The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-06
Fight Of Sharecroppers in Black Bell
against Mr. Described by Leader


troopers Union in the Black
Belt of Alabama called a
special meeting to report on
its activities and plan future
work, many troopers were
so vitality concerned about the event
that they rode Is miles on mule
back to attend. And the men who
undertook this difficult and plod-
ding journey were Negroes who
only few years ago would not have
thought of attending such meet
ing even if it was being held within
short walking distance.
This was cited yesterday by Al
Murphy, secretary of the Share
troopers Union in the Black Belt,
as one of many incidents which in
dictate the increasing interest and
activity of Southern sharecroppers,
farm laborerS and tenant farmers
in the union; as one of the many
small instances by which one can
accurately gauge the growing mill
fancy of the Southern Negro
workers.
Leader of Choppers
Murphy who arrived in New
York last Friday, is a leader of the
Sharecroppers' Union in a wide
territory which takes in the towns
of Montgomery, Camp Hill and
Selma, Ala, as well as Tsllapoosa,
Chembers and Lee Counties, among
many others. He and the thousands
of Negro toilers organized in the
union live and work in the very
heart of Americas Black Belt.
Murphy, tall, quiet and serious
young man of 81, has been working
in the Sharecroppers' Union for
the past two years, ever since he
left the Birmingham pipe and
metal shop, where he had been en-
ployed before he felt the driving
necessity of organizing the farm
toilers in Alabama. A native of
Georgia, Murphy is proud of his
prOIeCar1an background.
Murphy described the situation
Of the Southern Negro toilers in an
interview yesterday, reviewing their
lot under the Roosevelt New Deal.
ITS true" he said, that the
basis of Southern economy is the
backward and semi-feudal agricul-
tural system, mainly expressed in
the sharecropper system On this
fact the landlords and capitalists
established their system of national
oppression of the Negro people. "
Conditions almost IndescribabIe"
Murphy described the develop
mentS in the South since the world
war up till the present, when condi-
tions "are almost indescribable. u
The year 1888, of course, ushered in
the Roosevelt-New Deal program.
ballyhooed to bring back prosper
ity." The New Deal for the
Southern farm workers meant
blowing under cotton, their main
crop, and in general reducing the
sown acreage in the South-leaying
the rich and fertile soil useless, and
the tenant farmers, the sharecrop-
pers, in misery and restitution. The
N. R. A. forced them to the lowest
level of living to which they, tradi-
tionally and VIGOROUSLY the most
oppressed section of the American
toilers, have ever sunk.
N.R.A. Deliberately Hits Negroes
THE special and cold blooded
deliberate aim of the MIRA. gov
eminent was to reduce the num-
Der of sharecroppers, with the in
tention OF further suppressing them
and, because the majority of them
are Negroes, to more inhumanly
degrade and suppress the Negro
people as whole"
"Roosevelt's program of good
times and cash money for plowed
under and unsown acreage" Mu.'-
ply continued was hailed by the
big farmers as means of doing
away with surplus cotton the
enormous propaganda and bally-
hoo campaign made this destruction
of crops virtually compulsory. The
MIRA. press agents raised their
hypocritical and demagogic promise
of millions for farm relief"
What actually happened in the
South under this Roosevelt pro-
gram? Murphy described it as fol-
lows:
Choppers Victimized
Generally it was the cropper who
ploughed under his land. The big
landlord would not allow his crop
to be touched Then, in payment
for the ploughing under, the checks
were sent by the government, but
never directly to the cropper who
had been forcd to destroy his crop,
A joint check was sent to the land
lord, check which bore the names
both of the landlord and the crop