Harry Leland Mitchell
| Harry Leland Mitchell | |
|---|---|
 H. L. Mitchell, Secretary of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Union headquarters, Memphis, Tennessee, June 1938; by Dorothea Lange, for the Farm Security Administration. | |
| Born | June 14, 1906. [1] Halls, Tennessee |
| 💀Died | August 1, 1989 (aged 83) Montgomery, AlabamaAugust 1, 1989 (aged 83) |
| Resting place | Greenwood Cemetery (Montgomery, Alabama)[2] |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Halls High School (Knox County, Tennessee), graduated 1924 |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 📆 Years active | 1934–1973 |
| 👔 Employer | Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU), National Farm Labor Union (NFLU), National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU) |
| Known for | Farmworkers union leader; organizing the STFU with Clay East |
| Notable work | Mean Things Happening In This Land[3] |
| Title | Executive Secretary STFU (1934–1939, 1941–1944), President NFLU (1945–1955) and NAWU (1955-1960) |
| Lyndell "Dell" Cannack (1926–c. 1940), Dorothy Dowe (1951–1989) | |
| 👶 Children | Harry L. Mitchell Jr., Samuel Howard Mitchell, Mrs. Joe Freeland[2] |
| 👴 👵 Parent(s) |
|
| 👪 Relatives | Edwin Mitchell (brother) |
Harry Leland Mitchell (June 14, 1906 – January 8, 1989) was a cofounder and leader of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) in 1934, and led its successor unions, for most of the next twenty-six years. He had been a sharecropper himself, and a socialist like his fellow instigator of the STFU, Clay East. They led an initially small racially mixed union of poor people within three years to a membership of some 30,000 tenant farmers and sharecroppers.[1][4]
As the STFU evolved through association with larger, more powerful unions, it changed its name, and Mitchell his official role. He was President of the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU), then of the National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU), before retiring in 1960. In 1979, he published a memoir concerned almost entirely with his organizing activities.
Early life
The first memory recorded in the autobiography of H. L. Mitchell — as he preferred to be named, although he also said, "Just call me Mitch"[5] — is his horror at witnessing the lynching of a Black delivery boy who was burned to death.[3]
Mitchell was born about 65 miles NE of Memphis, Tennessee, near the small Tennessee town of Halls. His father, Jim Mitchell, was a tenant farmer and a preacher. As a pre-teen, H. L. was the town paper boy, learning about the world by shouting out headlines, or making up plausible ones, to sell three Memphis newspapers. Other childhood labor, from age 8 and extending into young manhood at 20, was seasonal agricultural work in the cotton and strawberry fields. In 1920, exposed to the Eugene V. Debs presidential campaign and a local supporter of it, who gave him books to read, Mitchell became a Socialist. Initially inspired to learn about Darwinian evolution, because it was a subject of controversy in Tennessee, Mitchell began buying Little Blue Books, a habit he retained for years; thus gaining exposure to ancient and modern philosophers as well as the work of Marx, Engels, and the plays of Shakespeare.[3]
Shortly after graduating high school in 1924, Mitchell became a sharecropper near Ripley, Tennessee, about 13 miles SE of Halls. In 1926, on the day after Christmas (i.e., on December 26), he married a schoolteacher, Lyndell Carmack, known as "Dell" (and surnamed "Cannack" in some sources.[1] With no other employment, he sharecropped on Lyndell's parents' farm. Lyndell gave birth to a son, Harry Leland Mitchell, Jr.[3]
In 1927, the young Mitchell family moved to Tyronza, Arkansas, where Jim Mitchell had a popular barber shop and was urging his son to relocate to where the cotton crop grew more abundantly. H. L. had visited Tyronza to consider sharecropping there, but didn't like the minimal amenities offered to the Arkansas workers and was about to return to sharecrop again on his in-laws' land. His father kept him in Tyronza by giving him the use of a pressing machine in the back of his barber shop. H. L. went into the dry cleaning business, scouring the back roads for customers and finding those with enough funds to have their clothes cleaned, pressed, and delivered.[3]
Career
The autobiography of H. L. Mitchell, Mean Things Happening in This Land,[3] provides the most information about Mitchell's life and career.
In Tyronza, Mitchell came into repeated contact with the owner of one of the three gas stations in town, Clay East. It being the Great Depression, East had concluded that the economic system was a problem. Mitchell told East that East's ideas were socialist, which East didn't like the sound of. But Mitchell loaned him a copy of Letters to Judd, an American Workingman[6] by Upton Sinclair, and East was then persuaded.[7] Mitchell and East campaigned for the Socialist Party's candidate, Norman Thomas, in the 1932 Presidential election.[8]
Wanting to know more about the Socialist movement, Mitchell planned a drive to Washington, D. C. for the Continental Congress for Economic Reconstruction. At stops on his journey, he met various activists, bringing one from Memphis to the Nashville home of Howard Kester, who was to become important in Mitchell's union activities. At the Congress, which included some delegates' calls for an immediate socialistic takeover of the government (defused by the pragmatic leadership), Norman Thomas led a demonstration of some 500 meeting participants to the Cairo Hotel, which had refused to provide already paid-up rooms to the union leader A. Philip Randolph with his delegation of fellow African-American attendees. Thomas's speech attacking racial segregation was profoundly enlightening for Mitchell, who recalled much later: "It had never occurred to me that it was wrong. Negroes had their place, and we had ours." (The hotel refunded the money.)[8]
Southern Tenant Farmers Union
In 1934, Norman Thomas, persuaded Mitchell to start a racially integrated union for tenant farmers. This was the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. (Thomas worked to organize sharecroppers in the South, and occasionally suffered beatings and arrests in the process.)[9] Along with co-founder Clay East and nine other whites, the organizing meeting included seven African-Americans, led by Isaac (Ike) Shaw. Shaw had been a member of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, whose members had been massacred in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919. Mitchell referred to that violence during this founding meeting, when he said: "This time it is going to be different. We white men are going to be in the front, and when the shooting starts, we will be the first to go down."[10]
NY Times articles: [11]
Additional references:
The year before Mitchell's death, he continued to promote the legacy of the STFU, with a free first showing of the documentary film Our Land Too: The Legacy of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union,[24] in what was then his home town, Montgomery, Alabama. A post-showing discussion included Wayne Flynt, then chairman of the Auburn University history department, and two other distinguished specialists: William Lawson, chairman of the sociology department at Alabama State University, and Ed Bridges, head of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Three other former STFU members (besides Mitchell) also participated, including John Handcox and Mitchell's wife, Dorothy Dowe Mitchell. Mitchell hoped to distribute the film (and microfilms of STFU documents) to schools and libraries by purchase or rental, and he had worked up a list of 83 such institutions.[25] He also toured with the film, including a free showing, followed by participation in a discussion, under the auspices of the Workers Defense League in New York City.[26]
Family
Mitchell's son, Samuel Howard Mitchell, was a sociologist and professor at the University of Chicago and then at the University of Calgary. He worked and wrote primarily on education-related topics[27] but he also wrote a book about his father, A Leader Among Sharecroppers, Migrants, and Farm Workers: H.L. Mitchell and friends.[28]
Writings
- Mitchell, H. L. (2008). Mean things happening in this land : the life and times of H.L. Mitchell, co-founder of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Foreword by Michael Harrington. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806186070. OCLC 227031606. Retrieved 17 April 2021. Search this book on
- Mitchell, H. L. (1987). Roll the union on: a pictorial history of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company. ISBN 088286159X. OCLC 19222041. Search this book on
- Mitchell, H. L. (1973). The founding and early history of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union. Conway, Arkansas: Arkansas Historical Association. JSTOR 40027642. OCLC 812577. Search this book on Reprinted from The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 32, 4, pp. 342–269
- Mitchell, H. L. (1972–73). Oral history [of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union]. Montgomery, Alabama: Southern Rural Welfare Association. OCLC 812579. Search this book on Lectures by and interviews of H. L. Mitchell
- Mitchell, H. L. (1968). The Southern Tenant Farmer's Union. Nashville: Southern Student Organizing Committee. OCLC 9015098. Search this book on Originally an article in The New South Student, April 1968
- Mitchell, H. L. (1966). American People's Movements: The Southern Tenant Farmer's Union, 1966. Oxford, Mississippi: University of Mississippi Libraries. OCLC 773303665. Retrieved 15 April 2021. Search this book on Edited from tape recordings made by H. L. Mitchell
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Garrison, Joseph Y. "Harry Leland Mitchell". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Tennessee Historical Society. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Harry Leland Mitchell". Alabama Journal. 2 August 1989. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Mitchell, H. L. (2008). Mean things happening in this land : the life and times of H.L. Mitchell, co-founder of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806139845. OCLC 227031606. Search this book on
- ↑ Robertson, Marci Bynum. "Harry Leland Mitchell (1906–1989)". CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Central Arkansas Library System. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
- ↑ "H. L. Mitchell". Alabama Journal (154). August 3, 1989. p. 12. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
- ↑ Sinclair, Upton ( 2021). Letters to Judd, an American Workingman. United States: Creative Media Partners, LLC. Retrieved 12 December 2021. Check date values in:
|date=(help) Search this book on
- ↑ Thrasher, Sue. "Oral History Interview with Clay East, September 22, 1973. Interview E-0003". Documenting the American South. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Dunbar, Anthony P. (1981). Against the grain : Southern radicals and prophets, 1929-1959. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0813908922. OCLC 610467942. Retrieved 18 January 2022. Search this book on
- ↑ Dreier, Peter (2012). The 100 greatest Americans of the 20th century : a social justice hall of fame. New York: Nation Books. p. 140. ISBN 1568586817. OCLC 760085138. Retrieved 17 January 2022. Search this book on
- ↑ Woods, Clyde (2017). Development arrested : the blues and plantation power in the Mississippi Delta. London New York: Verso. p. 151. ISBN 1844675610. OCLC 985036645. Retrieved 17 January 2022. Search this book on
- ↑ "FARM UNION DEFIES CIO Strike Threat, Laid to Communists at Campbell Soup Plants" (PDF). The New York Times. 6 July 1946. Retrieved 23 January 2021. Contains typo: "of 210 members" should be "if 210 members"
- ↑ "FARM LABOR UNION ASKS EMIGRE CURB Strike Protests to Senator on Entry of Foreign Workers When Americans Are Unemployed" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 August 1948. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- ↑ "FARM LABOR UNION ASKS EMIGRE CURB Strike Protests to Senator on Entry of Foreign Workers When Americans Are Unemployed" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 August 1948. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- ↑ Kennedy, Paul P. (2 September 1950). "Protests on O'Dwyer as Envoy Force Public Senate Hearings" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- ↑ "U. S. AID OPPOSED IN LABOR IMPORTS Several on House Agriculture Unit Tells Official No Fund Measure Could Be Passed" (PDF). The New York Times. 10 March 1951. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- ↑ "A. F. L. BACKS PROTEST AGAINST 'WETBACKS'" (PDF). The New York Times. 28 May 1951. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- ↑ Stark, Louis (14 July 1951). "'WETBACK' CURBS SOUGHT BY TRUMAN President Asks Broad Program to Control Mexican Labor and Improve Farm Conditions" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
- ↑ Southern Exposure. "From the Archives: The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union". Facing South. The Institute for Southern Studies. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ↑ "Southern Tenant Farmers Union Records on Microfilm". Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives. Cornell University Library. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ↑ "Guide to the Workers' Defense League Records" (PDF). Walter P. Reuther Library. Wayne State University. Retrieved 21 January 2022. file titles only
- ↑ Bigelow, Bill; Diamond, Norman. "Southern Tenant Farmers' Union: Black and White Unite?" (PDF). Civil Rights Teaching. Teaching for Change. Retrieved 21 January 2022. From handouts and sample lessons from the 2004 edition of Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching.
- ↑ Sutherland, Cyrus A. "Southern Tenant Farmers Museum (Mitchell-East Building, Bank of Tyronza)". SAH Archipedia. Society of Architectural Historians. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ↑ Serrin, William (March 14, 1984). "Little-Known Tenant Farmers' Union Will Recall Its Bold Past at Reunion". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ↑ Mitchell, H. L.; McCrary, Landon (1988). Our Land Too: The Legacy of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (Videotape). Huntsville, Alabama: KPI Film & Video Productions. OCLC 1066124368.
- ↑ Land, Mike (8 January 1988). "Film documents beginning of tenant farmers union". Alabama Journal. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
- ↑ "Movies: Museums, Societies, etc". New York Magazine: 94. September 19, 1988. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
- ↑ "Remembering Samuel Mitchell". University of Calgary. University of Calgary. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
- ↑ Mitchell, Samuel Howard (2007). A Leader Among Sharecroppers, Migrants, and Farm Workers: H.L. Mitchell and friends. Tyronza, Arkansas: Southern Tenant Farmers Museum. ISBN 9780779501793. OCLC 268794454. Search this book on "...presents a variety of inside views about the Mitchell household, the inner workings of the small circle of STFU leaders, and Mitch's wide association with historians, fellow labor organizers, and the occasional politician." (JSTOR 27779000)
External links
- Photograph of Mitchell testifying before the Senate Labor Committee, 1949
- H.L. Mitchell A Lifetime of Organizing and Hell-Raising
- H.L. Mitchell, 1906-1989
- Alternative Views #237: MEAN THINGS HAPPENING IN THE LAND (1984). Film includes interview with Mitchell.
This article "H. L. Mitchell" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:H. L. Mitchell. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
|
This page exists already on Wikipedia. |
