General Levee Strike (1907)

Fri Oct 04, 1907

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Image: A 1900 postcard published showing steamboats on the Mississippi River, goods in sacks and barrels stacked on the levee, and groups of stevedores and horse carts. The view is looking downriver from the foot of Canal Street, New Orleans. Photo by Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

On this day in 1907, shipping lines in New Orleans locked out screwmen, skilled dock workers, for failing to meet employer bale quotas, beginning a multi-racial, industry-wide strike that shut down the port for three weeks.

On October 4th, 1907, all of the shipping lines locked out the screwmen, black and white alike, for failing to meet employer bale quotas. 9,000 dockworkers, also both black and white, then struck the New Orleans port that evening in a show of solidarity with the screwmen. Freight handlers from the Southern Pacific line also struck, ending any work on the port.

During the second week of the strike, employers attempted to break worker solidarity by intimidating black workers To this end, they revived the “White League”, a white supremacist paramilitary organization.

Despite the attempts to break worker solidarity, strikers remained united, with some unions noting that if the employers successfully played one racial group against the other, they would all face starvation wages.

The strike lasted twenty days, ending on October 24th, with striking workers winning most of their demands.