Reel 9

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 Claude Williams was "tried" before a meeting of the NEC on Sept. 16 and 17; four different copies of the minutes appear in the papers (a summary version, a typed copy, a handwritten copy, and a mimeographed copy of the trial portion of the meeting), as well as two press releases on the case (16, 17). See also a letter from J. Austin Beasley, a UCAPAWA official from Colorado, protesting the treatment of Williams (18) and Butler's reply (20). In a letter to all locals, Mitchell announced a...

Scope and Contents During the September strike, five STFU members distributing strike leaflets in Mississippi County, Arkansas were arrested for "Night-Riding"; on this case, see Butler to the ACLU (6) and the correspondence from two of the members arrested, Martha Williams (11,31) and Louis Johnson (28, 30, n.d. [Oct.]). In a related case, a union meeting in Coy, Arkansas was disrupted by violence; see the report from local secretary Martha Hayes (10). A major dispute developed with UCAPAWA when Donald...

Scope and Contents A major topic during this month is the letter sent out by three former STFU officials -- Claude Williams, E.B. McKinney, and W.L. Blackstone -- protesting their expulsion from the union and enclosing a mimeographed ten-point program for the union (1,12). There is an exchange between Butler and Henderson in which Henderson agreed to stay neutral in the Williams dispute (1,7). There is further correspondence with the WDL on the "Night-Riding" cases (1,4,7) and with UCAPAWA officials over the...

Scope and Contents Two conventions in one month kept the STFU membership busy during December. The UCAPAWA convention was held in San Francisco on December 12 to 16; the papers include Henderson's report to the convention (12), reports from UCAPAWA Districts 1, 2, 5, 7, and 9 (12), a resolution introduced by the STFU delegates (12), and two letters from Mitchell to Evelyn Smith describing the fate of the STFU resolution (13, 15). The STFU Fifth Annual Convention met at Cotton Plant, Arkansas on December 29 to...

Scope and Contents Affidavit of Charlie Kelley, held in peonage near Helena, Ark.; "The Condition of Farm Labor on Cotton Plantations in the South and Southwest in 1938", a 3-page typewritten report; Report to the National Executive Committees of the WDL and STFU on the relationship between the two organizations; "Per Capita Payments Made by STFU Texas locals prior to Formation of Texas District"; complete lists of STFU locals in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri; "Suggestions for Organizing Farm Workers...