On the evening of Nov. 7, 1931, a crowd of police gathered near Ybor’s Labor Temple—now known as the iconic goth club The Castle—to stop Tampa workers from hosting a parade.
Cigar workers and the rest of the working class in the city had suffered through hard economic times as a result of the Great Depression, and they wanted to march from Ybor to downtown Tampa to encourage more people to join the communist labor movement. The Tampa Tribune reported that inside the temple, the communists had red flags and a sign reading, “Black and white, unite and fight!”
They had already demanded eviction protections and more pay to protect workers in Tampa during the Depression, but they wanted to parade through the city to appeal to more community members, who would hopefully join them in their demands.
By 6 p.m., police were in Ybor with riot guns and fire-hoses. Fifty men from the American Legion (who were asked to volunteer by the police) showed up as well, ready to stop any sort of communist worker’s parade.
Bricks and Blood
Hundreds of workers arrived at the temple that day, and there was an overflow of people onto the street, according to witnesses accounts shared with The Nation. But police said to reporters that none of the people had begun setting up for a parade.
Regardless, police said they “attempted to disperse the crowd,” telling them there would be no parade. A cigar worker named Felix Marrero told police that there was a telegram from Governor Doyle Carlton saying that a parade was legal, which would defy then Tampa Mayor Robert E. Lee Chancey, who had decided against the parade. Reports from the time and local historians say that Marrero was probably mistaken in his claim that the governor had overruled the mayor.
The police detained Marrero. Reports say he fought back, and witnesses saw him hauled off to jail covered with blood. There is some debate as to who started the fight, but the St. Petersburg Times reported that “Twenty-three policemen rushed the crowd of several hundred and they resisted.”
Bricks were thrown and more blood was drawn.
Local papers did not ask for the worker’s input on the situation. Reporting was often skewed against them, labeling them “Reds.” But according to police accounts shared with the media, during the fight, a brick hit the head of Police Officer David Wilson and shots were fired from the second story of the temple. A bullet hit Police Officer J. N. Byrd. Some reports say the non-fatal shot hit him in the shoulder, while others say he was shot in the back and a bullet went through his lung.
Police reinforcements pushed people into the Labor Temple and cleared the street. According to The Nation, a boy selling a copy of The Daily Worker, a labor newspaper, was shoved by police. The boy yelled and was arrested. His mother objected and was also arrested, and a passerby named Jose Campo, a traveling salesman, came to the aid of the woman and was arrested, too.
A detachment of police and legionnaires wedged its way into the Temple and made arrests.
Reports are mixed, ranging from 15 to 22 workers being arrested that day. From what can be determined from the reports, charges were brought against 17 of them, of which 15 received harsh sentences.
“For these injuries, thirteen men and two women have served and are now serving sentences totaling fifty-three years. Chain-gang and county-farm sentences in sweat-box jails, under circumstances of such brutality that three of the prisoners have gone insane,” Anita Brenner wrote about the incident in 1932.
Build up to the conflict
In October, a month before the fight, the local labor unions had stated that hundreds of workers were to be discharged when the factories closed for their annual inventory. The communists said they would suffer from hunger and poverty, even more so than they already were.
They organized a Council of Unemployed; raised an emergency winter fund and demanded free rent, gas, and water for the jobless. They waged physical resistance to evictions, and three of the leaders who organized the resistance were jailed.
On Nov. 3, there was a mass meeting and a protest parade was planned to address the situation workers faced. It was set for Nov. 7, the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s founding.
They wanted to march through Tampa’s segregated Black community between Ybor and Downtown, at the time known as “the scrub”, with banners and speeches that the union hoped would appeal to the neighborhood. A committee from the Labor Temple asked Mayor Chancey for permission to parade.
According to reports, the Mayor said, “I had no objection to a meeting, but I did to a parade. I told the committee it could not hold such a parade because our Negroes are probably the most peaceful citizens in this country. They are fairly treated, they appreciate what is being done for them, and the very thought of a parade marching through the Negro section in celebration of the Soviet holiday is abhorrent to the minds of the Southern people.”
However, it is a historical fact that Black people in America were not treated fairly in 1931. They endured racism and poverty.
“In Tampa and all around the country, the Great Depression was hard on everyone, but especially on Black people,” says Tampa History Center Director Rodney Kite-Powell. “On Central Avenue, in ‘the scrub,’ they were essentially living in shacks, often renting from absentee property owners.”
Kite-Powell points out that a report released in 1927 by the Tampa Urban League and others called “A Study of Negro Life in Tampa” breaks down the dire conditions Black people in Tampa faced.
And according to Kite-Powell, cigar manufacturers (many of whom owned the factories but lived outside of Florida) and other business leaders may have suffered too. But while they may have lost income, they weren’t in dire straits.
“The Depression did in some cases make rich people poor,” says Kite-Powell. “But for the most part, factory owners weren’t worried about having a roof over their heads or where their next meal is coming from like many of the workers were.”
The aftermath and the end of the “lectors”
Over the next two weeks, there were four protest strikes and more arrests were made. Local labor union leaders decried the clash and apologized for the communists. Cigar manufacturers organized a secret committee, and on November 27 the Lectors- who read to the cigar workers while they worked- had the stands they read from dismantled.
Manufacturers claimed that, “All the trouble has been originating from anarchistic publications poured into the workers.”
Lectors read all kinds of texts to the workers, from literature to news and political theory.
Despite the lack of support from other unions, workers went on strike with the communists. A seventy-two-hour strike of 10,000 workers unfolded. Business in Ybor City shut down. The workers claimed that the strike was in response to the lectors being removed, but was also in protest of the arrest and imprisonment of their fellow workers as a result of the clash.
When they returned to work they were met with a lockout. As the New York Times wrote, “The stock for the Christmas trade had already been made and there was no particular rush for more cigars.”
October was the main month of production for cigars sold during the holiday season, so the workers had already produced the cigars that the factory owners needed.
The factory doors were shut for two weeks, during which time there were some rioting, arrests, and a raid on the union headquarters. Police confiscated files, membership books, and two cigar boxes containing $750 which had been collected for the defense of the prisoners. The secretary, Jose Ferras, who had been on the union’s payroll, was deported for vagrancy.
Many of the workers were Cuban and Latin. Chief of Police Amazon (A.C.) Logan said the union’s membership lists would, “possibly be of interest to the federal immigration department, because I am convinced that many aliens are enrolled with the reds and wholesale deportation proceedings may be the outgrowth of the government’s investigation.”
From then to now
Since this clash, workers in the U.S. have continued striving for better working and living conditions. This generation alone has faced multiple economic depressions and over the past year and a half, the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now, workers are banding together to defend themselves against evictions, much like the workers of 1931. While workers’ struggles like the one in Ybor have influenced the government to create some better programs and conditions for some workers, many are still struggling.
Cole Bellamy, an English teacher and member of the adjunct union at Hillsborough Community College, wrote a reflection on the clash of 1931 four years ago for his former blog, Florida is a Verb. The article was called, The Secret History of The Castle: From Radical Politics to Goth Dancing.
He says that people in Tampa today can draw energy and inspiration from what the workers in 1931 experienced.
“Through creating robust mutual aid societies and coming together as workers, they were able to support each other and push for changes in Tampa,” Bellamy says. “They had fewer resources than we have today and still stood up for their rights and the rights of others.”
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This article appears in Sep 9-15, 2021.