Curator Chat: Beyond Tobacco Road

 

This month’s Curator Chat will examine how the Southern Tenant Farmers Union worked to counter entrenched stereotypes of landless farmers through co-sponsoring National Sharecropper’s Week with the Workers Defense League. National Sharecropper’s Week was celebrated the first full week of March beginning in 1937, and later resulted in the establishment of the National Sharecropper’s Fund, which is still advocating for rural communities today as the Rural Advancement Fund. We’ll look at literary portrayals of sharecroppers before and after the peak years of National Sharecropper’s Week and discuss how changing the image of sharecroppers as “Tobacco Road characters” proved challenging for even some of the union’s leaders.

The Curator Chat is included with the regular admission price, and will start with a special tour of the exhibit, followed by a presentation and discussion with refreshment.