The Knights of Labor helped to bring together many different types of people from all different walks of life ; for example Catholic and Protestant Irish-born workers . The KOL appealed to them because they worked very closely with the Irish Land League . The Knights had a mixed record on inclusiveness and exclusiveness . They accepted women and blacks ( after 1878 ) and their employers as members , and advocating the admission of blacks into local assemblies . However , the organization tolerated the segregation of assemblies in the South . Bankers , doctors , lawyers , stockholders , and liquor manufacturers were excluded because they were considered unproductive members of society . Asians were also excluded , and in November 1885 , a branch of the Knights in Tacoma , Washington violently expelled the city 's Chinese workers , who amounted to nearly a tenth of the overall city population at the time.The Union Pacific Railroad came into conflict with the Knights . When the Knights in Wyoming refused to work more hours in 1885 , the railroad hired Chinese workers as strikebreakers and to stir up racial animosity . The result was the Rock Springs massacre , that killed scores of Chinese workers , and drove the rest out of Wyoming . About 50 African-American sugar-cane laborers organized by the Knights went on strike and were murdered by strikebreakers in the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana . The Knights strongly supported passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Contract Labor Law of 1885 , as did many other labor groups , demonstrating the limits of their commitment to solidarity . While they claimed to not be " against immigration , " their anti-Asian racism demonstrated the limits and inconsistency of their anti-racist platform
Rock Springs massacre
Rock Springs massacre
Knights of Labor