Sharecroppers' Union

Subsidies which were provided by the New Deals' 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) benefited only the landowners and the SCU sued the Federal government for direct payment to sharecroppers.

By the summer of 1931, in Birmingham, there were reported to be over 200 African American members in the union, and the attempts to halt these meetings had begun from the local sheriff or racially motivated mobs.

James Allen, a journalist who was writing for a news office based in Tennessee named the SW, reported that there was minimal reference to self-determination as an acknowledged goal, and that these discussions must be the topic of conversation in the training classes of the Party.

It is extremely improbable that the Party would have invested as much time and money in organizing sharecroppers in the South without the self-determination stance and the acknowledgment of African American oppression as a national issue.

The Communist Party and the SCU may have played a vital role in establishing a link in the ongoing fight for democracy in this crucial region of the United States if there are such things as traditions of struggle and historical recollections among communities.

The CPUSA saw the Black Belt as a potential stronghold for communist organizing because of the high level of poverty and racial discrimination experienced by African Americans in the region.

The CPUSA's efforts in the South faced significant challenges, including harsh repression by state and local authorities, as well as hostility from many white Southern workers who were skeptical of the party's message of racial equality.

The party saw the South as a potential area for revolution, and sought to build alliances with African American sharecroppers and white tenant farmers to challenge the power of the wealthy landowners who dominated the region.

One of its primary goals was to organize and mobilize Southern workers, including both black and white sharecroppers and industrial laborers, to challenge the power of wealthy landowners and industrialists.

However, the legacy of the party and its activism lived on, as many of the activists who had been involved with the CPUSA went on to play important roles in the Civil rights movement and other struggles for social justice in the decades to come.

In the 1930s, African American self-determination was a growing movement in the southern United States, particularly in response to the systemic discrimination and violence faced by Black people in the region.

The union was committed to improving the economic conditions of sharecroppers and tenant farmers, who were predominantly Black, and it played a key role in advocating for their rights and interests.

This effort was driven by a number of factors, including the ongoing struggle against racism and discrimination, the economic challenges of the Great Depression, and the influence of the growing Black nationalist movement.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) continued to advocate for civil rights and challenge segregation through legal action, and other organizations such as the Southern Negro Youth Congress emerged in the 1930s to focus specifically on issues affecting young African Americans.

Overall, African American self-determination in the southern United States in 1932 reflected a broader effort to challenge systemic racism and discrimination, and to create opportunities for economic and social advancement.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) continued to play a prominent role in the struggle for civil rights, and many other organizations were established in subsequent years.

For example, the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU), which was founded in Arkansas in 1934, brought together black and white sharecroppers to advocate for their rights and economic interests.

Examples of this include the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement centered in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s, and the work of artists such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Jacob Lawrence.

[11] Overall, while the pursuit of African American self-determination in the southern United States in the 1930s was an important part of the broader struggle for civil rights and equality, it faced numerous obstacles and ultimately experienced significant setbacks and failures.

The CPUSA started assisting sharecropper organizers in Tallapoosa County, Alabama, when the Communist International designated African Americans in the Southern Black Belt as an oppressed people deserving of political sovereignty in 1928.

As a result, there is a void in the body of knowledge that acknowledges the agency of Black communists in formulating their own political stance in light of their involvement in labor, activism, and education.

[11] The Alabama Sharecroppers Union employed a Marxist–Leninist understanding to direct their opposition to labor exploitation and racial oppression because it allowed them to gain power not just as workers but also as subjects of an internal colony.

Sharecropping was a system where a white landlord gave many Black, landless employees a place to live and a piece of land to farm in exchange for a percentage of the crops (typically cotton) they produced.

As white mobs spent days assaulting dozens of Black families, driving them to seek refuge in the woods, and yelled to "kill every member of the Reds there and throw them into the creek," the police stood by and did nothing.

Despite the fact that the majority of the Sharecropper Union's demands were for quick fixes like increased pay and debt forgiveness, they also identified as members of the greater Communist movement and were committed to bringing about a revolution.

According to historians Harvey Khler and Beverly Tomek, the Black Belt Thesis "failed to gain traction beyond a small group of intellectuals within the Communist Party" and that "self-determination...as a practical matter was all but irrelevant."

These allegations cast doubt on the part that Black communist researchers and union members played in adopting and developing an ideological prism through which to interpret their exploitation, even though sincere criticisms of the Party are required.

It is plausible to assume that the Sharecropper Union was well-versed in political theory, history, and current affairs if they were reading about Lenin and Nat Turner and staging demonstrations against Hitler's new regime.

[9] The Sharecroppers' Union and other organizations fought to address these issues and improve the lives of black farmers, but progress was slow and often met with resistance and violence from the white power structure.