The Knights of Labor (KOL), formally known as the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, stands as one of the most significant labor organizations in American history. Even so, a closer examination of the historical record reveals a complex reality. Practically speaking, powderly, peaking at nearly 800,000 members. Also, the organization is often celebrated for its radical inclusivity compared to its contemporaries; its motto, "An injury to one is the concern of all," suggested a universal brotherhood of labor that transcended the craft lines of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Day to day, while the Knights opened their doors wider than almost any other institution of the Gilded Age, they maintained explicit and implicit barriers that excluded specific groups of people based on occupation, race, ethnicity, and political ideology. Consider this: founded in 1869 as a secret society by Philadelphia garment cutters, it exploded in membership during the 1880s under the leadership of Terence V. Understanding who the Knights of Labor excluded is essential for a nuanced grasp of the American labor movement’s evolution and its enduring struggles with solidarity.
The Occupational Exclusion: "Non-Producers" and the Middle Class
The most fundamental category of exclusion defined by the Knights of Labor was occupational. Still, the organization defined itself as a union of producers. Their platform explicitly drew a line between those who created wealth through physical or mental labor and those who lived off the labor of others. As a result, the Knights excluded lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers, gamblers, saloon keepers, and physicians (unless they were working for a salary rather than private practice) No workaround needed..
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This exclusion was not merely snobbery; it was a structural component of their producerist ideology. In practice, the Knights believed in the "Labor Theory of Value," arguing that all wealth originated from labor. In real terms, anyone whose profession facilitated speculation, usury, or vice was deemed a "parasite" on the body politic. Even professional detectives (like Pinkerton agents) were barred due to their frequent role as strikebreakers.
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Interestingly, the Knights also initially excluded unskilled laborers in practice, despite their constitution welcoming "all who toil." Early assemblies were dominated by skilled craftsmen—machinists, carpenters, printers—who viewed unskilled workers as difficult to organize and potentially disruptive to wage standards. That said, this changed dramatically in the early 1880s. Day to day, the massive influx of unskilled workers, immigrants, and factory operatives became the engine of the KOL’s explosive growth. By 1886, the "unskilled" were the backbone of the order, though tensions between skilled and unskilled members regarding strategy and autonomy persisted until the organization's decline Simple, but easy to overlook..
The Racial Divide: African Americans and the Color Line
About the Kn —ights of Labor’s record on race is one of the most debated aspects of its history. On paper, the KOL was remarkably progressive. The 1878 constitution stated that the order "knows no race, creed, or color.Think about it: " Terence Powderly, a son of Irish immigrants, personally opposed segregation and famously refused to segregate the 1886 Richmond, Virginia convention, insisting that Black delegates be treated equally. At its peak, the Knights organized an estimated 60,000 to 90,000 African American workers, particularly in the South (sugar cane fields of Louisiana, coal mines of Alabama and Tennessee, and the docks of New Orleans and Galveston).
Even so, exclusion operated through structural compromise and local autonomy.
- Segregated Assemblies: While the national body banned discrimination, local assemblies (LAs) were granted significant autonomy. In the Deep South, this resulted in de facto segregated locals. Black workers often formed their own "Colored Assemblies" or were relegated to separate meetings. While this allowed Black workers a foothold in the labor movement, it institutionalized a separate-and-unequal dynamic that mirrored the rising Jim Crow laws.
- The "Social Equality" Distinction: Powderly and many white Knights drew a sharp line between industrial equality (equal pay, same unions) and social equality (dining together, intermarriage, integrated schools). Many white members supported the former but violently opposed the latter. This distinction allowed white Knights to claim racial progressivism while upholding the social hierarchy of white supremacy.
- The Thibodaux Massacre (1887): The limits of KOL solidarity were brutally exposed in Louisiana. When the Knights led a strike of sugar cane workers—predominantly Black—the planters' militia massacred dozens of unarmed strikers and their families. The national leadership’s response was muted, and the organization failed to mount a sustained defense of its Black members, signaling that racial solidarity stopped at the water's edge of violent white resistance.
- Exclusion from Leadership: Despite massive Black membership, the national leadership remained almost exclusively white. Black Knights were rarely elevated to positions of national authority, limiting their ability to shape policy on issues like anti-lynching legislation or federal enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
The "Chinese Must Go" Campaign: Exclusion of Asian Workers
If the Knights' record on African Americans was contradictory, their stance on Chinese immigrants was unambiguously exclusionary. The Knights of Labor were the primary labor force behind the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first significant federal law restricting immigration based on nationality Less friction, more output..
The KOL viewed Chinese workers not as fellow victims of capitalism, but as tools of capital used to degrade wages and break strikes. They propagated the racist "coolie labor" argument, claiming Chinese immigrants were inherently servile, unwilling to assimilate, and content with subsistence wages that no white man could survive on.
- Dennis Kearney and the West Coast: While the Workingmen’s Party of California (led by Denis Kearney) initiated the virulent "The Chinese Must Go" slogan, the Knights of Labor adopted it nationally. Powderly testified before Congress in support of exclusion, arguing that Chinese labor undercut the "American standard of living."
- Rock Springs Massacre (1885): The deadliest manifestation of this exclusion occurred in Wyoming. White Knights, angered by the Union Pacific Coal Company’s use of Chinese miners as strikebreakers, attacked Chinatown, killing at least 28 Chinese miners and burning 75 homes. The national KOL leadership condemned the violence but reiterated support for the exclusion policy, framing the massacre as the inevitable result of corporate greed importing "inassimilable" labor.
- Constitutional Ban: The KOL constitution was amended to explicitly bar "Chinese" from membership. This was a categorical racial ban that stood in stark contrast to the "no color line" rhetoric applied to African Americans. It revealed that the Knights' definition of the "producing classes" was racially circumscribed: solidarity extended to European immigrants and (conditionally) to Black Americans, but stopped at the Pacific shore.
Political and Ideological Exclusions: Anarchists, Socialists, and "Dual Unionists"
The Knights of Labor positioned itself as the one big union for all producers. This monolithic ambition required the suppression of rival ideologies and organizations Simple, but easy to overlook. Turns out it matters..
1. Anarchists and Radical Socialists: The Knights were a reformist organization. They sought arbitration, cooperatives, the eight-hour day, and currency reform (Greenbackism). They explicitly rejected revolutionary violence and the "propaganda of the deed" associated with anarchists like Johann Most or the International Working People's Association (IWPA).
- The Haymarket Affair (1886): The bombing at Haymarket Square in Chicago became the pretext for a massive purge. Although the accused anarchists were not KOL members (they were rivals in the IWPA), the public and press conflated the two.
Powderly moved swiftly to expel known anarchists and sympathetic locals, issuing circulars that labeled revolutionary socialism “un-American” and incompatible with the Knights’ producerist ethos. The purge was not merely rhetorical; it decimated the organization’s most militant organizers in Chicago and other industrial centers, ceding ground to more conservative craft unions just as the eight-hour day movement reached its peak Most people skip this — try not to. Nothing fancy..
The Knights extended this ideological policing to socialists and “dual unionists.” While Powderly occasionally courted individual socialists for electoral coalitions, the
