“A Revolution in Labor”: African Americans and Hybrid Labor Activism in Illinois during the Early Jim Crow Era

Abstract

IN MARCH 1875, A CHICAGO TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT reported that a miners’ strike in Brazil, Indiana, continued with conditions worsening and the “breach between labor and capital widen[ing].” The year-long labor dispute found the striking miners “dogged and sullen” and was taking a dreadful toll on the men and their families. Many of the town's merchants initially supported the strike, but they increasingly feared violence would ensue as the striking miners became more vigilant and defiant. One merchant stated that he had witnessed other strikes, but none of them had “men so determined not to yield,” and he believed it would be necessary to bring in the military to prevent an outbreak of violence. The Tribune correspondent predicted that a “revolution in labor” was imminent because the desperate mine operators were willing to hire Black workers to take the place of the striking miners. The mine operators were “confident that, if negro labor [was] adopted unanimously, it [would] completely and effectively crush strikes, which [had] become so frequent and arrogant of late as to make any dependence on white labor impracticable.” African American workers, according to the correspondent, were more dependable than white laborers, and they would not become “turbulent at trifles, and for many other reasons that are apparent.” As a result, some midwestern mine operators had already arranged to fill their mines with Black workers, and “others will follow suit.”1The newspaper correspondent's prediction about a “revolution in labor” was accurate—during the height of labor unrest in the late 1870s, Northern industrialists sought measures to undercut the burgeoning labor movement by importing African American workers from the South into their predominantly European American worksites. Industrialists were encouraged by two overarching factors: first, Black workers from the South traditionally earned lower wages than their Northern counterparts and would therefore cost less; and more importantly, due to racist exclusionary measures, as well as the relatively small African American population in the North, semi-skilled and skilled worksites were dominated by European American workers. Industrialists correctly assumed that the racism of their workers would cause an exceedingly vitriolic reaction to the idea of Black workers replacing them. In addition to the typical labor conflict issues, racialized violence would invariably ensue. Industrialists then found justification to utilize draconian measures on the strikers—enforced by local militia or police—to ensure that the replacement workers would be allowed to work in relative safety, and to ensure that industrialists continued to make profits.2This racial dynamic became increasingly prevalent throughout the Midwest as rapid industrialization and massive population growth created whole new categories of workers. European American workers braced themselves for the possibility of a chaotic economic transformation by frantically jockeying for occupational viability within the racial hierarchy. In the environment of an increasingly racialized labor movement, Black and other non-white workers, with few exceptions, were forced to the bottom of the economic ladder.Among midwestern states, Illinois was particularly distinct due, in part, to the massive growth of Chicago as a central industrial hub for the region. In comparison to adjacent midwestern states, Illinois was also unique because of its relatively small African American population. By 1890, the African American population in Illinois was only 57,028 (1.5 percent of the state population); in 1900, 85,078 (1.8 percent of the state population). The dearth of a substantial Black population, coupled with a significant rise in anti-Black sentiment throughout the state, helped to create the perception that African American workers were unable to perform technologically advanced labor. Thus, Black Illinoisans of the late nineteenth century were often forced out or excluded from more desirable occupations and, subsequently, forced to the periphery of the labor movement.This article explores the labor activism of Black Illinoisans during the tumultuous late nineteenth century in the context of this relatively new phenomenon—that is, the racialization of labor. Of course, historians generally acknowledge this period as the Second Industrial Revolution in the United States. Yet for African Americans, the period also signified a time in which their racial “character” was under severe scrutiny—not only in labor, but also in virtually every aspect of Black American life. Notions of white racial superiority invariably circumscribed Black people as inferior outsiders—undeserving of a place within mainstream American life. Thus, to most European Americans, it made perfect sense within the twisted logical framework of white supremacy to categorize labor based upon race.In the context of heightened anti-Black sentiment, Black Illinoisans were faced with a difficult decision: should they remain with the larger labor movement that increasingly viewed them as “inferior” workers? While the European American working class famously fought for labor issues such as unionization, safer working conditions, and the eight-hour workday, Black Illinoisans during the nineteenth century also supported these issues. Yet Black workers were forced into a hybrid labor activism—an activism where they fought for their rights not only as workers but also as workers who were gradually excluded from higher-skilled occupations based upon their race. In addition to the racialized occupational environment, Black workers were also forced into a battle for their civil rights during the late nineteenth century as they fought against the inimical rise in white supremacy throughout the United States.The concept of racializing labor was not entirely novel to Northern industries. As historian Jacqueline Jones explained, white Northerners had always expressed their apprehension over emancipating Black people from slavery in moralistic terms. As early as the eighteenth century, they claimed that free Black laborers had shown a lack of restraint in public—displaying “racial” behavior that European American city dwellers found galling. Various groups of African American workers came under attack by the early nineteenth century for advertising for services in a supposedly unseemly fashion. For European American workers, their goal was to maintain their advantageous position in the workplace, and any other socio-political aspect in which there was the perception of losing ground within the racial hierarchy. Thus, European American workers developed new forms of self-definition that would establish a sharper distinction between “white” and “Black” labor.3One of the earliest and staunchest proponents for disrupting the burgeoning labor movement through racialization was co-owner of the Chicago, Wilmington, and Vermillion Coal Company (CW&V) Alanson Sweet. He quickly developed a reputation for slashing wages and firing workers when he forced workers at the Michigan Central Railroad Company to take a pay cut during a dispute in 1862. Workers that protested were fired and replaced with African American workers from the South.4 Sweet believed that the reaction of his predominantly white workforce would be intensified with the importation of an all-Black strikebreaking unit that would likely lead to violence. When violence inevitably ensued, Sweet and his co-owners were then able to utilize state-sponsored protection to ensure the protection of both his imported workers and his property.5As a co-owner of the CW&V in Braidwood, Illinois, during an economic depression, once again, Sweet reduced workers’ wages. Predictably, the unionized miners refused any pay cuts and went on strike. After some convincing, the CW&V co-owners acquiesced to Sweet's ideas on importing African American men to disrupt the conflict. “With the mines filled with colored men,” he assured his fellow owners and stockholders, “it is believed that the Company will not be burdened with the expense of another strike for many years.”6 The CW&V co-owners may have been willing to agree to Sweet's concept due to their past failures. In an 1874 labor dispute with their workers, both recently arriving European immigrants and white workers were recruited as strikebreakers. Instead of being a disruptive force, the replacement miners met with the striking Braidwood miners, became informed of the ongoing labor dispute, and were subsequently convinced to leave. Significantly, the workers left relatively peaceably within days of their arrival.7The nation was in the throes of a massive railroad strike starting in July 1877. Wage cuts, and generally poor conditions and treatment touched off a nationwide strike that shut down most of the nation's railroads. The Chicago Times observed that the arrival of African American workers, combined with the news of the national railroad strike created an “anxious mood” among the Braidwood miners, and “it would take but very little to cause an outbreak in this place.” When the African American workers arrived in Braidwood, there were no friendly meetings. Instead, the striking Braidwood miners gave them an ultimatum: leave town “peaceably or forcibly.” Fearing trouble, some of the miners left town.8 However, when Sweet and the CW&V ownership alerted Illinois governor Shelby Cullom of the intimidation tactics, the state militia was brought in to restore the Black miners to their jobs. The next day, 1,250 Illinois state militia were called into Braidwood to quell the conflict, and if the strikers resisted, “the troops [would] make short work of them.” The CW&V owners understood that an escalation in violence could possibly lead to such measures—and these measures would ensure that the African American workers would be protected and allowed to work in the mines.9Convinced that order could be maintained, and the African American miners would be allowed to remain in the mine shafts, the state militia left Braidwood several weeks later. Although relative peace did prevail after the departure of the state militia, the strike continued another four months. The Braidwood strike of 1877 was the longest strike in United States’ history (to that date) and took an enormous toll on the lives of the strikers and their families. With winter approaching in November 1877, the weary miners finally gave in and ended the strike. The owner's desire to destroy the miners’ union was successful, and the company refused to hire the union leaders as well. Feeling victimized by the CW&V owners, many miners complained bitterly about working alongside the African American strikebreakers who they believed had done “all they possibly could to assist capital to crush labor.”10 For the CW&V owners, the reaction of the Braidwood miners to the importation of African Americans into the mines was the crucial element in their victory. If white and immigrant miners did not react violently, the owners would not have brought in the state militia to see that their mines and their replacement workers were protected.Race relations remained strained in the Braidwood mines during the immediate years after the strike. Nevertheless, African American miners remained in Braidwood and continued to work in the mines. At least half of the seven hundred miners in Braidwood were African American; by 1880, there were 703 Black men and their families living in the surrounding area (compared to 242 in 1870). Institutions such as the Colored Odd Fellows lodge and the First Baptist Church were established in 1878 to support the town's African American community. Reverend T. C. Fleming, who was one of the strikebreakers during the 1877 strike, was the pastor of the church.11 Despite establishing themselves as viable workers in the mines, and decent citizens in Braidwood, the small African American population continued to experience difficulties in town and the workplace.While the African American miners at Braidwood established a reputation for being viable workers and willing union men, their white counterparts insisted on following national racist trends in the workplace. Moses Gordon, an African American miner among those imported from Virginia, observed: “[African Americans] could no more get work here until the year 1877 than they could fly. . . . [I]t was the miners themselves who would come out on strike before they would allow the negro to earn his daily bread.” White workers increasingly drew the color line in the workplace and the major labor unions in the late nineteenth century. Significantly, Gordon also noted that CW&V owners fired African American workers that joined unions. Thus, the racialization of labor worked as a two-pronged attack against Black workers during the industrial era: As discriminatory policies against non-white citizens in the United States became the norm, and therefore accepted by the dominant racial group, employers increasingly utilized African Americans as strikebreakers in order to disrupt unionization. African American workers were either shunned from major labor unions by white union members who refused to allow them to join, or, as in the case in Braidwood, African American workers were threatened with termination. On the other hand, white workers—embracing the full social Darwinism of the late nineteenth century—and thus, completely accepting their collective place at the top of the racial hierarchy in American society—readily rejected African American workers from the most desirable occupations. As white workers wielded more bargaining power in the last decade of the nineteenth century, they insisted on the racialization of both the workplace and their labor unions. Gordon remarked on how this racist process in Braidwood would affect the working class: “Every nationality on the face of the globe can come here and go to work wherever there is work to be had, except for the colored man, and in nine cases out of ten the miners are to blame for it. A house divided against itself cannot stand. If the laboring class fights capital for their rights, they have enough to do without fighting against six millions [sic] of people that have got to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.”12Strikebreaking served as an occupational and economic weapon against the racialization of labor for men like Moses Gordon. As labor historian Eric Arnesen explained, strikebreaking was a viable form of working-class activism for African Americans as they sought to strengthen their economic position during the labor upheaval of post-Reconstruction America. The most important coal mining towns in Illinois followed the practice of racial exclusion. Strikebreaking not only allowed African American workers to gain entry into desirable industrial positions, but it also represented chances for low paid Southern African Americans to earn higher wages. Their decisions to become strikebreakers were often informed choices, rationalized by a complex and changing worldview that balanced their experiences as industrial workers, farmers, and African Americans. Indeed, these Black men were neither willing tools nor ignorant serfs—rather, they were poor and ambitious men who were often recruited by coal company agents, sometimes under false pretenses. During the nineteenth century, African Americans were never the only workers used as strikebreakers in Illinois or any other Northern state. Moreover, they were never the most used strikebreakers during the height of labor turbulence of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, African Americans were usually the most visible strikebreakers because of American racism, and therefore, they were almost always the easiest targets for white working-class rage during the tumultuous labor disputes of this era.13As the Chicago Tribune correspondent predicted, other industrialists throughout the region adopted racialization as a weapon to squelch unionization among the working class. For example, in 1880, approximately one hundred African Americans were hired to replace striking coal miners in Rapids City, near Rock Island, Illinois. Tragedy struck immediately—one of the African American strikebreakers was shot and killed by a striking miner. That same year in Springfield, Illinois, mine owners resisted demands made by union officials and proceeded to import African American miners from Richmond, Virginia. The predominantly European American workforce was ordered to remove their tools from the mines and evacuate company houses. If any violence ensued, the mine operators, their property, and the African American workers, were all protected by local police officials. These drastic actions led to the demise of the union.14 In the summer of 1886, a strike for higher wages occurred in Vermillion County at Grape Creek. In this case, there was a small African American presence in the mines—yet they refused to strike with their European American coworkers. The African American miners belonged to the biracial Knights of Labor (KOL) union and refused to participate because it was “a white man's fight.” The Grape Creek operators brought in African American men from Tennessee and Kentucky under police protection. The conflict dragged out and defeated the strikers, as the mine operators brought in five to fifteen new African American workers each day.15 This pattern of racialization continued throughout Illinois during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to data compiled by economic historian Warren Whatley, Illinois industrialists utilized Black strikebreakers more than any state during this period. However, while Black strikebreaking increased substantially during this period—especially in high-profile conflicts—they remained a relatively small percentage of the nation's strikebreaking force.16While Northern industrialists continued to recruit Black workers from the South during the late nineteenth century, they virtually ignored Northern Black workers. This omission was particularly glaring in Illinois and other midwestern states due to the dearth of African Americans living in the region. Approximately 90 percent of the African American population remained in the South, and it was simply easier to find and recruit Black labor in the South. Another more compelling reason had to do with the collective attitudes of African Americans living in the North. While Southern Black workers were cajoled relatively easily due to precarious economic condition or general lack of knowledge of a particular labor conflict in the North, Northern African Americans simply had more exposure to Northern labor strife. Although the Black population of Illinois was quite small, they gained a reputation as ferocious labor agitators during the late nineteenth century. Like their European American working-class counterparts, they also battled for workers’ rights. To be sure, African American workers in Illinois were occasionally used as strikebreakers during the late nineteenth century—there would be a collective shift in their attitude toward the labor movement by the turn of the twentieth century as white working-class racism became more pronounced. Yet prior to the full implementation of white supremacist ideas about allegedly inferior and superior workers based upon race, Black Illinoisans were not only a part of the labor movement, in some cases they were at the vanguard of the movement.During the summer of 1877, while the Braidwood mine operators were importing African American workers into their labor fracas, more than 150 Black longshoremen from Illinois disputed recent wage cuts against the Mississippi Valley Transportation Company (MVTC). Like their Braidwood counterparts, they too were inspired by the “Great Railroad Strike” and organized their own all-Black union. In solidarity with the national movement, the MTVC workers arranged a citywide general strike against all Cairo, Illinois, employers due to the recent wage cuts. When the MTVC owners were notified of the strike, they predictably hired strikebreakers. The next evening, the striking longshoremen assembled on the Ohio levee and confronted their replacements and demanded that they leave the worksite. When they refused to leave, the longshoremen chased them away by hurling a barrage of stones in their direction. The longshoremen then posted guards after the confrontation to ensure that none of the strikebreakers would return.17The confrontation only lasted a few minutes, but it created quite a stir throughout Cairo. The Cairo Evening Bulletin observed that the longshoremen may well have been within their rights to strike for higher wages, but they “had no right to prevent others from working who [were] willing . . . to work for the old wages.” The Bulletin further noted that by forcing the strikebreakers off the worksite, the Black longshoremen were committing a “grave offense for which they [could] be severely punished.” Racial animosity undoubtedly played a significant role in how the African American workers were portrayed in public discourse. When African American workers agitated for their rights, they were often depicted as “troublemakers” or “ungrateful” workers. In addition, Black labor activism was often viewed as chaotic and disorderly conduct. While strikebreaking was generally considered deplorable in white working-class communities, when Black workers fought to protect their economic interests, the Cairo Bulletin contended they should be “taught a lesson that [would] last them for all time to come.” Unlike the Braidwood community, which embraced and supported striking miners during their conflicts, African American workers were viewed with contempt throughout Cairo and regarded as perpetual outsiders.18Black workers throughout Illinois sought the same protective measures in unionization as other workers prior to the full maturation of racialization in labor. As early as 1877, the Knights of Labor (KOL) established as many as seven locals in Illinois that welcomed African American men and women into their fold.19 For many Black workers, the KOL was more than just a labor union—many regarded the progressivism of KOL leaders Uriah Stephens and Terence V. Powderly as a movement. More than any other active union in their time, the KOL were able to understand the necessity for organizing African American workers.20 After the national railroad strike in 1877, East St. Louis labor leaders recruited Black workers to join the KOL to circumvent racist practices designed to divide workers. An underlying goal of the labor leaders was also to secure the vote of Black workers during an 1878 municipal election. East St. Louis African Americans honored the deal—they supported the leader's candidate, and the candidate promised city jobs and “equal privileges with the white laborers.”21As Chicago continued to grow into one of the nation's leading industrial hubs, the hyper-competitive nature of the city was especially brutal for African Americans. The battle for higher-paying skilled labor in a rapidly expanding urban environment, was often a losing venture for African American workers—especially for recent-arriving migrants from the South. African American men often succumbed to racist employment policies, equally racist white and foreign-born workers who, with the backing of racist unions, committed to shutting Black men out of viable employment. As a result, Black workers in Chicago were left with limited occupational options and often found themselves regulated to menial jobs with truncated wages.The national trend of the racialization of labor was disturbingly acute in Chicago by the last decades of the nineteenth century. By 1890, African Americans were fully regarded as the group designed to be domestic laborers, unskilled workers, or connected to the service industry. During that decade they represented only 1.3 percent of the city's population yet supplied nearly 38 percent of all males in the servant classes. Typically, occupational expectations for Black men—regardless of education or skill level—were no higher than railroad worker, domestic servant, or unskilled (unspecified) laborer. They were also tools for the wealthy—the “rightful” holders of servile positions such as butlers, coachmen, or “footmen” who were attendants who ran beside or behind the carriages of aristocrats.22As Chicago's downtown expanded, and wealthy urban dwellers demanded more elegant eating establishments, top-flight hotels and restaurants peppered the Loop to satisfy their culinary desires. To fulfill ideas of racial and economic superiority, the best downtown restaurants treated their well-to-do, all-white clientele, to an all-Black, male waitstaff. One scholar noted that African American men “evoked images of slavery . . . and became a physical reminder of servitude.”23 Similar to the George Pullman porters of the era, African American men, as a Chicago restaurant owner exclaimed, were the best waiters “because they are waiters by nature, and peculiarly adapted to servitude.”24Black waiters were not always opposed to perpetuating ideas of racial subordination—especially if it resulted in additional wages. A submissive demeanor could invoke a sense of nostalgia and remind the all-white clientele of the “good ol’ days” of the Old South, which could lead to a sizable tip (this was a relatively novel idea in the nineteenth century). Yet any notion that these men would allow these submissive roles to translate into their dealings in labor issues outside of the restaurant would be an egregious mistake. Chicago's Black waiters, in fact, were the epitome of hybrid labor activism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Black waiters routinely conducted scattered walkouts over depression-era pay reductions. In 1875, they walked out of restaurants throughout the city, conducting sit-down strikes during lunchtime and evening rush hours in some of Chicago's busiest eateries. At the famous Palmer House Hotel, waiters walked out because their new manager tried to enforce unreasonably harsh rules. He informed the all-Black waitstaff that they would be required to arrive at the hotel an hour before their scheduled time, and they would no longer be allowed to consume uneaten food left over by patrons—a routine practice that allowed workers to supplement their meager incomes. They strategically walked out in protest during the busiest hours.25Restaurant and hotel workers of all races and ethnicities were moving toward labor unionization beginning in the 1870s. Yet European American workers tended to follow nationwide discriminatory practices in labor unions by excluding Black workers from union membership. Black waiters often responded with their own style of anti-discriminatory labor activism that encompassed organizing separate all-Black unions or joining progressive biracial unions. For example, after the passage of the 1875 Civil Rights bill, five off-duty Black waiters from the Tremont Hotel in downtown Chicago, were eager to test their newfound “equal enjoyment of the accommodations” that were now “applicable alike to citizens of every race and color.” They entered St. Elmo restaurant and were promptly informed that it was against the rules to serve “any of their race in the regular dining rooms.” The waiter offered the men a seat in the basement where the cooks and waiters ate their meals while on break. The off-duty waiters, insulted by the offer, immediately left for another restaurant where they were seated and served without incident.26Black waiters in Chicago were eager to find a labor union that would suit their needs in fighting for their labor and civil rights. The KOL provided them with the type of progressive unionization that they desired. In 1886, J. Ross Fitzgerald created the William Lloyd Garrison Colored Waiters local assembly 8286, and more than four hundred Black waiters and porters signed up during a KOL recruiting picnic. The Chicago Times acknowledged the effect the Knights had on the Black workers: the union “braced up the colored waiters considerably,” and gave the waiters “confidence with themselves.”27 This group represented the first entry of African Americans into organized labor in Chicago and was followed within two years by a second Black local, the Charles Sumner Waiters’ Union, which organized after separating from 8286.28With the backing of the KOL, Black waiters in Chicago wasted little time in cementing their reputation as stalwart labor activists. In May 1887, two hundred African American waiters joined nine hundred white waiters in observation of the first anniversary of May Day and in demanding better wages. The biracial coalition won an increase of $1.25 per week—a substantial sum for 1887. The restaurant owners tried to drive a wedge through the workers by importing African American replacement workers to specifically replace the white waiters. The unity between the workers was resolute, and the Black waiters were persuasive enough to entice the strikebreakers to leave.29 A year later, during another rally, Black waiters demanded improved labor conditions, and they also recognized the need to become more educated about their rights and the labor movement. “The day was not far distant,” one African American waiter predicted, “when, by organization, waiters would receive proper remuneration for their services.”30Black working-class men and women in Illinois clamored for more biracial union activity during the late nineteenth century. W. E. Turner, an African American member of the KOL, argued that more Black workers needed to join the union to assert themselves as a force within the labor movement. Rather than a “race problem” within the unions, the problem for laboring men and women was an issue of wage