Cotton pickers' strike of 1891

The cotton pickers' strike of 1891 was a labor action of African-American sharecroppers in Lee County, Arkansas 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.

Patterson's efforts were significantly more successful than those of Humphrey, garnering the support of at least twenty-five pickers in Lee County.

A posse, with some black members, was organized under Sheriff Derrick of Marianna to track down the remaining strikers and Patterson,[8] partly on the grounds that Miller the plantation manager had been deputized.

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.