A typical retaliation against social justice reform appears with a far-right’s classic, knee-jerk reaction crying “socialism!” or “communist!”. Anything on God’s Green American Earth resembling team sports… eh hem… I mean unions, produces a far-right response with their tired ‘Red Scare’ whine. Using socialism or communism to attack social justice is also a covert way for the far-right to mask their racism, misogyny, and class-supremacist thinking.

Before you can say ‘belonging’ in DEIB, ‘red scare’ kicks into high gear. A stampede of New Balance guys and botoxed chicks slap nationalist bumper stickers on Jeeps, and join MMA clubs, because New Balance, botox, and bumper signal apparently signal, without a doubt, that you are NOT a commie.

For any readers who are terrified of communism or socialism – those who happen to be stuck in the throes of McCarthy’s 1950s ‘Red Scare’ – I want you to know that everything is going to be OKAY. If communism were going to dominate American government, it would have happened generations ago. And on the bright side, communism gave us roads and road maintenance; socialism gave us a US Military; and collectivism gave us church. If you live in a neighborhood with an HOA, guess what? America’s HOAs make the Soviets look like today’s repressed trad wives.

Kindness. Sharing. Generosity. Sacrifice. This is what it means to be in a group of people. ; Even right,-wingers know this otherwise they wouldn’t have invented the “proud boys”! (I’m sure somebody is ironing all them khaki pants!) And group activity doesn’t default to communism or socialism either. It means that the people in a group are just trying to get along. They’re prioritizing the needs of the group over the interests of an individual.

But we have tons of history in the US where a whiff of anything that is progressive or community-centered seems to spur a wild pack of privileged, property owners to furiously snuff it out. Here’s what happened in the early 1900s when Americans came together to make life better for some farmers who didn’t own land.

1927. Floods in Arkansas sink the harvest. Tenant farmers – because they don’t own land and because they’re at the mercy of landlords – are hit really hard. Like poor people the world over, when anything bad happens, they take one for the team. In Arkansas, the flooding was followed by a couple years of extreme drought. Tenant farmers’ vegetable gardens – the scrap of land that fed their families – withered on the vine year after year. When the Federal Government finally stepped in with aid, landlords kept the handouts. Then the landlords decided to evict their tenants from the one-room shacks they’d occupied for generations.

Floods, drought, evictions… sounds absolutely Biblical. And then one day in 1934 a landlord by the name of Hiram Norcross in Poinsett County evicted 23 families from his plantation – the largest eviction ever recorded in those years. Twenty-three homeless families walking up the road with their belongings in a rural district is a noticeable thing. And for landless folks in Arkansas, this was a final straw. Within weeks of the mass eviction, a meeting was held at a school house near Norcross land. During the meeting, the group described their shared suffrage; economic disenfranchisement; betrayal by the land owners; and barriers limiting their freedom to improve their lives and their families’ well being.

In that country school on a July day in 1934, this group of families agreed that they needed to form a union: the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. A hallmark of this Farmers Union was that it was organized by evicted tenant farmers who’s ancestry was African and European – Black and White farmers created the union together.

Poor country people, no matter their ethnicity, have many things in common. One of those things is “church”. And in 1934, when Arkansas tenant farmers decided to organize a union, everyone among these families could understand that the ‘order for worship’ from church was a fair outline for union meetings. Logically, the Farmer’s Union meetings were therefore structured around prayers, hymns, and speakers. Scripture provided further evidence that coming together and helping poor people was a thing ordained by God.

Organizing a labor union that was centered on faith, is a country thing; it’s a rural thing. Our churches in rural places are foundations for rural life. It makes sense that country people in Arkansas organized their meetings around the order for worship. It makes sense that country people justified their organizing with scripture.

Justice and equality in America are deeply connected to our rural roots; they are deeply connected to the best parts of rural Christian tradition too.

But how do you suppose an integrated group of poor, country Christians in Arkansas translated with the landowners and law enforcement in the 1930’s?

The union was condemned for being “communist” and incensed property owners rallied to stamp out this “devil” of justice. Property and business owners joined with law enforcement to intimidate the Union organizers and their families. Union meetings were violently disrupted. Many were injured or thrown in jail. Some were killed.

At one Union meeting, the director of Commonwealth College in Polk County was invited to assist the tenant farmers with their organizing strategy. The hymn, “We Shall Not Be Moved” was sung at the gathering held at New Prosperity Church, an African American church. After the hymn, and before their guest speaker could take the podium, armed White men burst into the building, beat the White farmers and threatened the Black farmers with lynching. Many were apprehended and taken to town for “questioning”.

At another meeting in March 1935, 500 members of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union gathered to hear socialist, Norman Thomas address the crowd in Mississippi County. Members of the Union were eager to learn more about Socialism and how it could actually help working people. But the meeting was violently disrupted when 40 armed White men entered the building, threatened Thomas’ life and forced the group to disperse.

Across it’s 25-year history, the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union faced waves of backlash to its existence. But this early example of rural, faith-informed organizing established a template for social justice organizing for generations to come. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. even followed the example of this Farmers’ Union to organize the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s.

So! Don’t be “red scared”. Elements of Communism, Socialism & Collectivism are already integrated with American systems; and they’re here to serve the thing we call a greater good. We drive on roads. We have a military. We have organized religion. And if you really feel the need to have a major freak-out over communism or socialism, maybe take a jackhammer out to that road in front of your place and start tearing it apart. When you’re sitting in jail (prison is a system celebrated by capitalist and communist alike!), let me know how your attack on communism worked out for you.

In the meantime, progress for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging will soldier ahead. Coming together in our pluralism is a good thing. Organizing together to make life better for everyone is positive! Supporting each other so we can all have protections and access to opportunity is the right thing to do. The legacy of the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union is ours to inherit; it can light our way as we build a new tomorrow.

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Read more about the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union:

Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union Uses National Journalism to Rally Support

An Overview of the History of the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union