"The Knights of Labor connected workplace issues and labor rights with local, state, and federal policies, and was active in politics and mutual aid as well as economic development. (...) Black members were known for their militancy, and were eventually forced underground in the face of antiunion and racist intimidation and violence. (...) the decline of the Knights of Labor was felt most strongly among the cooperatives. As Curl observes, “The entire economic system came down hard on the Knight cooperatives: railroads refused to haul their products; manufacturers refused to sell them needed machinery; wholesalers refused them raw materials and supplies; banks wouldn’t lend” (2009, 106). Most of the cooperatives were forced to close by the end of 1888."