African-American Workers

Hellraisers Journal: Nils Hanson on the Organizing Drive of the AWO in the Mid-Western Wheat Fields

Thirty thousand Negroes will come and 30,000 I. W. W.'s will go back.
The red card is cherished as much and its objects understood as well
by a black man as by a white one.
-Solidarity, Fall 1915

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Tuesday December 21, 1915
From the International Socialist Review: Nils Hanson on Organizing in the Wheat Fields

IWW Membership Card.png

In the latest edition of the Review, Nils Hanson discusses working conditions, living conditions, and the great organizing drive, launched by the Agricultural Workers Organization, this past fall in the harvest fields of the mid-western states. He tells of following the wheat harvest from Kansas on up to North Dakota.

The A. W. O. of the Industrial Workers of the World, has become such a menace that the North Dakota farmers claim they will import Negroes as harvest hands next year. In response to that threat, the I. W. W. newspaper, Solidarity, recently gave "John Farmer" this warning:

The I. W. W. has some good Negro organizers, just itching for a chance of this kind. Thirty thousand Negroes will come and 30,000 I. W. W.'s will go bak. The red card is cherished as much and its objects understood as well by a black man as by a white one.