Southern Tenant Farmers Union 75th Anniversary Symposium to be held Oct. 30

Oct. 16, 2009 -- Update, Oct. 30: Due to inclement weather, the travel to Tyronza and the events scheduled from 3 p.m.-7 p.m. at the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum have been cancelled. The Southern Tenant Farmers Museum, 117 Main Street, Tyronza, announces the Southern Tenant Farmers Union 75th Anniversary Symposium on Friday, Oct. 30.  The event will begin with a symposium, “Eye Openin’ Time,” to be held in the Mockingbird Room of the Reng Student Services Center/Student Union, 101 N. Caraway Road, Jonesboro, from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. At the conclusion of the on-campus events, the symposium will move to the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum (STFM) in Tyronza for an evening of tours, food, and music from 4-7 p.m. “Eye-Openin’ Time” is a reference by Southern Tenant Farmers Union songster, poet, and union organizer John Handcox, in recognition of the importance of  the union being racially integrated.

The Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) was a federation of tenant farmers formed in July 1934 in Poinsett Co., Ark., with the immediate aim of reforming the crop-sharing system of sharecropping and tenant farming. The union expanded throughout 1935 and 1936, and by 1938, it had more than 35,000 members, mostly in eastern Arkansas. The STFU was also active in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina, but Tyronza, in Poinsett Co., Ark., was its birthplace and is now the home of the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum, an Arkansas State University’s Heritage Site.

The symposium features an outstanding line-up of academicians, authors, and an emeritus professor who is the son of one of the original STFU organizers in Tyronza. View or print a flyer containing the complete schedule of events for the symposium here.

From 9-9:15 a.m., Dr. Ruth Hawkins, director of Arkansas Heritage SITES (System Initiatives for Technical and Educational Support) at ASU, will present the symposium’s opening remarks. Dr. Hawkins will be followed at 9:15-9:45 a.m. by Dr. Jeannie Whayne, department chair and professor of history at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, and author of “A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favor in Twentieth Century Arkansas,” published by the University of Virginia Press. Dr. Whayne’s presentation, “Prelude to the STFU: Tenant Activism on the Robert E. Lee Wilson Plantation in late 1933,” will be followed at 9:45-10:15 a.m. by Dr. James Ross, associate professor of history at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, whose dissertation, “‘I Ain’t Got No Home in This World’: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union in Arkansas,” is the subject of his presentation.

From 10:15-10:45 a.m., Jodi Morris, National Park Service interpreter at Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site and ASU-Jonesboro Heritage Studies PhD student, will present “John Handcox and the Role of Music in the STFU.”

From 10:45-11 a.m., there will be a brief break. Presentations will resume at 11-11:30 a.m., as Dr. Amanda Coleman, assistant professor of geography at ASU-Jonesboro, will offer “Talking Past Each Other: The STFU, the FSA, and Competing Discourses of Poverty in the Depression-Era South.”



From 11:30 a.m.-12 noon, noted author, Butler Center Dee Brown Fellow, and professor of history at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock Grif Stockley will present “Steven Hahn, Britt McKinney, and Ike Shaw: Rethinking the Interracial Nature of the STFU.” Stockley is the author of “Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919” and “Ruled by Race: Black/White Relations in Arkansas from Slavery to the Present.”

Dr. Ruth Hawkins will announce the graduate and undergraduate winners of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union essay contest at noon, followed by a lunch break until 1 p.m.

The afternoon presentations begin at 1-1:30 p.m. with Dr. Samuel Mitchell, professor emeritus, the University of Calgary, and son of STFU founder H. L. Mitchell, who ran a dry cleaning business in Tyronza.  Mitchell’s business and the adjacent gas station, owned by union co-founder Clay East, served as informal union headquarters after the union was organized in 1934 and now house the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum. Dr. Mitchell will present “The Legacy of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.” Dr. Mitchell is the author of “The Leader of Sharecroppers, Migrants, and Farm Workers: H. L. Mitchell and Friends.”

At 1:30-2 p.m., Flotine Hodge’s 1937 play, “Southern Tenant Farmers Union Forever,” will be performed by ASU-Jonesboro’s Public Personnel Administration class, taught by Dr. Catherine Reese, political science. Flotine Hodge was a member of the Morton, Ark., STFU Local.

From 2-2:30 p.m., Dr. Vernon Burton, holder of the Burroughs Distinguished Chair in Southern history and culture at Coastal Carolina University and author of “The Age of Lincoln,” will present “Resisting Race Changes in the South.”

The on-campus symposium will conclude at 2:30-3 p.m. with Dr. Elizabeth Payne, professor of history at the University of Mississippi, presenting “Vassar Feminists, Myrtle Lawrence, and the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.” Dr. Payne’s current work in progress is her book, “Shattering White Solidarity: A History of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.”

From 3-4 p.m., symposium participants and audiences will travel to the Southern Tenant Farmers Museum in Tyronza, where museum tours, entertainment, and refreshments will be offered from 4-7 p.m. Music will be provided  by Don McGregor and Steve Lockwood, who work towards keeping the Southern music tradition alive with real music played by real people.

For additional information, contact Linda Hinton, assistant director, Southern Tenant Farmers Museum at (870) 487-2909, or e-mail stfm@ritternet.com. Visit the museum on the Web at http://stfm.astate.edu/index.html. Print or download a flyer containing the complete schedule of events for "Eye-Openin' Time: Southern Tenant Farmers Union 75th Anniversary Symposium."

 

 # # #
 

Photo credits from top:
Ben Shahn's poster, "Lest We Forget," is used courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.
Carl Mydans' Farm Service Administration photo depicting evicted farmers participating in the Missouri Roadside Demonstration near Sikeston, Mo., is used courtesy of the Library of Congress.