Читать книгу Corporations Compassion Culture - Keesa C. Schreane - Страница 29

The union-dominated industrial jobs were not the only ones available to Blacks. As a matter of fact, national farm statistics show that the opportunities for economic mobility among Blacks were actually to be found in agriculture, a trend that peaked in the 1920s. At the time, there were almost 1 million Black farmers. (Today that number is down to only 1.3% or about 45,000 of the 3.4 million total farmers, of which 95% are White.⁸) As the financial obstacles of the Great Depression took their toll on the farming industry, the New Deal legislation passed to assist White agricultural workers was not extended to Black ones. As James Gilbert Cassedy notes:

Protective labor legislation of the 1930s, such as the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, did not extend to agricultural workers, although 31.8 percent of the African American population in 1940 was employed in agriculture (40.4 percent in the South).⁹

In addition, working in agriculture had its own set of challenges. Blacks who were able to save enough money to buy land had to first find a White landowner willing to sell to them.¹⁰ Once they purchased or settled, White merchants sold them tools and goods needed to tend to the land and produce crops. Business fairness and ethics weren't legislated in this environment, so merchants were able to vary the prices and premiums they charged. Some agriculture unions weren't as prevalent or well organized as other unions but, even with the agriculture unions, Black farm workers who stood up against unfair commerce practices by White merchants often paid with their lives.

Moreover, from the New Deal through the early 1960s, federal subsidies allocated for farmers sometimes didn't make it to Black agricultural workers because of “local politics.” The inequities of not receiving the same subsidies as their White counterparts reduced their ability to keep their farming profitable and put them at an economic and professional disadvantage to their peers.¹¹

In September 30, 1919, Black sharecropper families gathered near Elaine, Arkansas, to discuss membership in the Progressive Farmers and Household Union, a union of African American tenant farmers and sharecroppers, for the purpose of getting a fair price for their cotton and helping them buy land. Late in the evening White men shot into the church where the meeting was taking place. Days later, Whites who opposed Black farmers' efforts invaded Elaine, resulting in the slaughter of many Black men, women, and children.¹²

Not being afforded the same rights, pay, and protections as White colleagues was a reality whether you were on the railroad, in the factory, or tilling fields. When people say “systemic racism,” these examples show what they mean. For generations, in all economic sectors, people of color have experienced unethical treatment, unfair pay, and harassment. This costs not only workers but also their employers. Society at large suffers when Black workers are denied full participation in the economy-strengthening gross domestic product (GDP) and participation in capital markets.