Black Farmers Strike, 1891

From the Atlanta Constitution, September 7, 1891.

THE COTTON PICKERS

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Are Ordered Out on a General Strike,

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UNLESS THEY RECEIVE $1

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Per Hundred--The Colored Alli- ance Gets Its Back Up

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AND STRIKES BACK AT THE WHITES

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A Movement Which May Paralyze the Land- owners of the Southern States. What They Have to Say.

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Houston, Tex., September 6.--[Special.]--The biggest agricultural strike in the history of the world is imminent.

If it takes place the matured cotton will rot in the fields.

This is brought about by the Colored Farmers' Alliance of the United States.

And the order goes into effect on Saturday next!

HALF A MILLION MEN.

This organization has been perfected through colored alliances, and numbers more than half a million with thousands being added every day throughout the southern states. Colonel R. M. Humphrey, general superintendent of the colored alliance, admitted the existence of this organization, saying it had been induced by the organization some time ago of planters and merchants in certain sections, notably Memphis and Charleston, to reduce the price for picking to a very low standard, and that the cotton pickers had combined to protect themselves from this dictation, and he thought they would be able to do so.

CIRCULARS SENT OUT.

It is learned that a secret circular has been mailed at Houston to every suballiance throughout the cotton belt, fixing the date when the strike of cotton pickers will be simultaneously inaugurated, and how it shall be conducted. The Facts Come Out.

The headquarters of the Colored National Alliance of the United States is in this city. Colonel R. M. Humphrey, general superintendent of the Colored Farmers' Alliance and Cotton Pickers' League, has been actively at work in organizing the colored men for a general strike all over the south. Today your correspondent obtained a copy of a secret circular which Humphrey is having distributed by thousands all through the cotton states.

The following is the main feature of the strike:

Whereas, The planters and speculators above mentioned are firm in their demand that you pick at starvation wages, as offered by them, and leave your families to suffer fearful consequences, placing to your account the present low price of their cotton; and,

Whereas, Above six hundred thousand pickers already have bound themselves together in __________ covenant to pick no cotton for any one, except their own, before about November _________, at less than $1 per 100 pounds, with board;

TO STRIKE ON SATURDAY.

Whereas, Your success depends upon your united action.

Now, therefore, I, R. H. Humphrey, by virtue of the authority in me vested, do issue this, my solemn proclamation, fixing the 12th day of September, 1891, it being Saturday, as the day upon which all our people shall cease from, and absolutely stop picking cotton, except their own, and shall pick no more before about November 1st, unless their _________ demand for wages shall be sooner aceded to by the planters and others interested.