The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-22
A war for Bread

and plantation in Tallapoosa County and some
in Lee County Their prime demands are the con-
tlruatlon OF the allowances until harvest and
settlement at that time with the landowner
The meetings broken up by the deputies and the
landowners were probably mobilization meetings
for mass demonstrations at the county seat for
relief and for the continuation of the allowances
This cry for bread is being met with an army of
terror.
Following the cutting off of the allowances the
landlords offered some of the troopers the alter
native OF working on their truck patches at so
and Is cents a day, or at the saw mills at 81 a
day They put many of their" troopers to work
on the county roads and in the whiteman's ceme-
terry to pay off the landlords road and school
taxes wf1Ch are SIS each
viii worker from Camp Hill writes the fol-
lowing t. the SOUTHERN WORKER, lust day
before lie fighting began: 1.-The white bosses
of this place has got a gang of Negro boys and
men working in the white boss cemetery to pay
their taxes. They don't have anything to eat
and have three bosses over them seeing that
they don't get any rest until 1890 Then they
only give them so minutes to try to find some
thing to eat By white worker who is looking
after the condition of the work class because
he knows he will soon be treated the same way.
We workers must get together
Another white tenant farmer from Camp Hill
who together with his family of five lives on 81
week which his daughter makes cooking out,
writes at the same time: Wake up Choppers
Union let us get together"
While in this section there are but few white
choppers and poor farmers, they seem to be TAX
ing sides with the Negro troopers They may yet
be heard from at any time giving their active
support to the struggle of the Negro toiers for
their lives
The Scottsboro legal Iynching plays promi-
nent part in the struggle. The fight of these
troopers of Tallapoosa for food becomes inme-
diately fight against the whole system of ma
tional oppression against the Negroes in the
South. In an where four Negroes speak
ing together make dangerous crowd, the
significance of mass meetings of 500 as mass
defiance of the lynch law system can readily
be understood. To the starving troopers of
Tallapoosa, Scottsboro had become symbol of
the whole system of oppression and persecu-
ton to which they are subjected. The fight for
food had broadened out almost automatically
into struggle against white ruling class
tyranny
This struggle is but the beginning Similar
conditions prevail throughout the Black Belt,
where between seven and eight million Negro
troopers tenants and poor farmers form the ma
jority of the population. The meagre advances
are being cut off, wages for day labor have fallen
as low as Is cents day in some sections of
South Carolina. The misery of the mass starva-
ton on the farmlands is bringing things to a
breaking point Bigger and bloodier struggles
are predicted before the summer is over. For
these courageous troopers struggling against
starvation and tyranny there must be the broad
est possible support from the masses of Negro
and white workers throughout the country The
Tallapoosa choppers have made "Scottsboro"
the rallying point for deeper and more basic
struggle against the domination of the white
ruling class.