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Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta examines the history of
labor relations and racial conflict in the Mississippi Valley from
the Civil War into the late twentieth century. This essay
collection grew out of a conference marking the hundredth
anniversary of one of the nation’s deadliest labor
conflicts—the 1919 Elaine Massacre, during which white mobs
ruthlessly slaughtered over two hundred African Americans across
Phillips County, Arkansas, in response to a meeting of unionized
Black sharecroppers. The essays here demonstrate that the brutality
that unfolded in Phillips County was characteristic of the culture
of race- and labor-based violence that prevailed in the century
after the Civil War. They detail how Delta landowners began seeking
cheap labor as soon as the slave system ended—securing a
workforce by inflicting racial terror, eroding the Reconstruction
Amendments in the courts, and obstructing federal financial-relief
efforts. The result was a system of peonage that continued to
exploit Blacks and poor whites for their labor, sometimes fatally.
In response, laborers devised their own methods for sustaining
themselves and their communities: forming unions, calling strikes,
relocating, and occasionally operating outside the law. By shedding
light on the broader context of the Elaine Massacre, Race, Labor,
and Violence in the Delta reveals that the fight against white
supremacy in the Delta was necessarily a fight for better working
conditions, fair labor practices, and economic justice.
Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta examines the history of
labor relations and racial conflict in the Mississippi Valley from
the Civil War into the late twentieth century. This essay
collection grew out of a conference marking the hundredth
anniversary of one of the nation's deadliest labor conflicts-the
1919 Elaine Massacre, during which white mobs ruthlessly
slaughtered over two hundred African Americans across Phillips
County, Arkansas, in response to a meeting of unionized Black
sharecroppers. The essays here demonstrate that the brutality that
unfolded in Phillips County was characteristic of the culture of
race- and labor-based violence that prevailed in the century after
the Civil War. They detail how Delta landowners began seeking cheap
labor as soon as the slave system ended-securing a workforce by
inflicting racial terror, eroding the Reconstruction Amendments in
the courts, and obstructing federal financial-relief efforts. The
result was a system of peonage that continued to exploit Blacks and
poor whites for their labor, sometimes fatally. In response,
laborers devised their own methods for sustaining themselves and
their communities: forming unions, calling strikes, relocating, and
occasionally operating outside the law. By shedding light on the
broader context of the Elaine Massacre, Race, Labor, and Violence
in the Delta reveals that the fight against white supremacy in the
Delta was necessarily a fight for better working conditions, fair
labor practices, and economic justice.
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