In the face of stiff resistance by tobacco stemming companies against paying a minimum wage — $11/week — the ever-fiery Rev. Richard A.G. Foster made a blunt statement. As these businesses wanted to “keep Negroes poor and ignorant,” and “the white South still feels that Negro labor is slave labor,” “Negroes that live in the South must turn their attention to self help.”
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 19 November 1938.