The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-21


! terms in the spring. Food allowances
were cut down to q bare subsistence
level The tyranny Of the landoWn-
ers and their local government had
grown fiercer.
The Negro troopers organized in
their local groups hammered out
their demands: ID Continuation Of
the food allowances which had been
cut off July /, when the crop was
already cultivated, leaving the crop
per to starVe or beg until cotton
picking time in September; 90 the
right of the cropper to sell his cot
ton for cash, where and when he
pleased, rather than to turn it over
to the landowner for division" f.;
90 cash settlement for the season
at cotton picking time; az "a nine
months Negro school with free
school bus without discrimination;
90 right of a cropper to plant his
own garden for his own use; CO.
freedom for the Scottsboro boys.
Southern Worker"
Negro choppers and their families
came from all parts Of the two coun-
ties to the union meetings. The
Southern Worker, Communist weekly
published in the South, was eagerly
distributed and read by the Negro
peasants. The big white landown-
ers and credit merchants at Camp
Hill and other towns in the vicinity
attempted to crush the union before
cotton picking time.
On the night of July IS, 1881, dep
uties discovered and dispersed a
union meeting. A lynch mob num-
bering 300 landowning whites and
their hangerson instituted a reign of
terror throughout the two counties
The might riders" lived again. They
raced through the countryside, fir
ing broadsides into the Negro crop
pers' cabins. They raided the cabins
searching for literature, the union
records, and, above all, the leading
Negro organizer. One group of dep
uties and landowners met Ralph
Grey on a lonely road. They fired,
breaking his legs. From the ground
he returned the fire, wounding one
of the officers, Grey was later
taken by his fellow troopers to a
cabin. A doctor refused to come to
attend him. Instead the posse re-
turned, took him by force after a
long battle with his comrades, who
retreate d only when their ammuni-
ton was exhausted and killed him
in cold blood as he lay in bed.
Remarkable solidarity and GOODNESS
on the part of the Negro choppers
saved the organizer Of the union.
Lynch posses and bloodhounds We're
after him. The troopers succeeded
in hiding him, diyerting the lynch
mobs and covering up his escape.
40 Arrested, Many Killed,
Two score Negro troopers were ar
rested and thrust into the Camp Hill
jail. Six were known killed and
there are reports of many others
murdered,
But the news had spread swiftly.
The Scottsboro campaign was grow
ing. The Negro and white masses,
modified by the Communist Party
and the International Labor Defense,
grasped the basic i'm
portance Of the struggle of the Ala
bama troopers against the whole
semi-slave system in the South. Pro-
test meetings were held. kilograms
demanding the immediate release Of
the arrested troopers flooded the
county. The local slave drivers gov
eminent was forced to release all the
troopers.
Victories Of Union.
The Negro troopers felt that they
were not isolated They felt the
power of their own organization and
the wide mass support they were
getting from both the white and Ne
gro workers in all parts Of the coun-
try. The share choppers union grew
rapidly. 1t spread into third
county. It won the right for the
troopers TO plant their own vege-
table patches and also a better level
Of treatment from the slave-drivers.
The majority Of the choppers we're
BY the winter of 1899
they we're ready TO carry through a
determined struggle for food, after
D summer of intensified starvation
and suffering. The landowners were
again faced with stronger and big
ger organization of the troopers.
There are 900 members In three
and the union is spreading
out-one of the reasons for this at
TACK
The second phase of the struggle
Of the Alabama troopers has begun.