The White Striker Who Opposed Black Miners, Then Praised Their Community
Three years after opposing the arrival of Black miners at Franklin, a white miner wrote home praising their societies, their Masonic hall, and their Black justice of the peace.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Evening Independent, of Mansfield, Ohio, in its issue of July 21, publishes a two-column letter on Washington coal mines written by John Morgan, an employee of the Oregon Improvement Company’s mines at Franklin. The letter, which is well written and deals in detail with mining matters, compliments the management of the mines at Franklin. Concerning the Black miners, Mr. Morgan says:
“Now, in regard to the colored people: while some of them are rough and uncultivated, a large proportion of them are good moral people. They have several societies in the place, managed exclusively by colored people, and now they are building a Masonic hall, to which fraternity a large number of them claim to belong. The justice of the peace at Franklin is a colored man and will bear comparison with a great many of our justices of the peace of Stark county, and in education and general knowledge will excel most of them.”
When the Black miners were brought to Franklin three years ago, Mr. Morgan was one of the striking white miners who opposed their coming.
“The justice of the peace at Franklin is a colored man and will bear comparison with a great many of our justices of the peace.”
The letter is a rare glimpse of a white miner revising his views, but it also shows Black workers in Washington’s coal towns building institutions under constant pressure. Their Masonic hall and Black justice of the peace were acts of community self-determination.
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