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THE AMENIA CONFERENCES                             DIGGS

ficient black petty capitalism. They advocated convincing black workers that their problems, like those of white laborers, were inevitably those of work and wage; that "racial cooperation in business" should not be confused with genuine consumers' cooperation; that successful black petty capitalism would merely give economic reality to the black bourgeoisie; that however successful black business enterprise, it would remain a diminutive force in capitalism; that the great mass of black workers would continue to be employed by those who control finance and industry; that the problem would merely be shifted from the center of modern economic life where white capitalists dominate to the margin where small black enterprise ekes out the wages of management.

The situation was urgent and the hungry stomaches of black industrial workers could not feed on apologies, regrets and promises of better times in the future. They argued that it was not that the cost of living in the North was higher than the cost of living in the South where the bulk of black workers were located but that southern black workers, and white workers also, had lower standards of living because they received lower wages.

The Harris Report may be thought of as a direct result of the Second Amenia Conference at which Abram Harris was present. The Conference agreed that Blacks, in good conscience, could implement the program for working class solidarity and economic class-consciousness which Du Bois had advocated since early in his career and which would unite black and white workers in opposition to the common enemy. They rejected the belief that education would reform whties; they despaired of regenerating whites; they believed there would never be economic justice for workers, black or white, so long as the power of capitalism and private ownership remained unchecked. They argued that even if full citizenship rights and civil liberty were given Blacks, the existing condition of the great mass of black workers would not be altered essentially; that the economic condition of black workers was inextricably bound up with that of white workers; that cheap black labor and at times scab labor made impossible effective unity and organization; that biracial trade unionism was a basic necessity for a labor movement, industrial in character, which would unite all labor, white and black, skilled and unskilled, agricultural and industrial.

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