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[CHAPTER 32]
[Page 1]
Organized Negro Labor An organized laborers Louisiana Negroes have continued the militant tradition of the post-war and Reconstruction periods. This is particularly true of Negroes living in large urban centers such as New Orleans. In the rural sections the Negro farmers have likewise indicated their preferences towards consolidated strength by purchases and sales through farm cooperative organizations. For instance, in 1929, 1,548 Negro farmers in the State purchased $213,025 worth of goods through such organizations, while 1,538 of them sold $802,631 worth of produce in the same manner. The entire value of all cooperative products sold, traded, or consumed was $1,254,949.1
Attempts to organize Negro tenant farmers and sharecroppers into an effective organization that would insure their well-being has met with no little opposition in some parts of the state. One of these encounters is realistically reminiscent of the plot in one of Richard Wright‟s best short stories, Bright and Morning Star.
In 1936, William D. Scott, a Negro farmer of Weyanoke, West Feliciana Parish, joined the Farmers‟ Educational and Co-operative Union of America. He soon became the president of the local chapter of his parish, and assisted by Reuben Cole, a white organizer, held meetings composed of about a dozen or more farmers. When the organization reached the notice of the local business men and landowners, they gathered and stood guard about a Negro church one night in June of 1937, where a meeting of the group was to be held.
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