HAMMER AND HOE THE FRED W. MORRISON SERIES IN SOUTHERN STUDIES HAMMER AND HOE ALABAMA COMMUNISTS DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION ROBIN D. G. KELLEY . THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CHAPEL HILL AND LONDON O 1990 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kelley, Robin D. G. Hammer and hoe : Alabama Communists during the Great Depression I by Robin D. G. Kelley. p. cm.+The Fred W. Morrison series in Southern studies) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8078-1921-2 (alk. paper).-ISBN 0-80784288-5 (pbk : alk. paper) I. Communism-Alabama-History-20th century. 2. Communists- Alabama-History-20th century. 3. Depressions-l 929-Alabama. I. Title. II. Series. HX9 1 .A2K45 1 990 324.276 1 '075'09042-dc20 In memory of Hosea Hudson, griot of Alabama radicalism, whose assiduous note-taking and impeccable memory made this book possible, and for Diedra Harris-Kelley, whose love, criticism, encouragement, and heroic tolerance for living in pov- erty made this book a reality . . . . CONTENTS Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii Abbreviations xxi Prologue. Radical Genesis: Birmingham, 1870-1930 1 PART 1. THE UNDERGROUND, 1929-1935 ONE An Invisible Army: Jobs, Relief, and the Birth of a Movement 13 TWO In Egyptland: The Share Croppers' Union 34 THREE Organize or Starve!: Communists, Labor, and Antiradical Violence 57 FOUR In the Heart of the Trouble: Race, Sex, and the ILD 78 FIVE Negroes Ain' Black-But Red!: Black Communists and the Culture of Opposition 92 PART 11. UP FROM BOLSHEVISM, 1935-1939 SIX The Road to Legality: The Popular Front in Birmingham, 1935-1937 119 SEVEN The CIO's in Dixie! 138 EIGHT Old Slaves, New Deal: Communists and the WPA 152 NINE The Popular Front in Rural Alabama 159 TEN The Democratic Front 176 viii CONTENTS PART Ill. BACK TO THE TRENCHES, 1939-1 94 1 ELEVEN The March of Southern Youth! 195 Epilogue. Fade to Black: The Invisible Army in War, Revolution, and Beyond 220 Notes 233 Bibliography 301 Index 335 . 0 . . 0 ILLUSTRATIONS Black convict laborers, Banner Mine, Alabama 6 A1 Murphy 24 Hosea Hudson 26 Sharecropping family, near Eutaw, Alabama 35 Lemon Johnson, SCU secretary of Hope Hull, Alabama, local 45 Company suburb 58 Clyde Johnson 62 "Meat for the Buzzards!" 66 Anti-Communist handbill distributed by the Ku Klux Klan 75 "Fight Lynch Terror!" 97 "Smash the Bamers!" 98 District 17 secretary Robert Fowler Hall 127 Sit-down strike, American Casting Company, Birmingham, 1937 145 Share Croppers' Union membership card 162 Eugene "Bull" Connor, Birmingham city commissioner 187 League of Young Southerners 198 Ethel Lee Goodman 204 Segregated audience in Montgomery awaits Henry Wallace, 1948 229