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Chapter 3 Cannon Mills, Kannapolis, and Blacks: A Reflection of Racial Attitudes in the South The exclusion of blacks in the paternalistic structure at Cannon Mills reflected broader attitudes regarding race in the South. Literature, recent events, and science seemed to confirm the view held by most white southerners that blacks were inferior to whites and not suited for industrial work. The writings of North Carolina author Thomas Dixon Jr. reinforced this racial stereotype and had a profound impact on race relations at the beginning of the twentieth century. Dixon’s trilogy, The Leopard’s Spots (1902), The Clansman (1905), and The Traitor (1907), made the search for a solution to the race problem a national issue. The author did not believe that in the long term blacks could live with whites in the United States. He favored repatriation to Africa. In the immediate term, Dixon believed that white supremacy was needed to control the animalistic instincts of blacks. He was dubious that blacks could be educated and develop to the level of whites, hence the title of the first novel. The second novel had the greatest impact because it was made into the first full-length motion picture, The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith and released in 1915.1 Dixon’s writings reflected attitudes toward race as seen in then-current events in North Carolina. Earlier attempts by Populists to form a biracial alliance between black and white farmers had fallen apart. There had been a strong reaction to the fusion (Republican and Populist parties) state government of 1896, and the Democrats came back into office using white supremacy as their main campaign theme in the election of 1898. A violent race riot had broken out in Wilmington in 1898, leaving eleven blacks dead, 24 @ Cannon Mills, Kannapolis, and Blacks twenty-five injured, and many ultimately choosing to leave the city. Soon Jim Crow laws were passed in North Carolina that greatly restricted the rights of black males to vote or hold office.2 Social Darwinism had also appeared as a powerful force in Europe and the United States. Believing that science demonstrated the intellectual superiority of whites, advocates of social Darwinism reinforced the existing racial beliefs of many white southerners, who now relished the idea that science had finally proved what they had been taught for decades. This theory even permeated universities and influenced the educated southerners of the era.3 It is not surprising that white southern businessmen were a product of their times when it came to racial attitudes. Many southern businessmen believed that segregation was necessary and that it actually protected blacks by limiting white violence against them. This view was considered moderate for the time, as the alternatives were either full equality or allowing the situation to erupt into a race war. Jim Crow laws brought a degree of stability to the economic and social order in the South. Northern businessmen did not object to Jim Crow because (1) it did not threaten their investments in the South and (2) they viewed it as a progressive way of dealing with race.4 Racial views of whites in the South did not differ much from that of Europeans during this period of imperialistic expansion. Writer Erin Clune noted that policies on race were similar in “South Africa, the United States, and Brazil, and especially because the theories themselves often drew from contemporary colonialism to advance conclusions about African evolution or origins.” In other words, globalization had not taken place in the realm of economics exclusively, but also in the realm of ideas on race.5 The great textile industry advocate Daniel Tompkins thought that blacks were only suited for agricultural work and even then were only productive under white supervision. He believed that they could not hold production jobs in textile mills. Tompkins was aware that 75.3 percent of black farmers in 1900 were sharecroppers or tenants and he believed that the only way to maintain a cheap supply of cotton was to keep blacks from moving up into the ranks of the middle class.6 Textile mill historian Holland Thompson’s work on the textile industry also furthered racial stereotypes of blacks. Published in 1906, Thompson’s important book From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill, was largely based on the time he lived in and taught school in Concord. He was a friend of J. M. Odell and an acquaintance of James Cannon. Thompson was a keen...

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