Southern Tenant Farmers Union Records on Microfilm

The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU), a biracial union of sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and small landowners, came into existence in the cotton plantation country of Arkansas in July, 1934, under the leadership of a group of socialists, including H.L. Mitchell and Howard Kester. Although locals were soon established in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, the union's base of operation remained in Arkansas until 1945.

Farm mechanization and the impact of World War II shifted the union's focus from tenant farmers to migrant farm workers, whose numbers were rapidly increasing. The union also began supplying temporary cannery workers during the 1940's.

From 1937 to 1939, the STFU was affiliated with the CIO through the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA). After the STFU's withdrawal from the CIO in response to ideological differences with the UCAPAWA, it remained independent until it secured direct affiliation with the A.F. of L. in 1946. At that time, the organization's name changed to the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU) and organizing efforts shifted to farm workers in California. During the 1950's, the NFLU's successor, the National Agricultural Workers' Union (NAWU), focused on organizing sugar, rice, and strawberry workers in Louisiana.

In 1960, the NAWU surrendered its AFL-CIO charter and merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen. H.L. Mitchell, former secretary of the SFTU, headed Local 300 of the Allied and Agricultural Workers' Union, organizing rice mill workers and fishermen in Louisiana.