The Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW) was an interracial labor organization in the Deep South 1910-1916. The BTW had a complex racial and gender dynamic, it’s members were black, white, Mexican, Italian, male, female, and Native American. The BTW grew out of earlier populist and socialist organizing in the area and presented a major challenge to the power structure of the area. The diverse membership of the BTW contests some of the social stereotypes of the Jim Crow South. Furthermore, the affiliation of the BTW with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) demonstrates the radical economic analysis of the union membership. The timber companies of the region banded together and waged a bitter struggle against the BTW marked by lockouts, espionage, assassination attempts, and a shooting incident that left four dead and dozens wounded. This paper evaluates the BTW’s affiliation with the IWW. This paper demonstrates that the leadership of the BTW was in communication with and influenced by the IWW virtually from inception. Some scholars have argued that this affiliation led to the downfall of the BTW. This paper shows that the demise of the BTW was due to the external pressures placed upon it by the timber companies and not because of an IWW inspired ideological division among its members.
