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Revolt Among the Sharecroppers
HOWARD KESTER (with an Introduction by ALEX LICHTENSTEIN), 1997
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press
(Originally published New York: Covici, Friede, 1936)
pp. 66 + 98, $14.50 (paperback)
In resurrecting Revolt Among the Sharecroppers, Alex Lichtenstein has unearthed an extraordinarily rich document that brings to life the struggles of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) during the New Deal era. Howard Kester, one of the STFU's principal organizers, published this political tract in 1936 to draw attention to the plight of southern tenant farmers and attract financial and political support to the union. He offers a gripping story. Although clearly propaganda, Kester's story reminds us just how grim the southern plantation system was well into the 20th century and gives us an insider's view of an important rural social movement.
Based in Arkansas, the STFU led an interracial movement to secure economic and civil rights for African-American and white sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and agricultural laborers. The movement ultimately failed. But as Lichtenstein points out, it left an important legacy by openly violating segregation laws and customs and by offering a model of racial egalitarianism, participatory democracy, and nonviolent civil disobedience.
Lichtenstein introduces Kester's historic document with one of the most incisive summaries of the STFU published to date. He begins with a brief biography of Kester, stressing his commitment...