The situation was dire, and there was no hope in waiting for help from up on high. In July of 1934 eighteen men, eleven white and seven black men, created the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, with interracial organizing adopted as a key plank. Haunting this meeting was the memory of the Elaine Massacre, which occurred just fifteen years prior, where soldiers and white vigilantes killed two hundred black people for organizing.
Toward the end of 1934, the STFU had nearly a thousand members, and it was not long before it too would face violence. When two organizers, Ward H. Rodgers and black minister C. H. Smith, went to hold a meeting in a church in Gilmore, Arkansas, a group of riding bosses showed up and broke up the meeting. Rodgers was able to escape with the help of a friend, but Smith was beaten and brought to jail.
Despite the union’s plea for assistance, the American Civil Liberties Union proved unwilling to provide legal assistance. So the union devised a plan. With the help of the lawyer C. T. Carpenter, about twenty of the white STFU members showed up to the black preacher’s hearing, armed with canes in case of attack. Their show of solidarity worked, and Smith was released into the care of the union.
The union’s commitment to interracial organizing went from theory to practice that day, and holdouts in the black community who doubted the commitment of the STFU joined en masse. As Mitchell wrote, “Black and white unity had carried the day. There was never any question that the union members would come to the aid of their brothers, black or white, in their time of need.”
In the fall of 1935, the planters announced they’d be lowering the wages of cotton pickers from 60 cents a ton of cotton to just 40 cents. The union fought back. STFU members worked throughout the planting season, but once it was time to pick they went on strike.
Mitchell and other organizers distributed leaflets throughout Arkansas that said, “Demand $1.00 per 100 lbs of picking cotton.” Barn doors and telephone poles were soon covered with these leaflets. When asked by the bosses where these came from, sharecroppers responded, “That feller Mitchell came over last night, and dropped them from a plane.” In fact, they were distributed from Memphis by car, but that detail shouldn’t ruin a good image.
The sharecroppers held out, and as the cotton crop was threatened, the planters gave in. Most workers saw an increase to 75 cents a ton, and those who held out longest ended up getting the full dollar. This success helped the union to expand from Arkansas into Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.