Reel 14

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 Sixth Annual STFU Convention met at Blytheville, Ark. From Jan 5 to 7; the papers include: the Annual Financial Report for 1939; Revised STFU Constitution; Proceedings; STFU Legislative Program for 1940; and "Resolutions Adopted". NEC minutes appear both before and after the Convention (4, 8). Further evictions of share-croppers in Missouri led Governor Lloyd Stark to form a "Southeast Missouri Landowners-Tenants-Sharecroppers Conference". The STFU, through correspondence with the...

Scope and Contents Items related to the Dyess Colony investigation include two reports from Floyd Slayton, Secretary of the Dyess local (6, 14) and a list of grievances submitted to the FSA (22). There is an exchange of correspondence between Kester, Butler, and Blaine Treadway on the Delta Cooperative Farm inquiry. The reader may follow developments in Southeast Missouri through the correspondence with Jewel Mayes, the Chairman of Gov. Stark's special commission (5,9,10), through reports on the situation from...

Scope and Contents National Sharecroppers Week was held from March 4 to 10; papers relating to it include: the schedule of events and speakers (1); mimeographed instructions to local sponsors (4); reports on NSW in Los Angeles from Mary E. Gallagher (12,23); and reports on UCAPAWA efforts to disrupt NSW from Alfred Baker Lewis (18), William R. Amberson (19), and Purnell Benson (19). There is an exchange of correspondence between Gardner Jackson and Frank Crosswaith, head of the Negro Labor Committee,...

Scope and Contents Investigations into complaints from union members at the Dyess Colony and the Delta Cooperative Farm was a major topic of correspondence in April. On the DCF inquiry, see especially Blaine Treadway to the DCF local (6); on the Dyess situation, see the reports from Floyd Slayton (March 19, 4, 6, 9) and Butler's letter to the Dyess local (23). The union sent a delegation to a convention of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare; the papers include the call, a "confidential report" by SP...