Pana riot

Striking white miners had been out of work for nearly a year when the Overholt brothers, part owners of one of the four Pana mines, went to Alabama to recruit African-American "scab" labor (strikebreakers) in an effort to re-open the mines.

Previous attempts to open the mines with white non-union workers had failed amid violence.

According to first-hand accounts collected in the 1940s by Eleanor Burnhorn, a well-known Pana history teacher, the new African-American recruits from Alabama had been told they would be working in newly opened mines.

Despite the promise of better wages in the North, black workers who ran the gauntlet of strikers were paid by the company in coupons or scrip, good only at stores designated by the mine owners.

The Daily Breeze described its leader, Henry Stevens, as being "hard as iron and his muscles stand out like whip cords.

"[1] Due to previous labor unrest at Pana, the AAMA lobbied Governor John Riley Tanner to guarantee that black and nonunion miners would receive the same protection from the National Guard as the union miners.

The act of diplomacy, though unsuccessful, represented the black miners' will to resolve the situation peaceably.

The black wounded included Clinton Rolo, Louis Whitfield, Charles York, Ed Delinquest, F. C. Dorsey, and George Freak.

The black community, lacking any type of support networks, was left impoverished and destitute by the extremely low wages paid by the operators.