In the Mines
In Athens County, as in the broader United States, racial tensions influenced the dynamics of the labor force. Across the Hocking Valley, many workers were employed in the mines. The economic depression of 1873 caused companies to decrease production and lower the wages of their miners, and as a result, local miners went on strike. Though prior attempts to unionize had been unsuccessful, the strikers were resolute, and they had the sympathy of community members and local newspapers.[1] Nelsonville mine workers went on strike in 1874, a strike which lasted several months and reduced revenue on the Hocking Valley Railroad from $50,000 in May 1873 to $10,000 by May 1874, a difference felt across the state. According to newspaper reports, mine operators received a suggestion for breaking the strike: bring in Black workers as strike breakers until the union workers complied to their terms.[2] Black workers came by train from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Armed with muskets, they set to work.
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These new laborers were an unwelcome sight to the Nelsonville strikers, who gathered to harass the strike breakers. “Among the entire line of black pickets, just out of gunshot, hung crowds of angry and vindictive white miners, who belonged to the striking union, and who were passing their time in blackguarding and vainly attempting to exasperate the darkies, who maintained a most marvelous as well as commendable undemonstrative aspect, paying strict attention to their duty, and nothing else,” reported a correspondent for the New York Herald.[3] The stir was intense enough to send twenty-five deputy sheriffs from Athens to help control the strike.[4] The strikers and the upheaval they caused posed a risk of violence erupting in the community.
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The striking miners continued to press the Black strikebreakers, this time appealing to their sympathy. “When daylight returned, the Union miners began their harangues about the poor laborer, using every argument to induce the negroes to desert the cause of capital.”[5] Their persistence paid off; many of the Black miners deserted their posts, to the delight of the union workers, and some even returned to the mines to convince
Richard L. Davis, a founding member of the United Mine Workers. Little Cities of Black Diamonds Archive.
their fellow strikebreakers to do the same. This was met with relief and suspicion by local white residents; James Brown, writing to his father, reassured him that “Matters are quiet at Nelsonville – the darkies are quitting work – they claim that they did not know the miners were on a strike.”[6] Whatever caused the strikebreakers to leave, whether it was response to the possibility of violence, empathy for the union workers, or new awareness of the local circumstances, many of the Black strikebreakers abandoned their cause.
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Once local mine operators realized Black miners were willing to work for lower wages without a union, they offered jobs to the Black miners who had stayed to break the strike. Many of the white miners were not rehired. Some begged to return to their jobs, but local operators believed it was better to keep a mostly Black non-union workforce.[7]
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The racism that gave white Americans control of the workforce before the Civil War now worked against them. Employers and unions excluded Black men and favored their white counterparts. Because of this exclusion, Black laborers, in need of work, were willing to accept lower wages and work conditions that white men refused. This allowed for the use of Black men to control the white workforce. The Nelsonville strike alone employed at least a hundred Black strikebreakers, proving that no small number of men maneuvered this shift in power to find employment even temporarily.
Despite attempts by white workers to exclude Black workers from labor unions, Black workers still fought for their right to unionize and receive fair wages. Following a nine-month mine strike in the Hocking Valley in 1885, rival labor organizations struggled to settle their differences, leading to difficulties in negotiations. In 1890, Richard L. Davis was among the delegates who voted to form one organization, the United Mine Workers of America.[8] Davis was a resident of Rendville, a Perry County community which employed a growing population of Black laborers in the late nineteenth century.[9]
Through speeches, publications in newspapers, and administrative service in the UMWA, Davis spent his life promoting better working conditions and racial equality for mine worker across the United States. Through his activism, Davis brought change to a labor organization system that had once rejected Black Americans. Southeast Ohio’s booming mine economy and growing Black workforce gave Davis the backdrop for his activism.
Richard L. Davis Historical Marker. Ohio History Connection.
Notes
1. Herbert G. Gutman, “Reconstruction in Ohio: Negroes in the Hocking Valley Coal Mines in 1873 and 1874,” Labor History 3, no. 3 (1962): 247-253.
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2. “The Ohio Miners,” New York Herald (New York City, NY), June 16, 1874. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1874-06-16/ed-1/seq-3/
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3. “The Ohio Miners.” New York Herald, LoC.
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4. “The Nelsonville Strike Ended,” Holmes County Republican (Millersburg, OH), June 18, 1874. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84028821/1874-06-18/ed-1/seq-2/
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5. “The Nelsonville Stike Ended,” Holmes County Republican, LoC.
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6. James Brown to John Brown, June 12, 1874, Ohio Memory Connection: Athens County Historical Society. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p267401coll36/id/11104/rec/24
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7. Herbert G. Gutman, “Reconstruction in Ohio,” 259-261.
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8. Frans H. Doppen, Richard L. Davis and the Color Line in Coal: A Hocking Valley Mine Labor Organizer, 1862-1900 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016), 54-55, 73.
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9. Frans H. Doppen, Richard L. Davis and the Color Line in Coal, 31-37.
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Image 1: "Richard L. Davis Poster. Little Cities of Black Diamonds Archive. https://littlecitiesarchive.org/2012/07/10/richard-l-davis-poster/
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Image 2: "Richard L. Davis: The Sage of Rendville Marker." Remarkable Ohio, Ohio History Connection. https://remarkableohio.org/picture.php?/10785/category/1770
