By 1920, membership had risen to 15,200, but reversals in North Carolina reduced this figure to only 1,500 in 1925, and the union came close to bankruptcy.
However, it recovered through organizing workers in the Axton-Fisher Tobacco Company, which experienced rapid growth.
"[4] These writers also claimed that Tobacco Workers International Union (TWIU) in Richmond at that time was "entirely ineffective and openly collaborated with the employers."
Eventually, in 1937, the Southern Negro Youth Congress, a wing of the CIO's National Negro Congress, established the Tobacco Stemmers' and Laborers' Industrial Union (TSLIU) in Richmond, and these unionization efforts spread to other local workplaces.
[2] The TWIU organized at the Liggett and Myers tobacco plant in Durham, North Carolina for many years around issues of seniority and civil rights.