The Conflict of Caste and Class in an American Industry

Abstract

Negro labor made its earliest significant shift from field to factory in the first notable industry in the South, the manufacture of tobacco. The Negro eagerly sought employment in the industry and throughout the period of slavery held high a monopoly of tobacco work establishing a fixed association of Negroes and tobacco. With each advance in machinery there has been an increase in white male and female labor, and Negro workers have held only those jobs secured to them by low wages, disagreeable dust, and by tasks regarded as too heavy for native-born white Americans. The Negro worker is by tradition to stay in his place, but his place is being continually narrowed. The race tradition with its rijtual of segregation, regarded by white workers as natural and by the Negro workers as traditional, is used by the industry to keep the two groups actively and impotently in conflict. The present working relation of constant bickering and confusion does not present a solid labor front competent to bargain with ...