Reel 5

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 The UCAPAWA organizing convention was held in Denver, Colorado on July 9 to 11. Although seven STFU officials attended, there is surprisingly little material about it in the papers; see, however, Mitchell's statement to the convention (9), a copy of the preliminary draft of the UCAPAWA Constitution (9), and a Xerox copy of a letter from Blaine Treadway to Sam Franklin on his early impressions of the meeting (8). Apart from UCAPAWA, there is a letter from the Resettlement Administration...

Scope and Contents Routine correspondence with UCAPAWA headquarters begins the first week of August. Mitchell explained the new affiliation to the STFU membership and the new operating procedures to his organizers in mimeographed letters (5,21). The union began preparations for a special convention to ratify the UCAPAWA affiliation and for a series of local strikes to demand higher wages for cotton picking, both slated for September. To avert further violence against the union, J.R. Butler began sending...

Scope and Contents The UCAPAWA District Convention was held at Memphis on September 24 to 26; the papers include the call (1) and two mimeographed reports to all STFU locals on the results of the convention and the new procedures adopted (29,30). Gordon McIntire, Louisiana organizer for the National Farmers Union, wrote to urge Mitchell to begin organizing Louisiana sugar workers (7,14,24) and the New Orleans Industrial Union Council seconded the proposal (23): see also Mitchell's lengthy reply, detailing his...

Scope and Contents Trouble developed in two small Arkansas towns. At Forrest City, union lawyer C.A. Stanfield was attacked while attempting to defend two STFU members; the papers include a press release on the incident (2) and nine affidavits from witnesses (8,9,11). At Blytheville, local planters forcibly prevented cotton pickers from working on adjacent plantations for higher wages; in addition to considerable correspondence with the leaders of the union in Blytheville, there are 4 affidavits (13) and...

Scope and Contents Blytheville and Forrest City continued to dominate STFU concern during November. The union attempted to convince the U.S. Department of Justice to initiate a peonage case at Forrest City, but had little luck with District Attorney Fred A. Isgrig (16), or his superiors in Washington (Dec. 6). The STFU National Executive Committee met on Nov. 20; the minutes may be found in the Howard A. Kester Papers, Reel 59. There is a detailed letter from Butler to Kester, enumerating the issues to be...

Scope and Contents Replies to Mitchell's relief survey began arriving about the first of the month. Correspondence with UCAPAWA over administrative problems continued, and there is also a descriptive listing of all correspondence between the STFU and UCAPAWA from July 19 to Dec. 31, 1937 (31). Unusually heavy correspondence from Odis L. Sweeden appears in the papers, mainly on the subject of accelerating the effort of Pioneer Youth of America, Inc. to distribute Christmas toys to sharecropper children. There...