The main union demands were union recognition, and that the operators put into effect the wage award decided by the Bituminous Coal Commission earlier in the year. One fundamental obstacle to union recognition was the fact that the UMW was racially integrated. Popular opinion in Alabama was turned against the strikers almost immediately, particularly the disapproving black middle class, who saw racial solidarity and cooperation with capitalists as their only route to economic self-defense. Coal operators launched a propaganda campaign to divide the union along racial lines. A pro-employer newspaper called the Workmen’s Chronicle was distributed free of cost to mine workers. It was published by a black minister named P. C. Rameau who worked out of an office in the TCI building. Oscar Adams, editor of the Birmingham Reporter, spoke to workers in company-owned halls, imploring them to remain loyal to mine owners.
