Organized Labor and the Black Worker,

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 Organized Labor
and the Black Worker
1619-1981
 Organized Labor
and the Black Worker
1619-1981

Philip S. Fon er

Haymarket Books
Chicago, Illinois
© 1974 Philip S. Foner
Foreword© 2017 Robin D. C. Kelley

Originally published in 1974 by Praeger Publishers

Second edition published in 1981 by International Publishers

This edition published in 2017 by

Haymarket Books
P.O. Box 180165
Chicago, IL 60618
www.haymarketbooks.org

ISBN: 978-1-60846-787-7

Distributed to the trade in the US through Consortium Book Sales and

Distribution (www.cbsd.com) and internationally through Ingram
Publisher Services International (www.ingramcontent.com).

This book was published with the generous support of Lannan

Foundation and Wallace Action Fund.

Special discounts are available for bulk purchases by organizations and

institutions. Please call 773-583-7884 or email info@haymarketbooks.org
for more information.

Cover design by Eric Kerl.

Printed in the United States.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

10987654321
To the Students and Faculty ofLincoln University
 Errata
Page 108, line 12 should read: "An Injury to One is an Injury to All."
Pages 173, 179, Foner gives a misleading impression of the number of
blacks in labor unions when he writes that the Brotherhood of Sleep-
ing Car Porters (BSCP) had a membership of 35,000 in 1930. The
BSCP would have had less than 3,500 porters in its ranks in 1930,
and it's also untrue that porters made up half"the colored members of
national unions" (as stated on page 173). *
Page 179, lines 14-15: 240-hour week should be 240-hour month.
Page 192, Clyde Johnson was not black.*
Page 194, 2nd paragraph, line 12: NMW should be NMU.
Page 196, 3rd line from bottom: Miners' National Union should be Na-
tional Miners Union.
Page 223, It was in 1942, not 1941, that "Little Steel" gave "in to industrial
unionism" -the contracts were signed during the summer of 1942. *
Page 237, 2nd paragraph, line 10: Monroe Strickland should be Monroe
Sweetland.
Page 283, 3rd paragraph, line 6: 50,000-member should be 500,000-mem-
ber.
Page 297, footnote: Communist should be Communists.
Page 321, 3rd paragraph, line 5: 1967 should be 1957.
Page 328, 2nd paragraph, line 14: raliroad should be railroad.
Page 345, line 3: "accomplished nothing" should read "accomplished little."
Page 355, 2nd paragraph, line 2: SNCC instead ofSNNC.
Page 360, 4 lines from bottom: 1954 should read 1964.
Page 377, last paragraph, line 3: 1,200 should be 1,300.
Page 397, line 4: American Labor Alliance should be Alliance for Labor
Action.
Page 400, 6 lines from the bottom: University of Alabama should be Uni-
versity of Mississippi.*
Page 412, 3rd paragraph, line 5: "hardly a half dozen" should read "rela-
tively few."
Page 425, 2nd paragraph, line 17: 1.8% should be 18%.
Page 460, line 25: Galeson should be Galenson.
Page 470, 2nd column, line 7 from bottom: American Labor Alliance
should be Alliance for Labor Action.

*Thank you to Robin D. G. Kelley for bringing these issues to our attention.
 Contents
Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley ix
Preface xx1

1. From Slavery to Freedom 3

2. The Reconstruction Period 17
3. The Colored National Labor Union 30
4. The Knights of Labor and the Black Worker 47
5. The AF ofL and the Black Worker, 1881-1915 64
6. The AF of L and the Black Worker, 1881-1915 (Cont.) 82
7. The Railroad Brotherhoods and the IWW, 1890-1915 103
8. The Black Worker on the Eve of World War I 120
9. The Rise of the Black Industrial Working Class, 1915-18 129
10. The AF of Land the Black Worker During World War I 136
11. Postwar Black Militancy 144
12. The AF ofL and the Black Worker, 1921-29 158
13. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 177
14. Black Workers During the Great Depression 188
15. The AF of Land the Black Worker, 1934-35 204
16. The CIO and the Black Worker, 1935-39 215
17. World War II 238
18. The Economic Status of the Black Worker, 1945-55 269
19. The Cold War Witch Hunts and the Black Worker 275
20. The National Negro Labor Council, 1951-5 5 293
21. The AFL-CIO and the Black Worker: The First Five Years 312
22. The Negro-Labor Alliance, 1960-65 332
23. The Negro-Labor Alliance, 1965-68 355
24. Memphis and Charleston: Triumph of the Negro-Labor
Alliance 378
25. Black Power in the Unions 397
26. The Black Worker, 1970-1981 425

Notes 441
Selected Bibliography 468
Index 472
 Foreword
Robin D. G. Kelley

Haymarket's reissue of Philip S. Foner's Organized Labor and the

Black Worker, 1619-1981 could not have been more serendipitous.
Donald J. Trump, a reckless billionaire known for making racist com-
ments, failing to pay his workers, and outsourcing his manufacturing
firms, is the forty-fifth president of the United States. He presides over
a cabinet made up of billionaires and extreme right-wing ideologues
utterly hostile to environmental protections, civil rights, public edu-
cation, any sort of social safety net, and labor. And yet, mainstream
news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times attri-
bute Trump's success to his ability to speak to, and for, a disaffected
white working class.
If Foner could come back from the grave, he would probably
think this was all a bad science-fiction movie. But he would also
detect a familiar theme to the story-one that is foundational to Or-
ganized LAbor and the Black Worker. The book documents a very
long history of trade union and white working-class intransigence to
black working-class advancement alongside episodes of interracial
class unity and the elusive promise of a radical future. It remains
elusive because those precious moments of solidarity repeatedly
crash on the shoals of white supremacy. Although Trump's victory
owes much to the surprisingly solid backing from the Republican
base, especially middle-class white folks with a median income
of $72,000 a year, frustrated white workers who flocked to Trump
tended to blame immigrants, black people, and anti-patriotic busi-
ness moguls who hired foreign labor or sent jobs overseas for their
misery. Pundits played down white racism and instead chalked it up
to legitimate working-class populism driven by class anger. But if
this were true, then why didn't Trump win over black and brown
voters, since they make up the lowest rungs of the working class and
suffered disproportionately more than whites during the financial
crisis of 2008? Why did Trump's victory inspire a wave of racist at-
tacks and emboldened white nationalists to flaunt their allegiance
to the president-elect? Because 63 per cent of white men and 53
per cent of white women voted for a president who openly opposed
regulating the financial sector, strengthening union power and labor
protections, increasing the minimum wage, and restoring the social
IX
x Organized Labor and the Black Worker
safety net. Instead, they voted for an essentially anti-labor platform
dressed up in populist clothing, and ignored (or embraced) Trump's
message of white supremacy, lslamophobia, misogyny, xenophobia,
homophobia, militarism, anti-Semitism, and anti-science. The vast
majority of people of color voted against Trump, with black women
registering the highest voting percentage for Clinton of any other
demographic (94 per cent). 1
Foner had little patience for arguments that racism is merely a
veneer for the true sentiments of white working people. It was a psy-
chological wage, to use W. E. B. Du Bois's apt phrase, and a structure
to ensure job security, higher wages, and the elimination of compe-
tition. "To many a white unionist, the black was not simply a rival
who threatened his control of the job. He was also a racial and social
inferior .... Hence, a union that refused to admit blacks not only
eliminated a threat to its white members' monopoly of jobs but pre-
served their status and its own reputation in the white community." 2
His book is filled with anecdotes of working-class racism undermin-
ing genuine workers' power in favor of the paltry protections of white
privilege-from the erection of occupational color bars by unions
to the outbreak of wildcat strikes against the hiring of black workers.
But it is also peppered with episodes of antiracism and interracial
unity, from the New Orleans General Strike of 1892 to the sit-down
strikes organized by the Congress oflndustrial Organizations (CIO).
Foner showed that white workers were not a monolithic bloc and
that racism and opposition to it divided the working class, though
not always by color. Anticommunism often masked racist ideologies,
and both conspired to mobilize workers for capital and against each
other. He tells the story of CIO organizers in Tampa, Florida, who in
1936 "were attacked by an incredible alliance of the Klan, Catholic
followers of Father [Charles] Coughlin, leading state AF of L [Amer-
ican Federation of Labor] officials, and various criminal elements
of the city. Hiram Evans, Imperial Wizard of the Klan, praised the
AF of L for its anti-Communism." Klansmen joined the AF of L,
distributed leaflets at its 1940 convention vowing to rid the country
of "CIO Communists and nigger lovers" and even participated in
assaults on CIO organizers. 3
Black workers were not a monolithic bloc either, nor were they
merely victims of racism or mute pawns in the machinations of white-
led labor unions. Foner reminds us that African Americans provided
leadership to white workers-or at least they tried. From the Colored
National Labor Union to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,
 Foreword xi

from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers to the Coalition of

Black Trade Unions, black labor militants appealed to whites and
other workers of color for solidarity. Indeed, solidarity is the book's
central message; when white workers attempt to go it alone or build
exclusionary racist unions, they don't win. Foner drives home the
point by looking at the 1866 campaign for an eight-hour day: in St.
Louis, unionists built a biracial campaign and won, while in New
Orleans a lily-white campaign went down in defeat. And yet, rather
than place the blame entirely on the unions, Foner situates union
history within a larger context of structural racism in which the most
powerful agents are the capitalists. The book is replete with stories
of capitalists using the coercive arm of the state to put down strikes
or contract out convict labor, bribing conservative black leaders to
oppose unions and break strikes, and fomenting mob violence in the
name of protecting white womanhood or fighting communism.
Foner's three substantial chapters on the "Negro-Labor Alli-
ance" anticipate recent scholarship "rediscovering" the civil rights
movement's economic agenda. 4 He details the critical roles of fig-
ures such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Cleveland Robin-
son, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in empowering black workers,
recruiting major labor leaders to the cause of civil rights, and draw-
ing the connection between economic and racial justice. He pays
special attention to the Negro American Labor Council (NALC), a
lead sponsor of the March on Washington, which provided the glue
that held together the often tenuous alliance between organized la-
bor and the black freedom movement. The NALC organized local
marches under the slogan, "Freedom from Poverty through Fair and
Full Employment," and threatened to hold a national one-day work
stoppage to pressure Congress to pass the Civil Rights bill. It also
fought to raise the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage to
all workers, and backed efforts to organize domestic workers, abol-
ish the House Un-American Activities Committee, and build up the
American Labor Party as a third-party alternative. Shifting from the
national to the local, Foner offers a detailed and riveting account of
the Charleston hospital workers strike in 1969-an incredible exam-
ple of the working-class character of the black freedom movement.
In light of over four decades of scholarship on race and labor in
the United States, it may be difficult to appreciate the value of Or-
ganized Labor and the Black Worker.' Having first appeared in 1974,
with the sweeping periodization ending in 1973 instead of 1981 as it
does in the second edition, its institutional and organizational focus
Xll Organized Labor and the Black Worker
reflects what even then was called "old" labor history. Women scarcely
appear in these pages; gender as an analytical category was entirely
absent, and Foner seems unaware of the latest methodological ad-
vances of social history. 6 He has been accused of ideological rigidity,
sloppy research, and even plagiarism by scholars who were gener-
ally sympathetic to his work. 7 Nevertheless, the book was a stunning
achievement; it still stands as the most comprehensive treatment to
date of African American workers and the labor movement. More im-
portantly, it appeared at a decisive moment when the global restruc-
turing of capital and the suppression of the black freedom movement
portended an uncertain future for organized labor. When the first
edition hit bookstores in 1974, the United States was experiencing
a global slump on the heels of a major recession. President Richard
Nixon's abandonment of the gold standard in 1971 and OPEC's (Or-
ganization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo to protest
support for Israel during the Yorn Kippur War was followed by a 400
per cent increase in the price of oil. Gas and other consumer goods
skyrocketed in price. The slump devastated U.S. stock values, trig-
gered bank failures, and caused massive layoffs. Workers responded
with one of the largest strike waves in history, but capital responded
with an all-out assault on organized labor. 8
The economic crisis and weakening of organized labor opened
the door for neoliberal restructuring. New federal and state policies
based on free market principles of free trade, deregulation, and pri-
vatization produced unprecedented inequality, colossal debt, capital
flight, the dismantling of the welfare state, the weakening of anti-
discrimination laws and policies, and a wave of police and vigilante
killings. New developments in communications technology enabled
corporations to move manufacturing operations virtually anywhere
in the world in order to take advantage of cheaper labor, relatively
lower taxes, and a deregulated environment hostile to trade unions.
The decline of manufacturing jobs in steel, rubber, auto, and other
heavy industries had a devastating impact on black workers. Al-
though black joblessness had been about twice that of whites since
the end of World War II, black unemployment rates increased even
more rapidly, especially after 1971. While the number of unem-
ployed white workers declined by 562,000 between 197 5 and 1980,
the number of black unemployed increased by 200,000 during this
period. The loss of manufacturing positions was accompanied by an
expansion of low-wage service jobs with little or no union represen-
tation and few health or retirement benefits. 9
 Foreword xiii

Unionized manufacturing jobs began to disappear and the

service sector economy grew just as the black urban population
reached its apex. These structural shifts were buttressed by an ideo-
logical war on the "social wage," or government expenditures and
tax measures that ensure all working people and the poor a decent
standard of living. This includes welfare programs, health care,
public education, housing supports, a robust minimum wage, and
the like. Increasingly, the social wage came to be seen as racial en-
titlements, handouts (or in current Republican lingo, "free stuff'')
for black people. The 1970s witnessed a middle- and upper-class
revolt against rising property taxes, which fueled opposition to
tax-financed, state-provided goods and services while extolling the
private market as a source for delivering goods and services. The
financial and budgetary crises brought on by the economic slump
justified social cuts, but the shifting ideological grounds made them
permanent. The word "public" itself became pejorative, as in "pub-
lic hospitals" and "public housing." Social welfare was not about
protecting the common good but encouraging laziness, turning
black people into a nation of dependents. 10
Foner concedes that black workers made a few genuine gains
during the 1970s, particularly in the courts. Despite the weaknesses
of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),
black workers made significant progress in the l 970s. 11 In 1973, the
EEOC successfully sued the U.S. Steel Corporation and Detroit
Edison for failing to promote black workers, opening the door for
a robust-though short-lived-affirmative action policy intended to
redress ongoing racial discrimination. Meanwhile, the struggle for
full employment intensified just as International Publishers issued
the paperback edition of the book. Two pieces of progressive legis-
lation, the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1976 and
the significantly weaker Full Employment and Balanced Growth
Act of 1978, ultimately went down in defeat in what had become
a showdown between a civil rights/labor coalition and a state ori-
ented to neoliberal reforms. Corporate interests, the Federal Re-
serve, and many members of both major political parties adopted
the position that the biggest culprit in the economic crisis was "wage
inflation." Curtailing wages in an inflationary economy meant quell-
ing labor unrest, suppressing radical movements, criminalizing the
poor through "law and order" policies, and enabling capital to seek
cheaper workers anywhere. 12
XIV Organized Labor and the Black Worker
It could be said that Philip Foner spent three decades researching
this book and a lifetime fighting to realize its aspirations. The son of
Russian immigrants whose siblings also grew up to become scholars
and activists, he attended City College of New York in the 1930s
when it was a hotbed of left-wing radicalism. He earned his bach-
elor's and master's degrees from City and taught there while com-
pleting his doctorate at Columbia University under the direction of
the distinguished historian Allan Nevins. His dissertation examined
the city's financial ties to the slave-based cotton economy and the
political implications of New York capitalists' unwavering defense of
slave power. They even supported the sovereignty of states when it
was in the South's interests. But once the political winds shifted with
Abraham Lincoln's election, New York financiers closed ranks with
the Republican Party.
Foner's dissertation was published as Business and Slavery: The
New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Confiict, in 1941, the same
year the New York State Rapp-Coudert Committee-a precursor to
the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)-identified
Foner as a Communist. Consequently, City College fired Foner along
with dozens of other employees, including his brothers Jack, also a
member of the history department at City College, and Moe, who
worked in the college registrar's office. Henry, a substitute teacher in
the city's high schools also lost his job. Thus began what turned out
to be Foner's twenty-six-year blacklist from academia. He made his
living by writing and lecturing and as the publisher of Citadel Press.
Although he and his family lived comfortably on the proceeds from
his books and Citadel Press, he still had to endure FBI surveillance
and state harassment for his political affiliations. 13
With no teaching duties, a knack for archival research, and an
enormous well of energy, Foner became one of the most prolific
historians of the twentieth century, generating about 130 volumes of
prose and edited documents-mainly in the fields of labor, radical-
ism, and African American history. During the Second World War,
he published books on "morale education" in the U.S. military, the
history of American Jews, and his edited volumes of selected writings
by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Abra-
ham Lincoln. In 1947, he published the first in what would become
his ten-volume The History of the Labor Movement of the United
States. Three years later, he made his first foray into African Amer-
ican history with the publication of the five-volume The Life and
Writings of Frederick Douglass, which significantly shaped the study
 Foreword xv
of black history and allowed for a deeper interrogation of Douglass's
thought and activism beyond abolition. Foner returned to academia
in 1967, accepting a tenure-track position at Lincoln University, the
historically black college in Pennsylvania-although it doesn't seem
to have slowed his output. He spent the next decade writing and
editing books on topics ranging from the Black Panther Party, the
speeches of W. E. B. Du Bois, U.S. imperialism, Cuba, the Russian
Revolution, the American Revolution, American labor songs, and,
of course, African Americans and organized labor. 14 And it is worth
noting that he followed the original edition of Organized Labor and
the Black Worker, 1619-1973 (which he later updated to 1981), with,
among other works, History of Black Americans (1975), Black Amer-
icans and American Socialism (1977), the two-volume Women and
the American Labor Movement ( 1979-80), and an eight-volume col-
lection of documents coedited with Ronald Lewis under the title
The Black Worker: A Documentary History from Colonial Times to
the Present ( 1978-84). It is a collection of which I'm personally quite
fond since it became the primary source for virtually all of my under-
graduate research papers.
The Black Worker proved not only an indispensable source, but
I suspect was Foner's answer to those critics of Organized Labor and
the Black Worker, 1619-1981 who questioned his research and biases.
The reviews were generally positive. Writing for the Review of Black
Political Economy, William K. Tabb called it "simply the best treat-
ment of the history of the black worker yet to appear and is likely to
be the standard work in the field for a long time to come.'' 15 How-
ever, the book was subject to relentless criticism, sometimes tainted
by thinly veiled anticommunism. Herbert Northrup, conservative
labor scholar and author of Organized Labor and the Negro (1944)
dismissed the book as "warped by an ideological bent" and accused
Foner of masking unsubstantiated assertions behind voluminous foot-
notes. His review veered dangerously close to red-baiting, attacking
Foner's discussion of HUAC's attack on black workers as merely an
apologia for the Soviet Union and Communist machinations in the
labor movement. 16 Dan Leah's review described Foner as prolific but
"idiosyncratic," someone who promotes "an extreme left-of-center
view in variance with the facts." Leab especially took him to task for
overstating the role of the Communist-led unemployed councils and
ignoring the role the New Deal played in alleviating black workers'
suffering. 17 Likewise James A Gross found the book flawed by "care-
less documentation" and "a pronounced ideological bias." Foner's
XVI Organized Labor and the Black Worker
treatment of the unemployed councils, Gross asserts, was exaggerated,
and his claim that black workers flocked to left unions simply "con-
tradicts the whole body of scholarship indicating that left-wing and
radical ideology had few takers among black workers." 18 Subsequent
research-including my own-has proved Foner correct. Left unions
such as the International Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the
Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers not only organized
significant numbers of black workers but became vehicles for early
civil rights organizing in the late 1940s and early 1950s. As the CIO
leadership strengthened its alliance with the government, it joined the
growing Red Scare and expelled the left unions. 19
Of course, Foner was prone to exaggerate the impact of the Com-
munist Party, especially the role of the Trade Union Unity League in
setting the stage for the CIO's mass industrial organizing campaign.
He also made errors-several errors have since been corrected in
subsequent editions; others have been corrected in this edition. And
there are also several places where new scholarship simply deepened
or complicated his findings. But as a whole, the book still holds up
nearly four decades later, and the lessons are as relevant today as they
were when the second edition appeared in 1982. To the pundits and
political scientists now chastising "Democrats" for not knowing how
to talk to white workers and blaming the Movement for Black Lives
and so-called identity politics for alienating the white working class
and driving them into the arms of Donald Trump, Fon er would have
insisted that the labor movement prioritize the struggle against rac-
ism, which he consistently regarded as the primary obstacle to soli-
darity. Indeed, when Bayard Rustin-speaking at a convention of the
International Association of Machinists in 1972-lectured disgrun-
tled black workers to "stop griping always that nobody has problems
but you black people" and that the privileges and positions of power
white workers held in the union were not on account of race, Foner
was quick to denounce the civil rights icon. "This was delivered at
the convention of a union that for sixty years of its eighty-year history
barred 'non-Caucasians'!" (p. 431)
Anyone serious about rebuilding the labor movement must
recognize the fundamental role racism has played in undermining
solidarity and internationalism, and concealing the structural rela-
tionship between the white middle class's standard ofliving and the
exploitation of immigrant labor. And rebuild the labor movement
we must, for it has been under attack on a global scale for at least
half a century. Today labor unions are portrayed as corrupt, bloated,
 Foreword xvii

a drain on the economy, and modern-day cartels that threaten work-

ers "liberty." Corporations and the CEOs who run them are por-
trayed as the most efficient and effective mode of organization. In
our neoliberal age, emergency financial managers are sent in to re-
place elected governments during real or imagined economic crises;
charter schools organized along corporate lines are replacing public
schools; universities are adopting corporate strategies with presidents
increasingly functioning like CEOs; a businessman with a check-
ered record, a history of improprieties and legal violations, and no
experience whatsoever in government, is elected president of the
United States. The once-powerful unions are doing little more than
fighting to restore basic collective bargaining rights and deciding
how much they are going to give back. Union leaders are struggling
just to participate in crafting austerity measures.
Yet, when we shift our attention from the big industrial unions
where we imagine the white working class resides to low-wage, mar-
ginalized workers in fast food, retail, home care, domestic work, and
so on, the horizon looks radically different. Once powerful engines
of racial and gender exclusion, often working with capital to impose
glass ceilings and racially segmented wages, the twenty-first-century
labor movement has largely embraced principles of social justice,
antiracism, immigrant rights, and cross-border strategies. They have
adopted new strategies, from passing minimum-wage laws at the mu-
nicipal and state levels to using community benefits agreements to
secure living-wage jobs, equitable working conditions, green build-
ing practices, and affordable housing, as well as childcare provisions.
And in alliance with movements such as Occupy Wall Street, the
Movement for Black Lives, the DREAMers, campaigns such as
OUR Walmart, and the fast-food workers Fight for Fifteen, they are
leading the way, building the most dynamic labor movement we
have seen in generations. 20 They are writing the next chapter.
Los Angeles
March 14, 2017

1. Doug Sanders, "Economic Victims Didn't Elect Trump. The Well-

Off and Segregated Did," Globe and Mail, November 9, 2016, http://
www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-politics/the-average-
trump-supporter-is-not-an-economic-loser/article 32746 323/; Vanessa
Williams, "Black Women - Hillary Clinton's Most Reliable Voting
Bloc-Look Beyond Defeat," Washington Post, November 12, 2016.
2 Philip S. Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1981
XVIII Organized Labor and the Black Worker
(New York: International Publishers, 1982), 74.
3 Ibid., 230.
4 See, for example, William P. Jones, March on Washington: Jobs,
Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2013); Michael K. Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The
Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign (New York: W. W.
Norton, 2008); Robert Zeiger, For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in
America since 1865 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010). The
reexamination oflabor and the civil rights movement isn't entirely new.
Some critical contributions to this scholarship include Alan Draper,
Conflict of Interest: Organized Labor and the Civil Rights Movement,
1954-1968 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994); Michael K
Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis
Workers (Urbana: University oflllinois Press, 1993); Robert Korstad and
Nelson Lichtenstein, "Opportunities Found and Lost: Labor, Radicals,
and the Early Civil Rights Movement," Journal of American History 75
(December 1988): 786-811; Robert Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism:
Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-
Century South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
5. Philip Foner built on a long and established intellectual tradition of
black labor studies. Some of the foundational works include Charles
H. Wesley, Negro Labor in the United States, 1850-1925: A Study
in American Economic History (New York: Vanguard Press, 1927);
Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, Jr., The Black Worker: The
Negro and the Labor Movement (New York: Columbia University Press,
1931 ); Horace Cayton and George Mitchell, Black Workers and the
New Unions (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939);
Herbert R. Northup, Organized Labor and the Negro (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1944); Ray Marshall, The Negro and Organized
Labor (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965). For a brilliant study of
the early historiography of black labor, see Francille Rusan Wilson, The
Segregated Scholars: Black Social Scientists and the Creation of Black
Labor Studies, 1890-1950 (Charlottesville and London: University
Press of Virginia, 2006). There have been other attempts to update the
history of black workers and the labor movement, notably William H.
Harris, The Harder We Run: Black Workers since the Civil War (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Stephen A. Reich, A Working
People: A History ofAfrican American Workers since Emancipation
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013); and Paul D. Moreno's
fairly conservative Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New
History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006). None
of these books match Foner's in terms of scope or comprehensiveness,
 Foreword xix

and like virtually every other synthesis, they begin after the Civil War.
6. See Sally M. Miller, "Philip Foner and 'Integrating' Women into Labor
History and African-American History," Labor History 33, no. 4 (1992):
456--69; Melvyn Dubofsky, "Give Us That Old-Time Labor History:
Philip S. Foner and the American Worker," Labor History 26 (1985):
118-35.
7. "Was Philip Foner Guilty of Plagiarism?," History News Network, June
4, 2003, http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1481.
8. David McNally, Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis
and Resistance (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 20ll); Thomas Borstelmann,
The 1970s: A New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic
Inequality (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Jefferson
Cowie, Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class
(New York: New Press, 2010).
9. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization
ofAmerica: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the
Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 42,
25-48; Robert B. Hill, "Economic Status of Black America," New
Directions 8, no. 3, Article 6 (April 1981 ), http://dh.howard.edu/
newdirections/vol8/iss3/6.
10. Nancy Fraser, "Clintonism, Welfare, and the Antisocial Wage: The
Emergence of a Neoliberal Political Imaginary," Rethinking Marxism
6, no. 1(1993):9-23; Ange-Marie Hancock, The Politics of Disgust:
The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen (New York: New York
University Press, 2004).
11. Foner addresses this in the last chapter of this book, but he expands
the discussion in an essay published a few years later: Philip S. Foner,
"Organized Labor and the Black Worker in the 1970s," Insurgent
Sociologist 8, nos. 2 and 4 (1978): 87-95.
12. David Stein tells this story in a brilliant forthcoming book, Fearing
Inflation, Inflating Fears: The Civil Rights Struggle for Full Employment
and the Rise of the Carceral State, 1929-1986 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2018).
13. Lawrence Van Gelder, "Philip S. Foner, Labor Historian and Professor,
84," New York Times, December 15, 1994; James R. Barrett, "Philip S.
Foner," Saothar: Irish Labour History Society 20 (1995): 11.
14. Barrett, "Philip S. Foner," 11; Van Gelder, "Philip S. Foner, Labor
Historian and Professor, 84"; Catherine Clinton, "Philip Foner's Fond
Farewell," New Yorker, March 6, 1995, 38.
15. William K. Tabb, Review, Review of Black Political Economy 5, no. 3
(1975): 323.
16. Herbert R. Northrup, Review, Labor History 16, no. 1(1975):143-44.
xx Organized Labor and the Black Worker
17. Daniel J. Leab, Review, Political Science Quarterly 90, no. 1 (Spring
1975): 180-82. William H. Harris also takes Foner to task for
accumulated errors and sloppy research. See his review in foumal of
American History 61, no. 4 (March 1975): 1073-75.
18. James A. Gross, Review, Industrial 6 l.Abor Relations Review 29
(1975-1976): 145-46.
19. Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism; Honey, Southern l.Abor and Black
Civil Rights; Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama
Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1990). Ironically, one of the few glowing
reviews to support Foner's argument about the importance of the left-
led unions in the Cold War period was published in Business History
Review. See Joseph M. Gowaskie, Review, Business History Review 48,
no. 4 (Winter 1974): 548-50.
20. See Sarah Jaffe, Necessary Trouble: America's New Radicals (New
York: Nation Books, 2016); Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Fernando Gapasin,
Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized l.Abor and a New Path
toward Social fustice (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2009); Dorian T. Warren, "The American Labor
Movement in the Age of Obama: The Challenges and Opportunities
of a Racialized Political Economy," Perspectives on Politics 8, no.
3 (September 2010): 847-60; Robin D. G. Kelley, "Building a
Progressive Movement in 2012," Souls 14, nos. 1 and 2 (2012): 10-18;
Premilla Nadasen, Household Workers Unite! The Untold Story of
African-American Women Who Built a Movement (Boston: Beacon
Press, 2016).
 Preface

In February, 1¢8, the Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders, a formally

constituted government body, declared that the black violence and riots
of the previous year had been caused chiefly by a profound racism on the
part of the white majority. In its historical analysis of white racism, the
Commission traced its origin to the beginnings of the American experi-
ence and described its manifestations in many of our institutions over
time. One American institution, however, received no attention-organ-
ized labor.
As this study shows, from the formation of the first trade unions in
the 1790's to the mid-193o's, the policy and practice of organized labor
so far as black workers were concerned were largely those of outright ex-
clusion or segregation. Yet, as this study also malces clear, there have
been exceptions. Black-white unity was attempted at several periods in
the history of the American labor movement before the mid-193o's, and,
despite the bitter opposition of employers and sections of the trade-union
leadership and rank-and-file, in some instances it achieved a lasting suc-
cess. This study is thus an examination of both the exclusionary history
of organized labor with respect to black workers until very recently and
~the minor theme-black-white unity. And it is the story of the con-
tinuing struggle of black workers to achieve equality as members of
organized labor, once the barriers of exclusion and segregation were
lowered.
Most labor historians today agree that craft unions created an aristoc-
racy of skilled workers at the expense of the unskilled and semiskilled
and, at the same time, retarded the further organimtion of American in·
dustry, thus, in the long run, adversely affecting all wotkers, skilled as
well as unskilled. Yet not many are willing to acknowledge that the racist
policies and practices of organized labor created a privileged group of
white workers at the expense of black workers and thus strengthened the
employers' ability to divide the working class and weaken efforts to union-
i7.e major industries. The crippling effects of racism on organized labor
were recognized soon after slavery was abolished by the Boston Daily
Evening Voice, one of the staunchest champions of blaclc-white labor
unity. An editorial on October 5, 1865, read:
XX!
XXll Organized Labor and the Black Worker
The workingmen's success is simply impossible without united and har-
monious action. If the machinist says to the wielder of the pick and
shovel, I will not associate with you-if you want better wages you must get
it on your own hook; if the clerk says to the coal-heaver, between you and
I there is a gulf fixed; or if the white says to the black, I do not recognize
you as a fellow workman; and these feelings prevail, there is the end of
hope for the labor movement.
Look at it for a moment. There are now four million of the negro race
about to enter the field of free labor. If we take them upon equal ground
with ourselves in the contest for the elevation of labor, they become an
ally; but if we reject them-say we will not work in the shop with them-
what is the result? The black man's interests and ours are severed. He that
might have been our co-operator becomes our enemy. This vast force of
four million workers is in the field against us. We refuse their alliance; the
enemy sees and seizes his opportunity, and the black man becomes our
competitor. He will underwork us to get employment, and we have no
choice but to underwork him in return, or at least to work as low as he, or
starve. Shall we then be so blind and suicidal as to refuse to work with the
black man? Here he is-a power to tell one side or the other in the contest
for the elevation of labor. Shall this power be on our side, or on the side
of our opponents? It is first offered to us. Shall we reject it? We hoJ>C
there is more intelligence among workingmen than to persist in the m-
dulgence of an old prejudice when that indulgence is the ruin of their
cause.

Similarly, in a speech before the Central Labor Union of Brooklyn,

in January, 1902, Robert Baker said:

The more organized labor champions the cause of all labor, unorganized
as well as organized, black as well as white, the greater will be the vic-
tories; the more lasting, the more permanent, the more beneficial and the
more far-reaching will be its successes. If it would extend and broaden its
influence-aye, if it would accomplish most for itself-it must persistently
and vigorously attack special frivilege in every form; it must make the
cause of humanity, regardless o race, color, or sex, its cause.

These words are as valid today as when they were uttered.

The present work is the product of research in a wide variety of
sources. To cite them all would require a small book in itself. I have,
therefore, cited in the main only sources for quoted material. For those
who wish to pursue the subject further, I have furnished a selected bibliog-
raphy.
I have many indebtednesses to acknowledge in the preparation of this
volume. Numerous libraries and historical societies have made available
to me their collections of manuscripts, newspapers, pamphlets, and pub-
lished and unpublished monographic studies. I wish to thank especially
the staffs of the Librar1 of Congress, the National Archives, the Schom·
burg Collection of the New York Public Library, the Tamiment Institute
Library of New York University, the State Historical Society of Wis-
consin, the Chicago Historical Society, the Library of the U.S. Depart·
 Preface xxm
ment of Labor, the Boston Public Li"brary, the American Federation of
Labor Li"brary, and the libraries of Columbia University, Howard Uni·
veisity, Princeton Univeisity, Atlanta Univeisity, Vanderbilt University,
Washington University, the State College of Washington, the Univer-
sity of Georgia, Emory Univeisity, the University of Alabama, the Uni-
versity of Texas, Catholic Univeisity of America, the University of Michi-
gan (Labadie Collection), the Univeisity of Pittsburgh, Radcliffe Col·
lege, Temple University, Georgetown University, the New School for
SOcia1 Research, Bryn Mawr College, Tulane University, and Indiana
University. I wish also to thank the National Association for the Ad-
vancement of Colored People for permission to use its archives in the
Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, and lA>cal 1199 for
permission to use the union's archives. I am grateful to Herbert Hill, labor
secretary of the NAACP, for the opportunity to read his unpublished
paper on the United Mine Workers and the black miners. I owe a special
debt of gratitude to the staff of the Lincoln University Library for assist-
ance in the use of the library's splendid collection of materials relating to
black history, and to Jean Trombore for her help in obtaining, through
interh"brary loan, materials from many institutions.
For the present edition Chapter 26 bas been enlarged to enable the
history of Organized Labor and the Blaclc Worl:er to be brought to
the year 1981.

Weld, Maine, November, 1981 PmuP S. FoNER

Professor Emeritus of History
Lincoln University, Pennsylvania
Organized Labor
and the
Black Worker
1619-1981
'-rhe colored laborer in America has been the special victim of avarice
and cupidity ftom the time be first set foot on the continent."
-Report on Capital and labor sub-
mitted to the Second Convention of the
Colored National Labor Union, Washins-
ton, D.C., January 11, 1871

'-rheir [the black workers'] cause is one with the labor class all over
the world. The labor unions of the country should not throw away this
colored element of strength. . • . It is a great mistake for any class of
laborers to isolate itself and thus weaken the bonds of brotherhood be-
tween those on whom the burden and hardships of labor fall. The fortu-
nate ones of the earth, who are abundant in land and money and know
nothing of the anxious care and rinching poverty of the laboring classes,
may be indilerent to the appea for justice at this point, but the labor
classes cannot afford to be indilerent."
-F'uDDia DoucLASS, addICSs to the
Convention of Colored Men, Louisville,
Kentucky, September, 1883
 1 From Slavery to Freedom

Slavery was a system designed to provide a pennanent labor supply to

develop the New World. Efforts to enslave Indians were not successful,
for they could not adjust to labor in captivity and often escaped into the
familiar terrain of the forest. Free white laborers were scarce and were
unwilling to work when cheap land was available. White indentured
servitude was an important source of labor in some colonies, but with its
limited term of bondage it could not meet the growing demand for
workers. Negroes could be forced into slavery more easily than whites
and, once enslaved, could not easily run away and mingle readily in
strange surroundings. More important, slavery of blacks could be justi-
fied by the ideology of racism. A black skin connoted evil and inferiority;
Negroes were said to be destined to be slaves by the "Curse of Ham."
They were pictured as savages and infidels from a barbaric, dark conti-
nent without a civilization, and enslavement was adjudged an improve-
ment in their way of life. As Winthrop Jordan points out: "Slavery could
survive only if the Negro were a man set apart; he simply had to be
different if slavery were to exist at all." 1
The first group of twenty Africans brought to Jamestown, Virginia, in
1619 were not slaves but indentured servants. But between 1ti6o and
1682, court decisions, special laws, and codes in all the colonies trans-
formed the black servant into a slave. The slave codes generally provided
that black people were to be slaves for life, that children were to inherit
their mothers' condition, and that Christian baptism would not auto-
matically assure freedom. They also prohibited marriage between whites
and blacks and forbade bondsmen to acquire or to inherit property, to
hold secret gatherings, to be parties to contracts or suits, to marry legally,
or to engage in certain trades. Those who violated the slave codes were
punished by a variety of means from fines to imprisonment, from whi~
ping to death.
The number of black slaves grew slowly in the seventeenth century.
By 1700 there were probably no more than 25,000 in colonial America.
Thereafter, growth was rapid owing to the expansion of tobacco, rice,
and indigo plantations in the South. Slavery was suited to plantation
agriculture and to the Southern economy generally. Slave labor could be
maintained at a subsistence standard of living, and the offspring of
black women added to the profits of the masters.
3
4 Organized Labor and the Black Worker
Many of the Africans carried to America as slaves brought with them
skills in metallurgy, woodworking, and leather. Slaveowners were quick
to use these skills and to teach their bondsmen other trades associated
with the operation of farms and plantations.
Only one city developed in the South during the colonial period-
Charleston, South Carolina-and here slaves were used to perform ski11ed
and unskilled labor, and slave craftsmen were even hired out. But it was
in the Northern colonies, where agrarian development was diversified and
the farmers' need for slaves was limited, that the use of slaves as artisans
and craftsmen grew. A large number of slaves were employed in North-
ern cities as house servants, sailors, sailmakers, and carpenters. New Y.ork
had a higher proportion of skilled slaves than any other colony-coopers,
tailors, bakers, tanners, goldsmiths, naval carpenters, blacksmiths, weav-
ers, sailmakers, millers, masons, candlemakers, tobacconists, caulkers,
cabinetmakers, shoemakers, and glaziers.
Throughout the colonial period free white craftsmen fought a losing
battle to exclude blacks from most of the skilled trades; as early as 170"'/
free mechanics in Philadelphia complained of the "Want of employ-
ment, and Lowness of wages, occasioned by the Number of Negroes ...
.hired out to work by the Day."2 But they were chaJJenging the right of
slaveowners to use their property as they saw fit, opposing the men who
dominated the colonial assemblies. Some restrictions were in fact im-
posed on the use of slave artisans, but they did not end the rivalry be-
tween slaves and white workers. In the North, where trade and manu-
facturing grew, slaves continued to move into the skilJed trades in
competition with white artisans, driving down wages. As a result, many
white craftsmen and mechanics in the urban areas joined the movement
to aboJish slavery. The opposition of white workers to the continued
competition of slave labor was an important factor in ending slavery in
the North.
Many Americans, induding some Southerners, believed that the spirit
of the American Revolution, combined with the economic stagnation in
tobacco, rice, and indigo planting, would force slavery to die out in the
South, just as it was disappearing in the North. But in 1793 Eli Whitney
invented the cotton gin, and planters began to take acreage out of other
crops and enter the cotton market. The demand for slaves grew. By 18oo,
they were selJing for twice the price of 1790. Not even the prohibition by
Congress of the importation of slaves from Africa after 1&ry could keep
cotton from becoming king. With big money to be made from planting
cotton with slave labor or from breeding slaves for sale to the planters,
the plantation system spread westward and slavery became solidly rooted
in fifteen Southern states. By 186o there were 4 milJion slaves in these
states.
"Free Negro wage earners were members of the labor force before
the Civil War," writes Philip Taft in his Organized Labor in American
History.3 But from the time the first trade unions were formed by white
workers in the 1790's to the Civil War-in which period the free black
population grew from 59,000 to 488,000-no free Negro wage-earner was
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
En hora desdichada y triste
día
tan muerto fuí, que no
podrán las aves,
que en la mañana alegran
monte y prado,
ni el rutilante gesto de la
Aurora
de mi alma desterrar la
escura noche,
ni de mi pecho el lamentable
canto.

Mi voz no mudará su triste

canto,
ni para mí jamás será de
día;
antes me perderé en
perpetua noche,
aunque más canten las
parleras aves
y más madrugue la
purpúrea Aurora
para alumbrar y hacer
fecundo el prado.

¡Ay, enfadosa huerta! ¡Ay,

triste prado!
pues la que oir no puede
este mi canto,
y con rara beldad vence la
Aurora,
no alumbra con su gesto
vuestro día;
no me canséis ¡ay!
importunas aves,
 porque sin ella vuestra
Aurora es noche.

En la quieta y sossegada
noche,
cuando en poblado, monte,
valle y prado
reposan los mortales y las
aves,
esfuerzo más el congojoso
canto,
haciendo lloro igual la noche
y día,
en la tarde, en la siesta y en
la Aurora.

Sola una Aurora ha de vencer

mi noche,
y si algún día ilustrará este
prado,
darme ha contento el canto
de las aves.

Luego Ismenia, que por la

ventana estuvo escuchando,
conosció que el que cantaba era
su esposo Montano, y recibió
tanto gozo de oirle, como dolor en
sentir lo que cantaba. Porque
presumió que la pena de que en
su canción decía estar
atormentado era por otra y no por
ella. Pero luego quedó
desengañada, porque oyó que en
acabando de cantar Montano dió
un suspiro, y dijo: ¡Ay, fatigado
corazón, cuán mal te fué en dar
crédito á tu sospecha y cuán
justamente padesces los males
que tu misma liviandad te ha
procurado! ¡Ay, mi querida
Ismenia, cuánto mejor fuera para
mí que tu sobrado amor no te
forzara á buscarme por el mundo,
para que cuando yo, conoscido mi
error, á la aldea volviera, en ella
te hallara! ¡Ay, engañosa Sylveria,
cuán mala obra heciste al que de
su niñez te las hizo tan buenas!
Mas yo te agradesciera el
desengaño que después me diste
declarándome la verdad, si no
llegara tan tarde, que no
aprovecha sino para mayor pena.
Ismenia, oído esto, se tuvo por
bienaventurada, y recibió tanto
gozo que no se puede imaginar.
Las lágrimas le salieron por los
ojos de placer, y como aquélla
que vió cercana la fin de sus
fatigas, dijo: Ciertamente ha
llegado el tiempo de mi ventura,
verdaderamente esta casa es
hecha para remedio de penados.
Marcelio y Diana se holgaron en
extremo de la alegría de Ismenia,
y tuvieron esperanza de la suya.
Quería Ismenia en todo caso salir
de su aposento y bajar al jardín, y
al tiempo que Marcelio y Diana la
detenían, paresciéndoles que
debía esperar la voluntad de
Felicia, oyeron nuevos cantos en
la fuente, y conosció Diana que
eran de Syreno; Ismenia y todos
se sosegaron, por no estorbar á
Diana el oir la voz de su amado, y
sintieron que decía ansí:

SYRENO
Goce el amador contento
de verse favorescido;
yo con libre pensamiento
de ver ya puesto en olvido
todo el passado tormento.

Que tras mucho padescer,

los favores de mujer
tan tarde solemos vellos,
que el mayor de todos ellos
es no haberlos menester.

A Diana regraciad,
ojos, todo el bien que os
vino;
vida os dió su crueldad,
su desdén abrió el camino
para vuestra libertad.

Que si penando por ella

fuera tres veces más bella,
y en todo extremo me
amara,
tan contento no quedara
como estoy de no querella.

Vea yo, Diana, en tí

un dolor sin esperanza,
hiérate el Amor ansí,
 que yo en ti tenga venganza
de la que tomaste en mí.

Porque sería tan fiero

á tu dolor lastimero,
que si allí á mis pies tendida
me demandasses la vida,
te diría que no quiero.

Dios ordene que, pastora,

tú me busques, yo me
asconda
tú digas: «Mírame agora»,
y que yo entonces
responda:
«Zagala, vete en buena
hora».

Tú digas: «Yo estoy penando

y tú me vas desechando,
¿qué novedad es aquesta?»
y yo te dé por respuesta
irme y dejarte llorando.

Si lo dudas, yo te ofrezco
que esto y aún peor haré
que por ti ya no padezco,
porque tanto no te amé
cuanto agora te aborrezco.

Y es bien que te eche en

olvido
quien por ti tan loco ha sido,
que de haberte tanto
amado,
estuvo entonces penado
y agora queda corrido.
 Porque los casos de amores
tienen tan triste ventura,
que es mejor á los pastores
gozar libertad segura
que aguardar vanos favores.

¡Oh Diana, si me oyesses

para que claro entendiesses
lo que siente el alma mía!
que mejor te lo diría,
cuando presente
estuviesses.

Pero mejor será estarte

en lugar de mí apartado,
porque perderé gran parte
del placer de estar vengado
con el pesar de mirarte.

No te vea yo en mis días,

porque á las entrañas mías
les será dolor más fiero
verte cuando no te quiero
que cuando no me querías.

Acontecióle á Diana como á los

que acechan su mesmo mal, pues
de oir los reproches y
determinaciones de Syreno sintió
tanto dolor, que no me hallo
bastante para contarle, y tengo
por mejor dejarle al juicio de los
discretos. Basta saber que pensó
perder la vida y fué menester que
Ismenia y Marcelio la consolassen
y esforzassen con las razones
que á tan encarecida pena eran
suficientes; y una dellas fué
decirle que no era tan poca la
sabiduría de Felicia, en cuya casa
estaban, que á mayores males no
hubiesen dado remedio, según en
Ismenia desdeñada de Montano
poco antes se había mostrado.
Con lo cual Diana un tanto se
consoló. Estando en estas
pláticas, comenzando ya la
dorada Aurora á descubrirse,
entró por aquella cámara la
Nympha Arethea, y con gesto
muy apacible les dijo: Preciados
caballeros y hermosas pastoras,
tan buenos y venturosos días
tengáis como á vuestro
merescimiento son debidos. La
sabia Felicia me envía acá para
que sepa si os hallasteis esta
noche con más contento del
acostumbrado y para que vengáis
comigo al ameno jardín, donde
tiene que hablaros. Mas conviene
que tú, Marcelio, dejes el hábito
de pastor, y te vistas estas ropas
que aquí te traigo, á tu estado
pertenecientes. No esperó
Ismenia que Marcelio
respondiesse de placer de la
buena nueva, sino que dijo: Los
buenos y alegres días, venturosa
Nympha, que con tu vista nos
diste, Dios por nosotros te lo
pague, pues nosotros no
bastamos á satisfacer por tanta
deuda. El contento que de
nosotros quieres saber, con sólo
estar en esta casa sería muy
grande, cuanto más que habernos
sido esta mañana en ella tan
dichosos, que yo he cobrado vida
y Marcelio y Diana esperanza de
tenella. Mas porque á la voluntad
de tan sabia señora como Felicia
en todo se obedezca, vamos al
jardín donde dices, y ordene
Felicia de nosotros á su contento.
Tomó entonces Arethea de las
manos de otra Nimpha que con
ella venía las ropas que Marcelio
había de ponerse, y de su mano
le ayudó á vestirlas, y eran tan
ricas y tan guarnecidas de oro y
piedras preciosas, que tenían
infinito valor. Salieron de aquella
cuadra, y siguiendo todos á
Arethea, por una puerta del
palacio entraron al jardín. Estaba
este vergel por la una parte
cerrado con la corriente de un
caudaloso rio; tenía á la otra parte
los sumptuosos edificios de la
casa de Felicia, y las otras dos
partes unas paredes almenadas
cubiertas de jazmín, madreselva y
otras hierbas y flores agradables
á la vista. Pero de la amenidad
deste lugar se trató
abundantemente en el cuarto libro
de la primera parte. Pues como
entrassen en él, vieron que
Sylvano y Selvagia, apartados de
los otros pastores, estaban en un
pradecillo que junto á la puerta
estaba. Allí Arethea se despidió
de ellos, diciéndoles que
aguardassen allí á Felicia, porque
ella había de volver al palacio
para dalle razón de lo que por su
mandado había hecho. Sylvano y
Selvagia, que allí estaban,
conoscieron luego á Diana y se
maravillaron de vella. Conosció
también Selvagia á Ismenia, que
era de su mismo lugar, y ansí se
hicieron grandes fiestas y se
dieron muchos abrazos, alegres
de verse en tan venturoso lugar,
después de tan largo tiempo.
Selvagia entonces con faz
regocijada les dijo: Bien venida
sea la bella Diana, cuyo desamor
dió ocasión para que Sylvano
fuesse mío, y bien llegada la
hermosa Ismenia, que con su
engaño me causó tanta pena, que
por remedio della vine aquí,
donde la troqué con un feliz
estado. ¿Qué buena ventura aquí
os ha encaminado? La que
recebimos, dijo Diana, de tu vista,
y la que esperamos de la mano
de Felicia. ¡Oh, dichosa pastora,
cuán alegre estoy del contento
que ganaste! Hágate Dios de tan
próspera fortuna, que goces de él
por muchíssimos años. Marcelio
en estas razones no se travesó
porque á Sylvano y Selvagia no
conoscía. Pero en tanto que los
pastores estaban entendiendo en
sus pláticas y cortesías, estuvo
mirando un caballero y una dama
que, travados de las manos, con
mucho regocijo por un corredor
del jardín iban passeando.
Contentóse de la dama, y le dió el
espíritu que otras veces la había
visto. Pero por salir de duda,
llegándose á Sylvano le dijo:
Aunque sea descomedimiento
estorbar vuestra alegre
conversación, querría, pastor, que
me dijesses, quién son el
caballero y dama que por allí
passean. Aquellos son, dijo
Sylvano, Don Felix y Felixmena,
marido y mujer. A la hora
Marcelio, oído el nombre de
Felixmena, se alteró y dijo: Dime,
¿cúya hija es Felixmena? ¿y
dónde nasció? si acaso lo sabes,
porque de Don Felix no tengo
mucho cuidado. Muchas veces le
oí contar, respondió Sylvano, que
su tierra era Soldina, ciudad de la
provincia Vandalia, su padre
Andronio y su madre Delia. Mas
haced placer de decirme quién
sois y por qué causa me haceis
semejante pregunta. Mi nombre,
respondió Marcelio, y todo lo
demás lo sabrás después. Pero
por me hacer merced, que, pues
tienes conoscencia con esse Felix
y Felixmena, les digas que me
den licencia para hablarles,
porque quiero preguntarles una
cosa de que pueda resultar
mucho bien y alegría para todos.
Pláceme, dijo Sylvano, y luego
se fué para Don Felix y
Felixmena, y les dijo que aquél
caballero que allí estaba quería, si
no les era enojoso, tratar con
ellos ciertas cosas. No se
detuvieron un punto, sino que
vinieron donde Marcelio estaba.
Después de hechas las debidas
cortesías, dijo Marcelio,
hablando contra Felixmena:
Hermosa dama, á este pastor
pregunté si sabía tu tierra y tus
padres, y me dijo lo que acerca
dello por tu relación sabe; y
porque conozco un hombre que
es natural de la misma ciudad,
que, si no me engaño, es hijo de
un caballero cuyo nombre se
paresce al de tu padre, te suplico
me digas si tienes algún hermano
y cómo se nombra, porque quizás
es éste que yo conozco. A esto
Felixmena dió un suspiro y dijo:
¡Ay, preciado caballero, cómo me
tocó en el alma tu pregunta! Has
de saber que yo tuve un hermano,
que él y yo nascimos de un
mesmo parto. Siendo de edad de
doce años, le envió mi padre
Andronio á la corte del rey de
lusitanos, donde estuvo muchos
años. Esto es lo que yo sé dél, y
lo que una vez conté á Sylvano y
Selvagia, que son presentes en la
fuente de los alisos, después que
libré unas Nymphas y maté
ciertos salvajes en el prado de los
laureles. Después acá no he
sabido otra cosa dél sino que el
rey le envió por capitán en la
costa de Africa, y como yo tanto
tiempo ha que ando por el mundo,
siguiendo mis desventuras, no sé
si es muerto ni vivo. Marcelio
entonces no pudo detenerse más,
sino que dijo: Muerto he sido
hasta agora, hermana Felixmena,
por haber carescido de tu vista, y
vivo de hoy en adelante, pues he
sido venturoso de verte. Y
diciendo esto, estrecha y
amorosamente la abrazó.
Felixmena, reconosciendo el
gesto de Marcelio, vió que era
aquel mesmo que ella desde su
niñez tenía pintado en la
memoria, y cayó luego en la
cuenta que era su proprio
hermano. Fué grande el regocijo
que passó entre los hermanos y
cuñado, y grande el placer que
sintieron Sylvano y las pastoras
de verlos tan contentos. Allí se
dijeron amorosas palabras, allí se
derramaron tristes lágrimas, allí
se hicieron muchas preguntas, allí
se prometieron esperanzas, allí
se hicieron determinaciones, y se
hablaron y hicieron cosas de
mucho descanso. Gastaron en
esto larga una hora, y aun era
poco, según lo mucho que
después de tan larga ausencia
tenían que tratar. Mas para mejor
y con más sossiego entender en
ello, se assentaron en aquel
pradecillo, bajo de unos sauces,
cuyos entretejidos ramos hacían
estanza sombría y deleitosa,
defendiéndolos del radiante sol,
que ya con algún ardor assomaba
por el hemispherio.
En tanto que Marcelio, Don Felix,
Felixmena, Sylvano y las pastoras
entendían en lo que tengo dicho,
al otro cabo del jardín, junto á la
fuente estaban, como tengo
dicho, Eugerio, Polydoro, Alcida y
Clenarda. Alcida aquél día había
dejado las ropas de pastora por
mandato de Felicia, vistiéndose
adrezándose ricamente con los
vestidos y joyeles que para ello le
mandó dar. Pues como allí
estuviessen también Syreno,
Montano, Arsileo y Belisa
cantando y regocijándose,
holgaban mucho Eugerio y sus
hijos de escucharlos. Y lo que
más les contentó fué una canción
que Syreno y Arsileo cantaron el
uno contra y el otro en favor de
Cupido. Porque cantaron con más
voluntad, con esperanza de una
copa de cristal que Eugerio al que
mejor paresciese había
prometido. Y ansí Syreno al son
de su zampoña, y Arsileo de un
rabel, comenzaron deste modo:

SYRENO
Ojos, que estáis ya libres del
tormento,
con que mi estrella pudo
enbelesaros,
¡oh, alegre! ¡oh, sossegado
pensamiento!
¡oh, esquivo corazón!,
quiero avisaros,
que pues le dió á Diana
descontento
veros, pensar en vos y bien
amaros,
vuestro consejo tengo por
muy sano
de no mirar, pensar ni amar
en vano.

ARSILEO
Ojos, que mayor lumbre
habéis ganado
mirando el sol que alumbra
en vuestro día,
pensamiento en mil bienes
ocupado,
corazón, aposento de
alegría:
sino quisiera verme, ni
pensado
hubiera en me querer,
Belisa mía,
 tuviera por dichosa y alta
suerte
mirar, pensar y amar hasta
la muerte.

Ya quería Syreno replicar á la

respuesta de Arsileo, cuando
Eugerio le atajó y dijo: Pastores,
pues habéis de recebir el premio
de mi mano, razón será que el
cantar sea de la suerte que á mi
más me contenta. Canta tú
primero, Syreno, todos los versos
que tu Musa te dictare, y luego tú,
Arsileo, dirás otros tantos ó los
que te paresciere. Plácenos,
dijeron, y Syreno comenzó assí:

SYRENO
Alégrenos la hermosa
primavera,
vístase el campo de
olorosas flores,
y reverdezca el valle, el
bosque y el prado.
Las reses enriquezcan los
pastores,
el lobo hambriento
crudamente muera,
y medre y multiplíquese el
ganado.
El río apressurado
lleve abundancia siempre de
agua clara;
y tú, Fortuna avara,
 vuelve el rostro de crudo y
variable
muy firme y favorable;
y tú, que los espíritus
engañas,
maligno Amor, no aquejes
mis entrañas.

Deja vivir la pastoril llaneza

en la quietud de los
desiertos prados,
y en el placer de la silvestre
vida.
Descansen los pastores
descuidados,
y no pruebes tu furia y
fortaleza
en la alma simple, flaca y
desvalida.
Tu llama esté encendida
en las soberbias cortes, y
entre gentes
bravosas y valientes;
y para que gozando un
dulce olvido,
descanso muy cumplido
me den los valles, montes y
campañas,
maligno Amor, no aquejes
mis entrañas.

¿En que ley hallas tú que esté

sujeto
á tu cadena un libre
entendimiento
y á tu crueldad una alma
descansada?
¿En quien más huye tu áspero
tormento,
haces, inicuo Amor, más
crudo efecto?
¡oh, sinrazón jamás
acostumbrada!
¡Oh, crüeldad sobrada!
¿No bastaría, Amor, ser
poderoso,
sin ser tan riguroso?
¿no basta ser señor, sino
tirano?
¡Oh, niño ciego y vano!
¿por qué bravo te muestras
y te ensañas,
con quien te da su vida y
sus entrañas.

Recibe engaño y torpemente

yerra
quien Dios te nombra,
siendo cruda llama,
ardiente, embravescida y
furiosa.
Y tengo por más simple el que
te llama
hijo de aquella Venus, que
en la tierra
fue blanda, regalada y
amorosa.
Y á ser probada cosa
que ella pariesse un hijo tan
malino,
yo digo y determino
que en la ocasión y causa
de los males
entrambos sois iguales:
 ella, pues te parió con tales
mañas,
y tú, pues tanto aquejas las
entrañas.

Las mansas ovejuelas van

huyendo
los carniceros lobos, que
pretenden
sus carnes engordar con
pasto ajeno.
Las benignas palomas se
defienden
y se recogen todas en
oyendo
el bravo son del espantoso
trueno.
El bosque y prado ameno,
si el cielo el agua clara no le
envía,
la pide á gran porfía,
y á su contrario cada cual
resiste;
sólo el amante triste
sufre su furia y ásperas
hazañas,
y deja que deshagas sus
entrañas.

Una passión que no puede

encubrirse,
ni puede con palabras
declararse,
y un alma entre temor y
amor metida.
Un siempre lamentar sin
consolarse,
 un siempre arder, y nunca
consumirse,
y estar muriendo, y no
acabar la vida.
Una passión crescida,
que passa el que bien ama
estando ausente,
y aquel dolor ardiente,
que dan los tristes celos y
temores,
estos son los favores,
Amor, con que las vidas
acompañas,
perdiendo y consumiendo
las entrañas.

Arsileo, acabada la canción de

Syreno, comenzó á tañer su
rabel, y después de haber tañido
un rato, respondiendo
particularmente á cada estanza
de su competidor, cantó desta
suerte:

ARSILEO
Mil meses dure el tiempo que
colora,
matiza y pinta el seco y
triste mundo,
renazcan hierbas, hojas,
frutas, flores.
El suelo estéril hágase
fecundo.
Ecco, que en las espessas
sylvas mora,
 responda á mil cantares de
pastores.
Revivan los amores,
que el enojoso hibierno ha
sepultado;
y porque en tal estado
mi alma tenga toda
cumplimiento
de gozo y de contento,
pues las fatigas ásperas
engañas,
benigno Amor, no dejes mis
entrañas.

No presumáis, pastores, de
gozaros
con cantos, flores, ríos,
primaveras,
si no está el pecho blando y
amoroso.
¿A quién cantáis canciones
placenteras?
¿á qué sirve de flores
coronaros?
¿cómo os agrada el río
caudaloso
ni el tiempo deleitoso?
Yo á mi pastora canto mis
amores,
y le presento flores,
y assentando par della en la
ribera
gozo la primavera,
y pues son tus dulzuras tan
extrañas,
benigno Amor, no dejes mis
entrañas.