Sheriffs and Labor
Tampa Tribune, Aug 21, 1948
Labor Day Edition
Sheriff Willis McCall was known throughout Lake County, Florida as “the law.” First elected in 1944, Sheriff McCall was well known for being racist, cruel, and extraordinarily brutal, even for a sheriff. He served 7 terms, and only lost his 8th bid for re-election because he was on trial for murdering a man whom he had arrested in a traffic stop. Gilbert King’s book Devil in the Grove focuses masterfully on the “Groveland Four,” four Black men accused of raping a white woman. One accused man ran away only to be executed by a vigilante mob. One was sentenced to life in prison only because he was 16. The other two were sentenced to death, and McCall shot and killed one of the men in a planned execution on a country road. We only know what happened because one man survived.
Sheriff McCall became so powerful, in part, because of the booming citrus industry in Lake County that exploited Black workers in order to make record-breaking profits. McCall used vagrancy laws – laws that basically criminalized walking around freely – to arrest Black people and force them to work for no pay as punishment. People were arrested for standing on the street even if it was their day off, and the presumption of white innocence protected lawmen who did the arresting. Sheriff McCall arrested and accused union leaders of harassment and intimidation when they called for strikes to protest poor working conditions and low pay.
Citrus picking was a dangerous and unforgiving job. Men and women were forced to climb into the trees and pick the fruit, no matter how high. They were paid by the weight and had no control or ability to negotiate the price per pound, which was often pennies what the labor was worth. In other parts of Florida, Black men were condemned to work in swampy sugar cane fields where they tried desperately to escape by swimming in dangerous waters. Florida sheriffs were all complicit in assisting business owners when they wanted to keep workers against their will, workers that include children. Some sheriffs arrested people and forced them to work on their own farms, unpaid. Sometimes, Black people were arrested and sent to work in fields that were already picked over, making it impossible for them to fulfill their fines.
The profits weren’t just for private businessmen. In Miami, Black people were arrested and forced to collect trash because the city could not afford to pay for trash service. And, even now, Louisiana sheriffs regularly use jail inmates as labor to clear the roads, mow lawns, and complete repairs. This is far from over.
Other Reading
1) This investigation by the Tampa Bay Times into the Pasco Sheriff’s Office’s “crime predicting” technology raises many troubling questions.
2) This piece in the Arizona Republic rightly points out the complicated relationship between sheriffs and ICE, which goes beyond 287(g).