Workers Not Allowed to Leave Farm Jobs, March 1944

From “Carolina Farm Notes” by F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in The Southern Planter, March 1944 issue

With the planting season at hand, North Carolina farmers are voicing alarm at their prospects for meeting production goals this year due to a shortage of labor. “So many farm workers have left, that our farmers are wondering how they are going to produce and harvest the crops they have been requested to grow this year,” writes the farm agent of Duplin County. He expressed the opinion that many farms in his county will not be cultivated this year and that on many others, only the tobacco will be fully planted. Now that a 20 percent increase has been allowed in the tobacco acreage, the operators will plant their full allotment even though other essential crops may be decreased rather than increased.

Some men already have seeded down some of their most fertile land to pasture and perhaps this is one good thing that will come out of the existing labor shortage.

In populous Pitt County, a heavy movement of tenants from farm to farm has been noted. Many have moved two and three times, due probably to some proselytizing on the part of those farmers who did not have a sufficient number of tenants. In Moore County, there are a number of farms without tenants or the prospect of tenants before the planting season begins. During the last six month, 188 men were released from Moore County farms to go into other work paying higher wages, and with no compensating return of labor from other jobs to the farm.

Tom Broom Said “No”

Folks in North Carolina are still commenting on how Tom Broom of Union held the line for farm labor in his county during the past fall. When crops were “laid by” last July, Mr. Broom allowed some labor to leave for temporary outside work until September 1.

When September came, many of them requested a renewal of their releases.

“No,” flatly refused Mr. Broom. “No more releases until all the crops are harvested and the fall seeding is over.

During that month, a farmer rushed into Mr. Broom’s office about 4 o’clock one afternoon and told the county agent that buses were in the county gathering up Negro laborers to be hauled to Knoxville, Tennessee, and that three of his men had quit work that day to join the crowd. He said the buses would be in Monroe about 5 o’clock, one hour later. Mr. Broom called up the U.S. Employment Agency, in nearby Charlotte, and was instructed by that Agency to notify the police and have the bus operators arrested. Fifty-five laborers had assembled in Monroe for the trip but when they found that they could not get away without releases the busses left empty and the Negroes went back to their farm jobs.

In October, the Employment Service began calling for laborers to work at Camp Sutton at the U.S. Rubber Company Plant near Charlotte and in textile mills at Kannapolis, Concord, Charlotte, Fort Mills, Lancaster and other nearby places. Mr. Broom said flatly that no farm labor would be released from Union county until the crops were all housed and the fall seeding had been completed. As a consequence, labor was kept in the county until his work had been done and was then released only for two or three months with the condition that all laborers be back on the farm at least by March 1.