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suppress or outright prevent the strike through increased police presence and pacification tactics such as smaller raises. Its failure was noted and documented with some satisfaction in newspapers across the cotton-growing south. The one exception was in Lee County, a location with its own history of conflict, on the
Mississippi River and across from Memphis, Tennessee. Ben Patterson, a Black labor organizer from Memphis, traveled to Lee County at the beginning of September 1891 and began to organize a strike among local cotton pickers. Patterson's efforts were significantly more successful than those of Humphrey, garnering the support of at least twenty-five pickers in Lee County.
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and then to
Memphis. In an open battle the posse killed two strikers and captured nine. At more or less the same time, Patterson alone escaped to the steamboat James Lee and admitted his story, but was extracted from the boat, taken ashore, and shot. The nine prisoners under guard by the sheriff's
57:
Despite its extensive claimed membership of millions, and despite
Humphrey's announcement of 600,000 members firmly committed to strike for $ 1 per 100 pounds, the strike promoted for September 12 took hold nowhere. Additionally, many landowners who became aware of the planned strike took steps to
66:
Workers for planter
Colonel H.P. Rodgers struck on September 20, demanding higher wages, and began traveling through the county looking for support. These workers were from Memphis, led by a Ben Patterson. Among other workers in the county they found no support. A brawl between striking and
36:
in
September, 1891. The strike led to open conflict between strikers and plantation owners, racially-motivated violence, and both a sheriff's posse and a lynching party. One plantation manager, two non-striking workers, and some twelve strikers were killed during the incident. Nine of those
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organization. Early in
September 1891, Humphrey called for a national African-American strike of sharecroppers against planters, in response to the planters setting 50-cent-per-100-pound prices at their summer conventions.
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to track down the remaining strikers and
Patterson, partly on the grounds that Miller the plantation manager had been deputized. On September 29 the search led north to an island near
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non-striking workers killed two on
September 25. On the 28th the strikers killed a notorious plantation manager named Miller and burned a cotton gin.
289:"Legacy of Resistance: Uncovering the History of Collective Action by Black Agricultural Workers in Central East Arkansas from the 1860s to the 1930s"
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ran coverage under the title "Lee County
Trouble Settled with Rope". The incident directly led to the collapse of the Colored Farmers' Alliance.
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men were intercepted on the road by a masked lynching party, greatly outnumbering them, that took the prisoners and hung them one by one.
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Holmes, William F. (1973). "The
Arkansas Cotton Pickers Strike of 1891 and the Demise of the Colored Farmers's Alliance".
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Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists: Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late-Nineteenth-Century South
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had been founded by R.M. Humphrey, a white Baptist minister, reformer, and member of the parallel white
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A posse, with some black members, was organized under Sheriff Derrick of
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strikers were hung in a mass lynching on the evening of September 29.
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Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West
189:, as quoted in "Crime and Criminal Law in the United States", the
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memorializing the Black individuals lynched following the strike.
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Bullets and Fire: Lynching and Authority in Arkansas, 1840-1950
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Agriculture and forestry labor disputes in the United States
238:"Colored Farmers' Alliance and Laborers' Union, Tennessee"
47:
Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union
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was a labor action of African-American sharecroppers in
82:. The strikers had been trying to work north, back to
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List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
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Racially motivated violence against African Americans
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List of worker deaths in United States labor disputes
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List of worker deaths in United States labor disputes
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265:. New Orleans Times-Picayune. 7 September 1891
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645:Westmoreland County coal strike of 1910–1911
414:. University of Arkansas Press. p. 82.
332:Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture
209:. University of Georgia Press. p. 143.
152:Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture
824:Labor-related violence in the United States
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358:. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 121.
193:or Critical Journal, July 1892, pgs. 12-13
567:Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892
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834:History of African-American civil rights
767:Anti-union violence in the United States
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829:Agricultural labor in the United States
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22:National Memorial for Peace and Justice
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650:Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912
618:Streetcar strikes in the United States
578:Streetcar strikes in the United States
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389:. Indianapolis Journal. 2 October 1891
122:List of massacres in the United States
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762:Union violence in the United States
635:1907 San Francisco streetcar strike
408:Lancaster, Guy (31 December 2017).
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809:1890s strikes in the United States
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444:The Arkansas Historical Quarterly
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849:Vigilantism in the United States
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728:Gulf Coast longshoremen's strike
640:Pressed Steel Car strike of 1909
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864:1891 labor disputes and strikes
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328:"Cotton Pickers Strike of 1891"
263:"Colored cotton pickers strike"
148:"Cotton Pickers Strike of 1891"
630:1905 Chicago teamsters' strike
556:Cotton pickers' strike of 1891
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30:cotton pickers' strike of 1891
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352:Wyman, Mark (27 April 2010).
287:Biegert, M. L. (1998-09-01).
203:Hild, Matthew (25 May 2010).
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293:Journal of Social History
692:Battle of Blair Mountain
681:1920 Alabama coal strike
387:"Wiping Out the Negroes"
789:Portal:Organized Labour
710:Columbine Mine massacre
114:Organized labour portal
859:Protest-related deaths
660:Colorado Coalfield War
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242:Tennessee Encyclopedia
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734:Memorial Day massacre
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526:Rock Springs massacre
520:Great Railroad Strike
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34:Lee County, Arkansas
624:Colorado Labor Wars
305:10.1353/jsh/32.1.73
854:Crimes in Arkansas
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590:Illinois coal wars
544:Thibodaux massacre
84:President's Island
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869:Conflicts in 1891
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716:Harlan County War
704:Hanapepe massacre
686:Battle of Matewan
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550:Morewood massacre
532:Bay View massacre
80:Crittenden County
51:Farmers' Alliance
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874:1891 in Arkansas
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662:, including the
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538:Haymarket affair
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45:In 1886 the
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718:, 1931–1932
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626:, 1903–1904
620:, 1895–1929
592:, 1898–1899
580:, 1895–1929
427:29 November
393:28 November
371:28 November
337:28 November
269:28 November
247:28 November
222:28 November
183:29 November
157:28 November
803:Categories
173:"untitled"
133:References
62:The strike
41:Background
313:0022-4529
464:40030730
100:See also
72:Marianna
742:, 1938
736:, 1937
730:, 1935
724:, 1934
712:, 1927
706:, 1924
700:, 1922
694:, 1921
688:, 1920
677:, 1916
586:, 1897
574:, 1894
563:, 1892
552:, 1891
546:, 1887
540:, 1886
534:, 1886
528:, 1885
522:, 1877
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460:JSTOR
429:2018
416:ISBN
395:2018
373:2018
360:ISBN
339:2018
309:ISSN
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249:2018
224:2018
211:ISBN
185:2018
159:2018
90:The
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
