The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-31
The Significance of the Present
Struggles in Alabama

Tending the right to live, in refus-
ing TO give up their stock even at
the point of an armed attack of
the agents of the oppressors.
THE landlords and their armed
thugs were Infatuated. The Ne
gro masses had shown that they
were ready to defend their lives
and means of life. They were Or
ganized solidly into a revolution
airy union. This must be crushed.
A call was made for the whites to
join the posse to put down the
race riot" Sheriff Young refused
to say anything to the press ex-
cept that 'they hadn't started do
ing anything yet" The sheriff,
following orders from the land
lords, was planning on real
massacre Of the Negroes in the
vicinity. This was as clear as
crystal the afternoon of Dec. 10.
The sheriff informed Governor
Miller that the situation was grave
and to hold the soldiers ready.
The adjutant general rushed to the
scene of action.
POSSE GOES INTO ACTION.
In the meantime the posse went
into action. They numbered about
100 to 200 and they came from five
counties. The posse included the
sheriffs and deputies from four
counties, but almost no white poor
farmers. The posse hunted the
Negroes everywhere, chased them
over hills and into woods and
swamps. This barbarous and fever
iSh man-hunt continued for "a
hours, the result being a dozen Ne
groes arrested and charged with in
tent to murder, and an unknown
number killed and wounded. While
the latest statement is one cropper
killed, this is probably untrue,
since Sheriff Stearn admitted see
ing three dead himself and a re-
port to the adjutant was that four
were dead. 1t is probable that as
many as q dozen Negroes were
killed and certainly at least five.
After the first day the sheriff Of
Elmore County announced that
only one of the three arrested were
in Jail, the other two may have
been released" No doubt they
were shot dead in the dark of the
night by the Elmore deputies.
After all the terrible threats of
Sheriff Young, in charge of the
man-hunt, it is well to ask why
all of sudden the lynch mob was
called upon to dispense?
UNITY OF NEGRO AND WHITE
First, the white ruling class and
it's armed muderers-d despite all
their shouts of race riot-despite
all their lies about the threats
against the Negro farmers by the
white farmers, could not enlist the
poor whites to join the nan-hunt.
The outstanding fact in this strug-
gle was the remarkable unity of
Negro and white farmers, a thing
unknown in the Black Belt hereto
fore. After calling this struggle a
race riot, inter-racial clash, etc,
the Birmingham Post is forced to
come out in its feature editorial
on Thursday, headed mo Race
Riot" saying: TT would be ex-
ceedingly superficial to regard the
disturbance as a race riot. The
relatively small extent to which
race prejudice factored in the af-
fair is one of the things that i'm
pressed newspaper reporters most
deeply"
THE cause of the trouble was
essentially economic rather than
racial. The resistance of the Ne
groes at Reeltown against officers
seeking to attach their livestock
bears close parallel to battles
fought in Iowa and Wisconsin
between farmers and sheriffs
deputies seeking to serve evic-
ton papers. A good many white
farmers, ground down by the
same relentless economic pressure
from which the Negroes were
suffering, expressed sympathy
with the Negroes desperate
plight"
A news item in the same paper
states; while farmers in the vi
cility do not regard the disturb
ances primarily as a race riot
although it was melted by Commu-
mist literature % The literature
has been distributed in the mail
boxes of both white and Negro
farmers for the past IS months
and urge radical action by white
and Negro farmers alike"
(TO BE CONTINUED