Reel 2

Scope and Contents From the Collection: Consist of correspondence, reports, ledgers, legal documents, leaflets, printed material, photographs, and newspapers published by the union. These document the activities of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union from its origins through its transformations into the National Farm Labor Union in 1946 and the National Agriculture Workers Union in 1952, and through its merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union in 1960. The records also contain selected materials from the Socialist Party...

Scope and Contents There is an interesting exchange of correspondence between Kester and Mitchell on the desirability of setting up an STFU-sponsored cooperative farm to house evicted tenants (13,18,23), as well as a report from Kester on a conference called by Gardner Jackson's National Committee on Rural Social Planning (31). Other items of special interest include Kester's pamphlet, Revolt of the Sharecroppers (17), Mitchell's preliminary instructions to his locals on a forthcoming strike (9,19), and...

Scope and Contents There is a flood of telegrams from Gardner Jackson through the first half of the month relating to the presentation of evidence of anti-union violence before the Senate Committee on Civil Liberties chaired by Robert M. La Follette, Jr. The papers also include a frequent exchange of letters between Mitchell and STFU Vice-President E.B. McKinney on McKinney's fund-raising trip to New York and on his complaints of mistreatment by his fellow STFU officers. There is a mimeographed letter from...

Scope and Contents The strike, which began May 18, dominates the union correspondence for this month. See especially the frequent STFU press releases on the strike, the circular letter sent out to AF of L affiliates appealing for strike funds (21), and Mitchell's almost daily communications with Gardner Jackson. Toward the end of May, a major issue developed in the case of Paul Peacher, a Crittenden County (Ark.) Deputy Sheriff accused of holding sharecroppers in peonage on his penal farm; see especially the...

Scope and Contents The strike and the violence mounted by the planters to break the strike are the main issues in the papers for June. The papers include several STFU press releases on the strike and a considerable amount of correspondence between Mitchell and union members on the expenditure of strike relief funds. Friends of the union also sent STFU headquarters copies of their letters to state and Federal officials protesting the unchecked violence. There is also a discussion of plans to send a sharecropper...

Scope and Contents Several STFU members faced legal charges in the aftermath of the strike, and Gardner Jackson kept union headquarters informed of his efforts to raise bail money (6,10,28). The ACLU sent a copy of their letter to Arkansas governor J.M. Funtrell listing a number of cases in which the civil rights of union members were allegedly violated (8), while J.C. Brookfield, a union lawyer, and the WDL sent reports on the cases of Nathan Smith and Josh Turner, both held on felony charges in Crittenden...

Scope and Contents Topics under discussion during August include plans to send former STFU leader Walter Moskop to California after his attempt to assassinate H.L. Mitchell, the forthcoming Socialist Party campaign in Arkansas, a training school for union organizers held at the Delta Cooperative Farm beginning August 17, legal defense problems, and the discussion of STFU tactics toward Governor Futrell's planned Commission on Farm Tenancy. There is a letter from Mitchell to Donald Henderson protesting...