Revolt Among the Sharecroppers: Kester's Account Analyzed

Introduction

Revolt Among the Sharecroppers is a brief and compelling first-person account of the effects of the 1930s Depression and a dramatic story of the impact of the New Deal on the rural life of Southern laborers. The book was originally published in 1936 as a rural studies research pamphlet by Howard Kester. In 1969, it was reprinted by Arno Press in their American Negro Series. Within a year, the book had sold out and was not printed again.

Alexander Lichtenstein, a lecturer at a major university, took the initiative of reissuing the book in 1997, recognizing its value as a historical piece of research. This reissue re-established a significant political and social document of the early twentieth century. The book not only enhances modern generations' understanding of the importance of social movements, but also asserts that the contemporary social gap between classes must be addressed by a just political economy (Lichtenstein).

Revolt Among the Sharecroppers discusses the era of the 1930s, when government intervention was prevalent in the private sector and when the lower social classes were exploited through their needs and poverty. The book is not merely a historical account; it also provides an analytical approach and a research-oriented viewpoint. Howard Kester examines the 1930s as an epoch of a critical social movement launched to safeguard the individual and social rights of common Southerners—the sharecroppers and tenant farmers.

This essay analyzes the following aspects of Howard Kester's Revolt Among the Sharecroppers: the impact of the Agricultural Adjustment Act on tenant farmers and sharecroppers of the South; the birth of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union as a consequence; and the challenges faced by the Union in uplifting tenant farmers and sharecroppers during the era of the Great Depression.

The reissued version of Revolt Among the Sharecroppers in 1997 provides insight into the reformers of the era as humanitarians who served a social and moral cause, constructively directing the struggle of sharecroppers and tenant farmers against coercion. The revolutionary socialism of these farmers' unions was historically notable in the Arkansas Delta during the period from 1934 to 1936.

Economic and Social Conditions of Southern Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers of the South lived under constant threat from landlords and plantation owners who attempted to intimidate anyone who stood up for their rights. Open protest was next to impossible. Despite the odds and in defiance of the dangers, civil rights were, "one thing worth living for the sharecroppers, for it was the hope of the people, of all the enslaved sharecroppers everywhere in the South" (Kester, 1936).

The impoverished Black and white sharecroppers were willing to risk their lives in order to end domination, since sharecropping ultimately left them empty-handed. As Kester observed: "The sharecropper of today is no more literate, no wealthier, no more cultured, no more privileged than was his grandfather of fifty years ago" (Kester, 1936).

Apparently the crops yielded great profits, but those profits were not fairly shared with the sharecroppers. Kester states, "There have been enormous profits in cotton, yet the tenant farmers' share has been so small that he must struggle desperately to keep body and soul together. Hope, ambition, and incentive have through the years been killed in those who till the soil" (Kester, 1936).

The book explains in depth what it truly meant to be a sharecropper in the 1930s South—the plight that led to the political and social awakening of the underprivileged rural Southerners. The ringing of the plantation bell symbolized the oppression of the elite class and the helplessness of those beneath them. Racial tyranny compounded social coercion. The author writes, "The tone which the bell gives out may inspire the stranger in the cotton country toward reverential thinking for somehow a ringing bell reminds one of God and cathedrals and a man's eternal quest for truth and justice" (Kester, 1936).

These sharecroppers were neither socially nor economically secure. Underfed and overburdened, they suffered from inadequate housing and clothing, illiteracy, and a lack of clean drinking water. There was neither safety for their families nor adequate time for domestic life. This misery was especially acute for Black sharecroppers, who endured additional economic exploitation. Kester bears witness: "I have seen a two-week-old baby wrapped in quilts, lying in a furrow while the mother worked the cotton. I have seen mothers ready for childbirth, still in the fields pulling at the soft white fiber" (Kester, 1936).

The plantation owners and landlords exercised legal authority to strip sharecroppers of their due privileges while remaining legally exempt from punishment. They ironically regarded the hardworking tenant farmers as indolent, inefficient, inconsiderate, and ill-bred.

The Rise of the Sharecroppers and the Agricultural Adjustment Act

The never-improving plight of the sharecroppers inevitably gave rise to protest against their landlords. Workers believed that seventy years of labor had not moved them any closer to freedom from slavery. A generation had passed in unrelenting destitution, intensifying the misery shared by Black and white sharecroppers alike.

Nevertheless, a continuing buildup of bitterness and resolve convinced them that their condition was not a divine ordainment but a misdeed of their superiors—one against which they should stand, for the sake of future generations.

In the same era, the federal government promulgated the Agricultural Adjustment Act, under which policies were framed that further exploited sharecroppers while benefiting plantation owners. This deepened the misery of Southern tenant farmers but also, paradoxically, served as a turning point.

Enforcement of the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the policies that followed represented the height of long-borne injustice. At this stage, the sharecroppers made the decision to openly fight the war they had been waging in the shadows, thereby seeking an end to their destitution, illness, illiteracy, and bondage.

For the first time in Arkansas, the sharecroppers made a non-violent and measured declaration to their landowners. Their appeal stated:

"We propose a model contract providing the following: Adequate cash furnished during the farming season at a legal rate of interest, with privileges of trading where we please. Pay at prevailing wages for all improvements made on the property of the owner. Decent houses for each family, with use of a certain portion of the land rent-free for the purpose of growing foodstuffs for our families and livestock. We need access to woodlands to secure fuel for our use and a wagon and team to haul it with. We need the right to sell our cotton at market prices and to whom we please." (Kester, 1936)

This struggle was a crusade for liberation and equality. The landowners, however, regarded it as rebellion and a threat. They accused the organizing sharecroppers of disrespecting them and causing turmoil. Upon realizing that peaceful efforts to silence the sharecroppers were ineffective, the plantation owners and landlords set out to destroy this "voice" by whatever means necessary.

Conclusion

Revolt Among the Sharecroppers is a historical account of both evolution and suffering. Evolution is manifested when racial differences are set aside and all sharecroppers unite to assert their rights and challenge the oppressive ruling class. This unification under the Southern Tenant Farmers Union even alarmed the planters, as white and Black workers joined hands against a common enemy for the first time.

However, that progress faded as racial differences resurfaced and divided the union's cause. The plantation owners' aristocracy perpetuated suffering by redirecting blame for the revolt toward Black sharecroppers, making them the target of Southern hostility more broadly.

Recognizing the fruitlessness of their toil, many Southern sharecroppers began to migrate into different professions. Those who stayed behind continued in the same conditions as before.

In summary, Kester presents a vision for reflection:

"The only sane road for men to follow is that one which leads toward an economy of abundance... Only men of great courage, social consciousness, world kinship and prophetic imagination will dare travel this road and seize the abundant life. The timid and unimaginative will want to live and die by their fathers." (Kester, 1936)

References

Grim, Valerie. Review: Revolt Among the Sharecroppers. Visiting Associate Professor, History and African-American Studies; Interim Director, African-American Studies, Iowa State University. Published by H-Rural (October 1997).

Kester, Howard. Revolt Among the Sharecroppers. Originally published 1936. New introduction by Alexander Lichtenstein. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.