Friday, September 16, 2011

Emergency Labor Program Brings Bahamians to N.C. Farms, 1945

From the Wilmington Star, June 25, 1945

Farmers will be pleased to know that Fred Sloan, in charge of emergency labor program for the Extension Service, has arranged for 1,500 Bahamians to arrive in North Carolina between June 20 and July 9 for harvesting beans, peaches, and tobacco.

These workers from the West Indies are being brought in by the War Food Administration, and were placed through the county agents of the Extension Service. Contracts for them have already been made with farmers and no additional Bahamians are expected this season.

The first group of 320 workers are supposed to have reached Candor, Montgomery County, last Wednesday, June 20, for the harvesting of peaches. Another group of 500 will go to a camp at Hendersonville on July 1 and will pick snap beans in that area.

In the tobacco counties, the Bahamians will work as “primers.” They will live in tenant houses with government agencies furnishing cooking stoves, beds, and blankets and the farmers furnishing the other necessary equipment. The number of Bahamians contracted for by growers in various tobacco counties follow: Robeson, 60; Duplin, 51; Wayne, 45; Onslow, 19; Edgecombe, 50; Harnett, 60; Sampson, 22; Pitt, 127; Greene, 49; Lenoir, 74; Johnston, 63; and Nash, 60. The workers were allotted by committees of farmers in the counties to the areas where they were most needed. As they complete their contracts in one area, they will be moved to other sections. 

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