The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-31

will shoot me, And my wife
work at her house and she don't
pay her anything and told her
she was going to let her have
a little meal and she better not
slip me none OF it. 1 worked all
the week and ssked for some gro
cerieS for next week and her
brother came and cursed me and
told me had not done damn
thing. And Mrs. CIary got the
sheriff and he came after me on
Monday and I dodge him. He !
left word that if l don't move
he would lock me up and / amt
got nowhere to 60"
81 made two bales of cotton.
have to pay rent out Of it and
me and my family have to live
out of what was left this winter.
If / buy food / won't have moth
ing to buy clothes with. The
landlord would not let me have a
foot of land to plant corn.
have been working for SIS q month
to feed IL in the family. 1 am
planning and studying to see
what way can be done to have
me a crop next year and 1 want
some information on what to do.
The landlord don't want to rent
me no land. He wants me to
share crop and I want to work
different from that"
Our children want TO go to
school and have no clothes to
wear and have no shoes and no
fit food for lunch and live
long ways and have to walk out
on the road and bitches and in
the field to let the white school
bus pass by. We have no money
to buy our children books and
the white children get them free.
The colored school amt started
yet and the superintendent says
it won't start"
This, in brief, is the objective
situation in which the battle of
ReeltoWn took place.
THE SHERIFF ARRIVES
On Monday morning, Dec. 10,
Deputy Elder came to the farm Of
Clifford James, a Negro farmer,
with an order gotten out by Walter
Parker, rich merchant of Nota-
Sulga, who had a mortgage on the
farm, TO take away his mule and
COW.
James, backed by about 10 mem
bers of the union who had gath
cred, properly refused to give up
his last and only means of liveI-
hood, 1t seems from reports that
the merchant had no legal right
even according to the capitalist
law, to the animals. The deputy
left saying, I'm going back to get
some more men and kill you all
in pile"
When Deputy Elder returned with
three other armed white thugs,
about so Negroes had gathered in
James shack, determined not to
give up the live stock. After all,
they thought, it was better to
stand together and insist on the
right to live than to die of star
walton; for that is it what it meant
for a poor tenant to be without a
mule and COW. 1t was then that
the battle began.
OF course, according to the press
reports which came only from the
deputies themselves, the Negroes
were first to fire. Elder said that
two Negroes came out to tell the
deputies they would not yield the
animals and then as they returned
to enter the house the Negroes in
side opened fire and wounded a
couple Of the deputies. The depu-
ties returned the fire, killing Jim
McMullin inside the house and
wounding about fifteen, including
q 12-year- old boy. Even in this
story the obvious lie that the Ne
groes started firing stands out.
Why did the two Negroes come
out to speak to the armed depu-
ties? How come that the Negroes
were killed and wounded inside the
house? How about the threat Of
Elder? How is it that the deputies
were slightly wounded when it is
clear that the armed troopers were
able to shoot to kill if they wished?
Why did Sheriff Young forbid
newspaper men to approach the
shack after the battle and even
destroyed the photographs of the
Birmingham News reporter, which
action seemed SO obviously raw
that even the lynch press criticized
the stupid sheriff for his indiscre-
ton. 1t was clear from the outset
that the murderous deputies came
and shot into the troopers DELHI
erately and the choppers answered
the shots in defense, in de-