The Economic Case for Civil Rights
An editorial from 1886 argues that Northern labor interests depend on ending the exploitation of Black workers in the South.
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.
Whenever a man is deprived of his natural rights, the price of labor is always lowered. Whenever a class of people is forced into a position of inferiority, the labor of that same people is denied the remuneration which is demanded by the same labor when performed by members of the dominant race. Social and civil inequality becomes inequality of wages for the same work. As long as the state of affairs in the South continues, so long will the workingmen of the North be compelled to face the menace of competition by underpaid labor. When the negro of the South is accorded in the fullest degree the political and personal rights to which he is entitled, then, and not until then, the negro laborer will be paid the wages which he earns. The menace of cheap negro labor can only be removed by protecting the negro in all the rights to which he is entitled.
“Social and civil inequality becomes inequality of wages for the same work.”
This editorial exposes the historical root of the 'race to the bottom' in labor economics, revealing how systemic inequality was used to suppress wages for all workers. It serves as a stark reminder that labor organizers have long understood that civil rights and economic stability are inextricably linked.
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