The leadership of the Colored Alliance lacked the resources to mobilize the vast majority of sharecroppers who were illiterate or semi-literate and lacked alternative sources of income. The Georgia chapter of the Colored Alliance, with a large contingent of landowners, refused to support the strike, viewing it as detrimental to the interests of black farmers who owned or rented their land. A minor cotton pickers strike of 1891 in the Arkansas Delta in September was crushed by local vigilantes, resulting in the death of fifteen strikers, including several who were lynched.