Colored Farmers' National Alliance Founded, Reaches 1.2 Million Members

The Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union was founded in Houston County, Texas in 1886 and by 1891 claimed approximately 1.2 million Black members across the South. It ran cooperative exchanges, stores, and cotton gins, and advocated for federal land reform. When it organized a cotton pickers' strike in 1891, white planters and their allies crushed it through violence, killing leader R.M. Humphrey's allies.