits to the development of the black community.
It may be at once observed-- though we shall
return to this point later in greater detail-- that black workers resisted this
national assault. More than a million black workers, for example, supported the
abortive Populist movement. The collapse of this movement eliminated the
political alternatives, and most black workers fell back on traditional techniques.
Some sought escape in millenarian movements; otl1ers organized exodus movements
to the Midwest and
It is a tribute to the indomitable tenacity of black workers that they not only survived this onslaught but made small gains. In this period, there were new opportunities for blacks in lumbering, mining, and railroad construction, and some black workers found work in the old ante-bellum sanctuaries of domestic service and artisanry.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, racism
and the new forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution eliminated the old
sanctuaries and intensified the black worker's quest for economic security. In
the 1880s and 1890s, nine million white immigrants from
This was not a new development. The displacement of black service workers began, as we have seen, in the 1830s. Emancipation accelerated this movement and intensified the ancient [early colonial] rivalry between black and white workers in the cities.
Nothing shows this more clearly than the
displacement of the black artisans of the South, an ominous movement which
paralleled the displacement of the black service workers of the North. During
the period under discussion, white Southerners displaced black engineers,
blacksmiths, gunsmiths, cabinetmakers, plasterers, painters, masons, and
bricklayers. What is amazing really and worth detailed examination is the fact
that these artisans dominated the Southern economy at the beginning of this
period. In 1865, according to a census of occupations cited by Charles Wesley
in his standard work, Negro Labor in the
All this changed drastically in the postwar period. Between 1865 and 1890, the black monopoly was broken and the proportion of black artisans dropped alarmingly. Although blacks continued to playa major role in some occupations, notably masonry and carpentry, whites moved to a position of dominance in the twentieth century and used every resource at their command to eliminate blacks.
Impersonal factors (technological change,
large-scale production and financing) were important in the displacement of
black artisans, but here, as elsewhere, the dominant forces were racial. In. some cases, whites-laborers and capitalists-combined to deny
black artisans access to capital and new technology. In other cases,
white laborers and capitalists, aided and abetted by white legislators and
judges, conspired to limit the jurisdiction and the advancement of black
artisans.
It is important to establish this point for the destruction of the black
artisan class was a central event in African-American history. The precipitous
decline of black artisans changed the tone and texture of the black community,
depriving blacks of resources and leadership potential. All this snowballed in
a disastrous manner with cumulative effects which have not been reversed, even
today [1971].
To understand the central importance of this development, one must back up a little and explore the rise of the labor movement, which was, paradoxically, a major instrument in the destruction of the artisan class and the narrowing of the economic alternatives available to blacks.
From the very beginning of the Republic....white men combined as white men to limit the employment opportunities of blacks whom they feared as real or potential competitors. This movement assumed a new and ominous thrust with the formal organization of national unions. To be sure, some pioneer union leaders recognized the dangers of a divided working class and attempted to organize racially inclusive groups. But these were small hopes, tender shoots pushing their way through the hard crust of bigotry. We can see this clearly if we look briefly at the history of the National Labor Union, organized in 1866, and the Knights of Labor, organized in 1869. Both organizations issued ringing declarations in support of black and white labor and both organizations were supported by blacks. Some 60,000 black workers, for example, were members of the Knights of Labor at the height of its influence in 1886. The black and white members of these pioneer labor organizations registered some minor gains, but they were overwhelmed finally by the dominant trend of the nineteenth century, craft unionism dominated by a spirit of black exclusion and subordination.
There were at least two major responses to this
spirit of exclusion in the black community. The first was strikebreaking, and
the second was independent black unionism. Both responses surfaced early and
deeply influenced black-white relations. In the 1850s and 1860s, there were
repeated clashes between black workers and white strikers, particularly on East
Coast docks. During that same period, the first black labor union, the American
League of Colored Laborers, was organized in
The guiding spirit behind this organization was Isaac Myers, who has been called "the great pioneer of organized Negro labor." A Baltimore caulker and the leader of the militant black unionists of Maryland, Myers was an early supporter of the National Labor Union and an advocate of black and white labor solidarity. In a speech to the National Labor Union, Myers said: "The white laboring men of the country have nothing to fear from the colored laboring men. We desire to see labor elevated and made respectable; we desire to have the highest rates of wages that our labor is worth; we desire to have the hours of labor regulated as well as to the interest of the laborer as to the capitalist. Mr. President, American citizenship for the black man is a complete failure if he is proscribed from the workshops of the country." As the white labor movement spread, denying advancement and employment to skilled black workers, Myers became increasingly militant, telling black artisans that if they did not organize the trades would pass from their hands and they would become "the servants, the sweepers of shavings, the scrapers of pitch and carriers of mortar." When whites accused blacks of "racism in reverse," Myers replied that blacks were compelled to organize as blacks because of the treachery of white unionists.
Under the leadership of Myers, the National Negro
Labor Union organized state and city auxiliaries and agitated for cooperatives,
a national system of education, and liberal labor legislation. The
The collapse of the independent black labor Union and the Knights of Labor coincided with the emergence of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a craft-oriented combine which exacerbated the problems of black workers. After an initial period of rhetorical liberalism, the AFL came down hard on the side of white racism. By 1899, the AFL was openly admitting white-only unions like the telegraphers and railroad trackmen. By 1910, the organization was indifferent or hostile to the demands of black workers. An additional and perhaps even more important point in this connection is that the AFL made no serious effort to organize unskilled workers.
The emergence of a formidable white union structure with a pronounced anti-Negro stance, had the most serious consequences. On the national level, AFL policy widened and sealed the existing divisions between black and white workers. On the local level, AFL policy strengthened the hand of biased white union leaders, who launched a national campaign to exclude and subordinate black workers.
In this campaign, which reached a peak in the first two decades of the twentieth century, a number of techniques were used. The most common was to bar blacks from unions and to make union membership, i.e., whiteness, a prerequisite for employment. Wherever blacks were too numerous to exclude by this method, separate and subordinate black unions were organized. A third and equally effective mode of exclusion was the negative quota restricting the percentage and advancement of black workers. The transportation brotherhoods-- the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trackmen-- used this technique repeatedly in their long and generally successful campaign to exclude black railroad workers. The widespread use of quotas to eliminate black skilled tradesmen is particularly interesting, in view of the contemporary white view that quotas are alien to the American way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although quotas to include people and to insure fair play are alien to the American system, quotas to exclude people on the basis of race are as American as apple pie and white ice cream.
We can illustrate this point with a mass of evidence. In January, 1910, for example, the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, negotiated the following agreement with Southern railroads:
No larger percentage of Negro trainmen or yardmen will be employed on any division or in any yard than was employed on January 1, 1910. If on any roads this percentage is now larger than on January 1, 1910, this agreement does not contemplate the discharge of any Negroes to be replaced by whites; but as vacancies are filled or new men employed, whites are to be taken on until the percentage of January first is again reached.
Negroes are not to be employed as baggagemen, firemen or yard foremen, but in any case in which they are so now employed, they are not to be discharged to make places for whites, but when the positions they occupy become vacant, whites shall be employed in their place. .
Another case makes the same point even more clearly. A 1927 agreement between the Atlanta Joint Terminals and the firemen and hostler helpers said:
White
firemen will be given preference over Negro firemen in filling all jobs when
the following changes in conditions of work are made:
(1) A
change of 30 minutes or more in the starting time of a job.
(2) Filling
vacancies.
(3)
Creation of new jobs.
These "subtleties" were abandoned in many areas and strikes were organized to bar black workers. Between 1880 and 1890, there were at least fifty major strikes against the use of black workers, and scores of white unions won their case by threatening to strike if black workers were not discharged.
There were other mechanisms. White unions refused to recognize the travelling cards of black union men. They white listed black workers. They restricted black workers to menial tasks and to certain sections of town. They excluded blacks by establishing hiring halls and by manipulating licensing requirements. When these methods failed; white unionists used the gun and the torch. "These tactics," Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris reported, "reached their height on the Illinois Central system where special agents reported" a plot to kill Negro trainmen who refused to give up their jobs. A price of $300 was said to have been placed on the head of every Negro trainman. Negro employees, firemen as well as trainmen, received letters signed 'Zulus' ordering them to leave the service and threatening them with death if they refused. One colored fireman was shot in the face with a shotgun as his train was nearing a station. In several instances trains were stopped by white men armed with clubs and guns. Negro brakemen were beaten, up for holding 'white men's jobs' and were threatened with death if they were caught running in the territory again." Several black trainmen were killed.
From the foregoing, it is evident that white unions were involved in the white conspiracy to limit black employment. It is equally evident that white union policy played into the hands of anti-union employers who used the divisions in the working classes to limit the power and effectiveness of white workers. Throughout this period and on into the twentieth century, white capitalists used black workers to break the strikes of white unions. But in considering this point, one must always be careful to remember two points: 1) the role of the black strikebreaker has been systematically exaggerated; 2) the number of black stIikebreakers was small in comparison with white strikebreakers.
Wholly apart from the question of numbers, it is plain that strikebreaking was the only way most black workers could find employment. It was largely by strikebreaking that blacks forced their way into some industries, includ~ - ing meatpacking, mining, steel work, lumbering.
To this picture of massive union bias, one should add, in all justice, that white unions were not the first and only barriers to equal employment. In the North and the South, white employers were equally resourceful in creating barriers to black employment. Nor should it be forgotten that black workers faced the same problems in non-union trades and factories.
It should also be said that some unions, notably
the United Mine Workers, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the
Longshoremen, made laudable effOlts to protect both
black and white workers. It is certainly significant that more than half of the
United Mine ''''orkers in
As these examples indicate, some white unions were open and creative. But these unions were always in the minority, and it is fair to conclude that the white labor movement of the nineteenth-century was one arm of the interlocking network of barriers that white people created to exclude and subordinate black workers.