Jews in America:
The Kosher Meat Boycott
(1902)
In mid-May, 1902, the retail price of kosher meat on the Lower East Side of New York jumped from 12 to 18 cents per pound. In the
Gilded Age, such dramatic price fluctuations were common as great "Trusts" -- oligopolies controlled by industrial barons -- cornered
the market on commodities such as beef, steel and oil. In response to the rise in beef prices, for a week the small retail kosher butchers
of New York refused to sell meat, their way of protesting the Beef Trust’s arrogance. However, the butchers’ boycott failed to bring
wholesale prices down. Consumers had no choice but to pay the increase at the meat counter, or do without beef.
Influenced by the emerging labor and women’s suffrage movements, Jewish homemakers on the Lower East Side began to agitate for
a strike against kosher meat. Fanny Levy, whose husband was a unionized cloakmaker, and Sarah Edelson, who owned a small
restaurant, mobilized the neighborhood women by going door-to-door to persuade them not to buy kosher beef, and to urge their
neighbors to do the same.
On May 15, 1902, the press reported that 20,000 women on the Lower East Side broke into kosher butcher shops and rendered the
meat inedible by taking it into the street, soaking it in gasoline and setting it on fire. The crowds also confiscated meat from women
who had purchased it from kosher butchers and destroyed that meat as well. According to historian Paula Hyman, writing in the
journal of the American Jewish Historical Society, the Herald reported that "an excitable and aroused crowd [mostly of women]
roamed the streets . . . armed with sticks, vocabularies and well-sharpened nails" in an effort to keep other women from purchasing
kosher meat. One woman complained that her husband was sick and needed to eat beef
to recover. She was told by a woman in a traditional sheitel that "a sick man can eat
tref meat," and so she must abide by the boycott. By the end of the day, the police had
arrested 85 persons, 70 of them Jewish women, for disorderly conduct. The Herald
reported that the women "were pushed and hustled about [by the police], thrown to the
pavement . . . and trampled upon." One of the women responded by slapping a police
officer in the face with a moist piece of liver.
The Yiddish press supported the protest. The Forward ran the headline, "Bravo,
Bravo, Bravo, Jewish women!" By contrast, the New York Times called for the
repression of this "dangerous class . . .especially the women [who] are very ignorant
[and] . . . mostly speak a foreign language."
Not all the mainstream press was hostile to the boycott. "Muckraking" journalists such
as Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell had been exposing the excesses of industrial
monopolies, especially the oil and steel trusts, in the pages of daily newspapers.
The Times, despite its opposition to the boycotters tactics, hoped that "the disturbances
on the crowded east side in this city might give the Beef Combine something to think
about rather seriously. [The boycott] is the most violent and general manifestation of resentment toward . . . the Combine that has been
made, and it is more noteworthy than anything of its kind that has ever happened in this country."
The boycott spread to the Jewish communities of Brooklyn, Harlem, Newark, Boston and Philadelphia. It also spread to the
synagogues, where women asked for rabbinic endorsement of their tactics. They even ascended bimahs, sometimes uninvited, to
address men gathered in prayer. As Paula Hyman notes, "‘For once, urged a boycott leader . . . let the men use the power of ‘And he
shall rule over her,’ to the good – by seeing to it that their wives refrain from purchasing meat."
Under pressure from their customers, on May 22nd the Retail Butchers Association once more aligned itself with the boycotters ands
refused to sell kosher beef in member shops. Five days later, Orthodox religious leaders, who had mostly remained on the sidelines,
formally endorsed the boycott. By June 9th, the retail price of kosher beef had dropped back to 14 cents and the boycott began to lose
steam. The retail shops did a thriving business once again.
The kosher meat boycott of 1902 was an early demonstration of the rising political consciousness of Jewish women in New York’s
ghettos. Most of the boycotters were not yet American citizens, but they had lived in America long enough to observe the organizing
strategies of the nascent labor and women’s suffrage movements. The example set by the kosher meat boycotters was later emulated in
Jewish neighborhood rent strikers in 1904 and 1907-08, and in food boycotts in 1907, 1912 and 1917. Many of the daughters of the
kosher meat boycotters of 1902, especially those in the garment trades, would soon become the backbone of New York’s labor
movement.
Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/bc1902.html
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)
Black Residents Walking, Montgomery Bus Boycott,
1955
Image Ownership: Public Domain
The Montgomery Bus Boycott in
Montgomery, Alabama was a crucial event in the 20th
Century Civil Rights Movement. On the evening of
December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks, a Montgomery seamstress
on her way home from work, refused to give up her seat
on the bus for a white man and was subsequently
arrested. The President of the local chapter of
the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP), E.D. Nixon, used the arrest to
launch a bus boycott to fight the city’s segregated bus
policy. Together with Jo Ann Robinson of the Women’s
Political Council, and other black leaders, Nixon set
plans for the boycott.
The idea of the boycott had been floating around for months. Both Nixon and Robinson were waiting for a test cast to challenge the
segregated bus policy in Court. They knew that they would have large support from black women who made up a majority of the bus
users. The only thing missing was a good test candidate and respectable, middle-class Rosa Parks seemed perfect for the role.
On Friday December 2, Robinson created a flyer which she distributed to black families around Montgomery. The flyer told of the
arrest of Parks and mentioned that 75% of the bus riders were blacks and if there was a boycott of the bus system then the city would
be forced to pay attention to these customers. It then called for a boycott of the buses on Monday December 5th.
Robinson arranged a meeting with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the ministers of two of the largest black
churches in the city. While they hesitated at first, they ultimately agreed to participate and held a meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church, King’s church, to plan the boycott. A new organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), was created to
lead the boycott and Rev. King was appointed its president. It was also decided that the boycott should continue until the buses were
no longer segregated. In order to get people around town during the boycott, the churches bought or rented cars and station wagons to
transport people.
Meanwhile boycott supporters challenged the legality of bus segregation in court. Their case, Browder v. Gayle, was eventually
heard by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled on November 13, 1956, in favor of the plaintiffs. The boycott ended on December 20,
1956, 381 days after it had begun. The buses in Montgomery were now integrated.
Sources:
Vic Sanders, “Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” History Review, 55:6, (Sept, 2006); Montgomery Bus Boycott
Overview, http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/article_overview.htm.
Contributor:

Kaul, Abhinav
University of Washington, Seattle
- See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/montgomery-bus-boycott-1955-56#sthash.AAvAWu3J.dpuf
Exploring the United Farm Workers' History
by Claire Peterson and Susana Diaz
"The consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness
down which farm workers have had to walk for many years. It is a gate of hope
through which they expect to find the sunlight of a better life for themselves and
their families." (Cesar Chavez)
The disastrous great depression left many people unemployed. As a result, a large number
of Caucasian people took over many migrant workers' jobs in California. This left many
Mexicans and Filipinos desperate and willing to do anything for money. Working
conditions were poor for the huge population of migrant workers and illegal immigrants.
There were unsanitary conditions and horrible wages. These conditions evoked anger
between workers and employers and set the foundation for large-scale wage strikes for the
next fifty years.
In the 1930's drought struck the southwest which forced more needy workers to move to
California farms. Because of a greater demand for labor from these workers, farmers
lowered wages and hired more people. In 1951 Public Law 78 was passed which
connected workers in Mexico to farms in the U.S. This allowed U.S. farmers to hire
"braceros" when there was a shortage of domestic farmhands. Farmers took advantage of
this law by hiring mostly braceros because they would work longer days for less pay, and would tolerate the working conditions.
Figure 1: Cesar Chavez participating in a march (left), Workers marching in protest (right).
Sometimes, whole families of "braceros" would only get paid twenty cents for three hours of work. Working families lived in small
run down shacks or tents in crowded camps. If there wasn't enough room, some family members would sleep under bridges nearby. In
order to survive, families were forced to move to where work was available.
Figure 2: Workers in an organizing meeting.
By 1964 a movement arose and the union United Farm Workers Association (UFWA) was formed with 1,000 members. The farm
workers wanted better wages and better working and living conditions. In August 1965, an independent walkout of Mexican and
Filipino grape workers in Delano, California caught the leader and organizer of the UFW, Cesar Chavez's attention. An even larger
strike led by the Filipinos against all the grape companies in the Delano area was supported by UFWA. When the strike was not
successful in completely halting field work, Chavez organized a march to California's state capitol to inspire farm workers to join the
Union. The march was effective in getting national attention, however, Chavez knew that neither the march nor the strike would be
effective in getting the grape producers to negotiate. UFWA then decided to call a boycott of the Schenley Liquor Company who
owned the vast majority of the vineyards in the San Joaquin Valley. This was a success and soon other grape producers were forced to
sign contracts. Chavez sent representatives throughout the country to coordinate boycott meetings and fundraising efforts. For the next
four years, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee decided to boycott all table grapes; this received wide public support.
This boycott was the most successful in American history. In 1970 the pressure of the ongoing boycott resulted in the signing of
contracts that provided workers with significant benefits.
Figure 3: The union contracts are signed!
Source: http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/grape-boycott/History.html
The Tuna Boycott Which Led To The “Dolphin Safe” Tuna Label
During the late 1950's, in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP), fishing fleets, using purse seine nets, began to catch tuna
by spotting, herding and encircling dolphins on the surface. This was done because large yellowfin tuna follow and school beneath
the dolphins, and are therefore easily caught using this method
An estimated 7 million dolphins have been killed by this fishing method over the past four decades, the largest marine mammal kill in
history.
In 1986,the International Marine Mammal Project, one of the original projects sponsored by Earth Island Institute, organized a
campaign, including a consumer boycott of tuna, in order to urge U.S. tuna companies to end the practice of intentionally chasing
and netting dolphins with purse seine nets, and to adopt "Dolphin Safe" fishing practices to prevent the drowning of dolphins in tuna
nets.
In 1988, biologist Samuel LaBudde signed aboard a Panamanian-flagged tuna fishing vessel in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Using a
video camera, LaBudde recorded the horrifying images of hundreds of dolphins dying in tuna nets. The video shocked the world, and
people around the world joined in the tuna boycott.
In 1990, the three largest tuna companies in the world - StarKist, Bumblebee, and Chicken of the Sea - agreed to stop purchasing,
processing, and selling tuna caught by intentional chasing and netting of dolphins.
Due to legislation in the U.S. Congress, supported by IMMP and the tuna industry, this standard of "non-encirclement" of dolphins
became the U.S. legal standard for the "Dolphin Safe" tuna label.
Earth Island Institute's IMMP has established a tuna monitoring program with staff monitors around the world who observe
operations at tuna canneries, offloading ports, and cold storage facilities, as well as on board fishing vessels and trans-shipment sites,
to ensure that tuna supplies are indeed "Dolphin Safe."
It is the largest private food monitoring system in the world. IMMP works with tuna companies - import associations, fishing
fleets, canners, and brokers - to establish "Dolphin Safe" policies for each company.
In order for tuna to be considered "Dolphin Safe", it must meet the following standards:
1.
No intentional chasing, netting or encirclement of dolphins during an entire tuna fishing trip;
2.
No use of drift gill nets to catch tuna;
3.
No accidental killing or serious injury to any dolphins during net sets;
4.
No mixing of dolphin-safe and dolphin-deadly tuna in individual boat wells (for accidental kill of dolphins), or in processing
or storage facilities; and
5.
Each trip in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) by vessels 400 gross tons and above must have an independent
observer on board attesting to the compliance with points (1) through (4) above.
By agreement between Earth Island Institute and the participants in "Dolphin Safe" fishing operations:
All fishing and carrier vessels; all processing, storage, and trans-shipment facilities; and all procurement records related to the
purchase, processing, storage, transport, and sale of tuna must be made available for independent EII-approved monitoring.
Companies listed as "Dolphin Safe" must maintain "Dolphin Safe" policies approved by Earth Island Institute and apply them to all
international aspects of their operations and related subsidiaries. Furthermore, companies must not participate in whaling;
whale/dolphin/sea turtle meat purchasing, processing, or sales; dolphin "drive" fisheries; or shark finning.
Earth Island Institute strongly encourages tuna fishermen and tuna companies to work to reduce the catching of juvenile tuna, and the
bycatch of non-target species such as sea turtles, sharks, and billfish, and to release alive, “to the maximum extent feasible”, any nontarget species caught in purse seine nets, in order to to reduce the harm to the oceans' ecosystems.
Through these agreements, IMMP has virtually eliminated dolphin-deadly tuna from 90% of the world's canned tuna markets,
including Europe, Canada, Australia, and, of course, the U.S., which is still the largest canned tuna market on Earth.
Since the adoption of IMMP's "Dolphin Safe" standards, reported dolphin deaths in the ETP have dropped from 80-100,000
annually in the late 1980's, to under 3,000 dolphins annually today.
Sadly, several countries, including Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Vanautu, continue to support chasing and netting
dolphins in the ETP, so Earth Island Institute is working to prevent tuna, which is caught using these methods, from entering markets
in order to further reduce the deaths of dolphins by making it no longer profitable.
Source: http://www.eurocbc.org/page322.html