In this diary, we address more directly what I’ve mostly skirted around in this New Deal series – something I’m completely unqualified to talk about. That being race relations in the South. I know it’s a cheap shot to give a diary this potentially misleading title, but I couldn’t resist. STFU stands for Southern Tenant Farmers Union, which organization this diary will come around to after some introduction.
Delta Cooperative Farm, Hillhouse, Mississippi, July 4, 1936
(Dorothea Lange for the Resettlement Administration)
STFU was an important progressive organization in its day. I’ve come across the argument that it was a key precursor to the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. There’s probably something to that.