Clement Gibson
Editor-in-Chief
WJSU 88.5 “Cool and Current” is presenting and producing a four-part radio series titled, “Field to Factory every Sunday in February at 7 p.m. ET.
The series was developed by several published forums culminated with a national
symposium held on the campus of Jackson State University in the summer of 1989.
Part three of the series takes an in depth look at share cropping, Jim Crow laws and life for African-Americans that stayed in Mississippi.
During the great migration African-Americans left their homeland by the hundreds of thousands in search of better conditions and opportunity.
Those who stayed home in the south faced great economic challenges— low wages, crop failure, flooding and high unemployment.
All contributed to the harsh economic inequalities. In 1915, southern farm laborers earned around 75 cents a day and in some counties were being payed anywhere from 40 cents to $1.
In some towns, saw mills, cotton presses and cotton oil mills were paying from $1 to $1.50 a day.
The wages of skilled laborers such as carpenters and brick layers ranged from $2 to $2.50 a day.
Women in domestic services were paid from $1.50 to $3 a week and men about $5 including board.
Also, in 1915, the cotton crops of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana were almost wiped out by the boll weevil.
After the boll weevil, the weed organization of agriculture required a smaller number of laborers for each hundred acres than did traditional cotton farming; resulting in displacement of greater number of African-Americans farmers.
Knowing the past limitation of these farmers, banks, merchants and land owners hesitated to extend credit to the black farmers. With their credit gone, these farmers were forced to look for other means to make a living.
Share cropping became the economic way of life for most African-American families.
According to former professor of social science at Jackson State University, Ivory Phillips, the United States census bureau divided the share croppers and renters into classes in the early 1900’s.
“There were two kinds of share croppers. Those who owned nothing, and they made an agreement with the landowner to work the land in harvest and the profits from that would be shared fifty-fifty with the land owner. However, one of the constant problems was that all the expenses were taken out of the share croppers half of the money that was made. As a result, share croppers ended up not making money, but in debt. Therefore, he remained on the land for another year to work out of the debt. This was reinforced by the local sheriff departments to make sure these people could not leave the land even if they wanted to go to another plantation,” said Phillips.
He continued, “The second category of people who were much more fortunate. They were renters. They paid the land owner a certain amount of money to rent a certain amount of land then they raised the crops and they harvested it. Whatever money was made was their profit.”
Every morning at 5 a.m., share croppers had to report at “the lot,” a place where they stand in line and get their mule and orders for where they would be working for that day.
Regardless if you were a renter of share cropper, the odds were always in favor of the land owner.
Many farmers would sit down at night and look at the percentage they were being charged in comparison with the amount of production they had.
They knew exactly what they should have gotten but said nothing.
The U.S. Supreme Court, Congress and Executive Branch of government had all seemingly turned their back on what they saw as the south’s Negro problems.
Jim Crow became the law of the U.S. south land. Meanwhile the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the side of segregationist and gave the sign and seal of approval to the increasingly, re-segregated south.
As a result, African-Americans were occupationally segregated.
Former dean of the school of business at JSU, David Swinton, says there were separate pay scales for blacks and whites.
Swinton stated, “What you have to look at is Jim Crowism. It was not an explicit law that said you could not hire blacks, but it was a part of the tradition that all lines of social interaction were segregated. Blacks did not supervise whites, did not work on the same lines or places with whites. All of these practices that we collectively called Jim Crowism is what restricted rights.”
Oddly, the migration that took place— largely because of the lack of economic opportunities for African-Americans in the south, marginally improved the prospects of those who did not leave.
Former professor of journalism at JSU Doris Saunders, spoke about the need for African-Americans in the south.
Saunders said, “The south still needed African-American teachers and preachers and businessmen to survive for their educational, spiritual and material needs for their race. There was a need to be filled. Hospitals, funeral homes, cemeteries, housing and banks all reflected the new economic state. Whenever it was possible, black businesses and professionals attempted to provide for the needs of the community. Black banks were started in Mississippi. Vicksburg, Mount Bayou, Jackson, Natchez and throughout the south. Undertakers to bury the dead African-Americans and newly created cemeteries were there. Hospitals, physicians, pharmacists were all there to aid the ill. African-American teachers would teach the schools and were members of the segregated economic community, which had been created to serve their own race.”
If segregation in its perverse way guaranteed African-Americans a small quota of jobs and profits, it was nothing for which they had any reason to be grateful.
A portion of the population to which they were restricted was so poor, African-American entrepreneurs and professionals in the Jim Crow era could expect little financial gain or profits.
If segregation provided a crime of opportunity for a small number, it also created an atmosphere in which most African-Americans lacked confidence in the professions of their own race.
Saying like, “white ice is colder” was common. Phillips says distributors were to blame for inferior products in black stores.
“Part of the problem in blacks not patronizing black businesses was the simple fact that often, the distributors or suppliers brought their more inferior products to a black grocery store. So, in a real sense, the greens at the white store was greener than the ones at the black store. But that was delivered by the distributors,” said Phillips.
He continued, “Same applies to the doctors and the kind of health care they provided. Their office spaces were much smaller. They could not afford to pay their nurses that much, so they did not get the assistance and professional help they needed; resulting in the care not being that good.
“Even with law, the black lawyer might be as good, but the white lawyer is friends with the judge, so you don’t get the same quality of justice as you should if you were a black lawyer. Black businesses and professionals were working at odds against the system. So, the service was of a lesser quality, but it was not due to any inability. Instead, the way the system was setup. This way blacks would not succeed as whites in similar categories or fields,” Phillips finished.
The segregated African-American middle class were better off in a material sense than the bulk of the south’s African-American population.
However, it fell far below the economic level of middle-classed whites.
In virtually every southern and border state, black teachers were paid by a different salary schedule or scale than whites. That lasted until the early 1960’s.
One of the excuses was that the black teachers did not have as much training. In some cases, it was true, but in others it was not.
On the other hand, if you turn to look at black ministers, their congregation could not afford to pay them the same contributions a white minister received.
During the late 20’s and early 30’s, African-Americans; particularly in the rural south, were already in a semi depression. Those who stayed in the south were used to hard economic times.
The depression was not nearly as devastating for the African-Americans in the rural south as it was for the white population.
The continuity of racism in American life in the early 30’s overshadowed any hope of change. The plight of African-Americans however did change for the worst.
The depression served as a staggering blow to blacks. It magnified all their economical liabilities and created newer and harsher ones.
Despite the discrimination and the absence of new employment opportunities, southern African-Americans migrated north.
About 400 thousand African-Americans left the south in the 30’s— half of the number that migrated in the preceding decade, but still a large enough influx to increase the black population of the north— approximately 25 percent.
Only one northern city had a black population of more than 100 thousand by 1930. By 1935 there were 11. Yet the number of jobs in the north declined.
African-American maids, cooks and house keepers were the hardest hit by white displacement constituted nearly half of the employed in the south, but no job was safe for African-Americans.
White girls replaced black men as restaurant, hotel employees and elevator operators. The more the depression worsened, the more whites demanded that blacks be dismissed.
Desperate whites in Atlanta organized the black shirts in 1930 around the slogan, “No jobs for niggers, until every white man has a job.”
Similar organizations in other cities chanted “Back to the cottonfield. City jobs are for white folks.”
In Mississippi, white railroad men who desired the jobs of black fire fighters unleased a reign of terror and violence.
Religious and charity organizations refused to serve Negros in their soup kitchen or extend any other aid to the black needy.
Inevitably, public relief became the major instrument of the African-American struggle for survival.
The final part of the Field to Factory series will be airing on WJSU’s “Cool and Current” on Sunday, Feb. 24.
Be First to Comment