Reply #17: "Black Robes" . [View All]

I believe the name of that organization was the "Black Legion" (or "Legions"). I've seen countless references to that in books about union activity during the Thirties, but am somehow unable to bring it up with Google. The references I recall were sort of sketchy, but I got the impression that it was centered on the (White) immigration from the rural South, and appealed to their prejudices.

The American Legion was openly anti-union, since their primary reason when founded in ~1919, was to counter the radicalism that was developing in the American labor movement (primarily IWW). I know that the Silver Shirts were an openly fascist group with paramilitary pretensions, but I had never heard of their being used for explicitly strikebreaking purposes. I'm not contradicting you but it's something I'll try to Google.

pnorman