In the 1830s, several thousand Black slaves were brought to Oklahoma. They performed much of the labor involved in the forced relocation of Southeastern indigenous tribes: the Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee (listed in order of their displacement), who adopted the practice of enslavement from White southerners.
By 1860, the Cherokee Nation held as many as 4,600 slaves, who performed many types of labor: domestic work, translation, and agricultural labor.
The Cherokee government freed its slaves in 1863, shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation.
The practice was formally outlawed* in 1866 through the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.
*This is not to say that slavery no longer exists in Oklahoma. For more on this topic, see FORUM’s very first issue on the topic of human trafficking. Moreover, the legacy of chattel slavery is still reverberating, and Freedmen have had to fight for tribal recognition up to the present day.
Organized Labor [Post-Statehood]
The first session of the Oklahoma State Legislature passed laws requiring state inspections of factories and mines, compulsory school attendance, and making it illegal for owners to blacklist union-affiliated workers.
After World War I, organized labor lost much of its power. The high unemployment of the Great Depression led to wage cuts (42% of the state’s workforce was unemployed by 1934).
In 1936, the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) gained prominence.
In 1957, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) combined with the CIO to form the Oklahoma State AFL-CIO. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Oklahoma’s manufacturing industry declined as its urban workforce continued to grow. Teachers, government employees, and other white-collar workers have since gained prominence in the organized labor movement. However, unions have lost much of their power and influence.
The minimum wage does not apply to all workers. Employers are permitted to pay farm workers, tipped workers (such as servers), and disabled workers even less than the minimum. Additionally, proposed changes by the Trump Administration would allow restaurant owners to have more control over servers’ tips.
In 1938, the federal minimum wage was 25 cents an hour. By 1956, that figure had increased to one dollar an hour. The two-dollar mark was reached in 1974. Since 2009, the minimum wage has remained stagnant at $7.25. Some cities, however, have raised this figure to 10 or 12 dollars an hour, and the movement to “fight for 15” has gained traction.
The minimum wage reached its peak purchasing power in 1968, when it was increased from $1.40 to $1.60, the equivalent of $8.68 in 2016 dollars. Since then, increases in the minimum wage have not kept up with the increasing costs of housing, food, and other living expenses, not to mention tuition and other school costs.
As of 2016, the average hourly wage in Oklahoma was about 9% lower than the national average (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Kelsey Morris is a Sociology senior from the Dallas area. She has been a member of the FORUM team since January 2016 and plans to enter the field of public health.