Download or read book Race Class and Community in Southern Labor History written by Gary M. Fink and published by . This book was released on with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reconsidering Southern Labor History written by Matthew Hild and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: United Association for Labor Education Best Book Award The American Dream of reaching success through sheer sweat and determination rings false for countless members of the working classes. This volume shows that many of the difficulties facing workers today have deep roots in the history of the exploitation of labor in the South. Contributors make the case that the problems that have long beset southern labor, including the legacy of slavery, low wages, lack of collective bargaining rights, and repression of organized unions, have become the problems of workers across the country. Spanning nearly all of U.S. history, the essays in this collection range from West Virginia to Florida to Texas. They examine vagrancy laws in the early republic, inmate labor at state penitentiaries, mine workers and union membership, and strikes and the often-violent strikebreaking that followed. They also look at pesticide exposure among farmworkers, labor activism during the civil rights movement, and foreign-owned auto factories in the rural South. They distinguish between different struggles experienced by women and men, as well as by African American, Latino, and white workers. The broad chronological sweep and comprehensive nature of Reconsidering Southern Labor History set this volume apart from any other collection on the topic in the past forty years. Presenting the latest trends in the study of the working-class South by a new generation of scholars, this volume is a surprising revelation of the historical forces behind the labor inequalities inherent today. Contributors: David M. Anderson | Deborah Beckel | Thomas Brown | Dana M. Caldemeyer | Adam Carson | Theresa Case | Erin L. Conlin | Brett J. Derbes | Maria Angela Diaz | Alan Draper | Matthew Hild | Joseph E. Hower | T.R.C. Hutton | Stuart MacKay | Andrew C. McKevitt | Keri Leigh Merritt | Bethany Moreton | Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan | Michael Sistrom | Joseph M. Thompson | Linda Tvrdy
Download or read book Race Class and Community in Southern Labor History written by Gary M. Fink and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As evidence by the quality of these essays, the field of southern labor history has come into its own.
Download or read book Sisterhood Denied written by Dolores E. Janiewski and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Black Coal Miners in America written by Ronald L. Lewis and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the early day of mining in colonial Virginia and Maryland up to the time of World War II, blacks were an important part of the labor force in the coal industry. Yet in this, as in other enterprises, their role has heretofore been largely ignored. Now Roland L. Lewis redresses the balance in this comprehensive history of black coal miners in America. The experience of blacks in the industry has varied widely over time and by region, and the approach of this study is therefore more comparative than chronological. Its aim is to define the patterns of race relations that prevailed among the miners. Using this approach, Lewis finds five distractive systems of race relations. There was in the South before and after the Civil War a system of slavery and convict labor -- an enforced servitude without legal compensation. This was succeeded by an exploitative system whereby the southern coal operators, using race as an excuse, paid lower wages to blacks and thus succeeded in depressing the entire wage scale. By contrast, in northern and midwestern mines, the pattern was to exclude blacks from the industry so that whites could control their jobs and their communities. In the central Appalachians, although blacks enjoyed greater social equality, the mine operators manipulated racial tensions to keep the work force divided and therefore weak. Finally, with the advent of mechanization, black laborers were displaced from the mines to such an extent that their presence in the coal fields in now nearly a thing of the past. By analyzing the ways race, class, and community shaped social relations in the coal fields, Black Coal Miners in America makes a major contribution to the understanding of regional, labor, social, and African-American history.
Download or read book Race Labor and Civil Rights written by Robert Samuel Smith and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1966, thirteen black employees of the Duke Power Company's Dan River Plant in Draper, North Carolina, filed a lawsuit against the company challenging its requirement of a high school diploma or a passing grade on an intelligence test for internal transfer or promotion. In the groundbreaking decision Griggs v. Duke Power (1971), the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding such employment practices violated Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when they disparately affected minorities. In doing so, the court delivered a significant anti-employment discrimination verdict. Legal scholars rank Griggs v. Duke Power on par with Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in terms of its impact on eradicating race discrimination from American institutions. In Race, Labor, and Civil Rights, Robert Samuel Smith offers the first full-length historical examination of this important case and its connection to civil rights activism during the second half of the 1960s. Smith explores all aspects of Griggs, highlighting the sustained energy of the grassroots civil rights community and the critical importance of courtroom activism. Smith shows that after years of nonviolent, direct action protests, African Americans remained vigilant in the 1960s, heading back to the courts to reinvigorate the civil rights acts in an effort to remove the lingering institutional bias left from decades of overt racism. He asserts that alongside the more boisterous expressions of black radicalism of the late sixties, foot soldiers and local leaders of the civil rights community -- many of whom were working-class black southerners -- mustered ongoing legal efforts to mold Title 7 into meaningful law. Smith also highlights the persistent judicial activism of the NAACP-Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ascension of the second generation of civil rights attorneys. By exploring the virtually untold story of Griggs v. Duke Power, Smith's enlightening study connects the case and the campaign for equal employment opportunity to the broader civil rights movement and reveals the civil rights community's continued spirit of legal activism well into the 1970s.
Download or read book Iron and Steel written by Henry M. McKiven Jr. and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2011-01-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study of Birmingham's iron and steel workers, Henry McKiven unravels the complex connections between race relations and class struggle that shaped the city's social and economic order. He also traces the links between the process of class formation and the practice of community building and neighborhood politics. According to McKiven, the white men who moved to Birmingham soon after its founding to take jobs as skilled iron workers shared a free labor ideology that emphasized opportunity and equality between white employees and management at the expense of less skilled black laborers. But doubtful of their employers' commitment to white supremacy, they formed unions to defend their position within the racial order of the workplace. This order changed, however, when advances in manufacturing technology created more semiskilled jobs and broadened opportunities for black workers. McKiven shows how these race and class divisions also shaped working-class life away from the plant, as workers built neighborhoods and organized community and political associations that reinforced bonds of skill, race, and ethnicity.
Download or read book Southern Struggles written by John A. Salmond and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Salmond maintains that white workers in southern mills in the 1930s and 1940s shared common goals with black activists in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He identifies similar leadership styles, sources of motivation, and strategies of protest. For both groups, he says, church leaders and religious imagery offered inspiration, and women achieved critical leadership roles, especially at local levels, that have long been ignored. Tragically, both movements were strongly opposed by vigilantism and organized community violence. "Those who challenged the social order did so at the daily risk of their lives," he writes. Whether white or black, those determined to bring about change faced equally determined resistance from the upwardly mobile white middle class."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Southern Struggles written by John A. Salmond and published by . This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Salmond's synthetic and sympathetic rendering of southern labor and freedom struggles provides a damning indictment of the repression used against them, and offers a fresh view into movement history for new and old students of the South."--Michael Honey, Harry Bridges Endowed Chair of Labor Studies, University of Washington, Tacoma Comparing two major 20th-century movements for reform, John Salmond explores parallels between the fight of white textile workers for economic justice and the pursuit of racial equality by black southerners. He argues that their separate efforts illustrate the dark underside of Southern history--the failure of class to override race in the struggle for political, industrial, and social democracy. Salmond maintains that white workers in southern mills in the 1930s and 1940s shared common goals with black activists in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He identifies similar leadership styles, sources of motivation, and strategies of protest. For both groups, he says, church leaders and religious imagery offered inspiration, and women achieved critical leadership roles, especially at local levels, that have been long ignored. Tragically, both movements were strongly opposed by vigilantism and organized community violence. "Those who challenged the social order did so at the daily risk of their lives," he writes. Whether white or black, those determined to bring about change faced equally determined resistance to change from the upwardly mobile white middle class. Local law enforcement officials were often the common enemy of both union organizers and civil rights workers, as were the state court systems. Salmond describes three violent incidents in which lives were lost and no one was held accountable: the Marion, North Carolina, textile strike in 1929, when county deputies fired tear gas into a crowd and then shot workers as they fled, hitting most in the back; the Honea Path, South Carolina, mill strike in 1934, which gave state governors the opportunity for widespread use of the national guard to maintain public order; and, in 1968, the Orangeburg, South Carolina, shootings of unarmed African American students protesting the failure of a local merchant to conform to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Eventually, Salmond says, both union leaders and civil rights activists looked to national organizations, including the federal government, to help win their struggles. He evaluates the measure of their success, emphasizing points of continuity and highlighting their shared humanity, courage, and commitment. John A. Salmond is professor emeritus of American history and former pro-vice chancellor at La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.
Download or read book Free Labor written by Mark A. Lause and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monumental and revelatory, Free Labor explores labor activism throughout the country during a period of incredible diversity and fluidity: the American Civil War. Mark A. Lause describes how the working class radicalized during the war as a response to economic crisis, the political opportunity created by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the ideology of free labor and abolition. His account moves from battlefield and picket line to the negotiating table, as he discusses how leaders and the rank-and-file alike adapted tactics and modes of operation to specific circumstances. His close attention to women and African Americans, meanwhile, dismantles notions of the working class as synonymous with whiteness and maleness. In addition, Lause offers a nuanced consideration of race's role in the politics of national labor organizations, in segregated industries in the border North and South, and in black resistance in the secessionist South, creatively reading self-emancipation as the largest general strike in U.S. history.
Download or read book Black Reconstruction in America The Oxford W E B Du Bois written by W. E. B. Du Bois and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. Black Reconstruction in America tells and interprets the story of the twenty years of Reconstruction from the point of view of newly liberated African Americans. Though lambasted by critics at the time of its publication in 1935, Black Reconstruction has only grown in historical and literary importance. In the 1960s it joined the canon of the most influential revisionist historical works. Its greatest achievement is weaving a credible, lyrical historical narrative of the hostile and politically fraught years of 1860-1880 with a powerful critical analysis of the harmful effects of democracy, including Jim Crow laws and other injustices. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by David Levering Lewis, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.
Download or read book The Wages of Whiteness written by David R. Roediger and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged to independence, but less and less able to avoid the harsh realities of wage labor, the identity of "white" came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, "white workers" consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practices on and off the job. Far from simply preserving economic advantage, white working-class racism derived its terrible force from a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforced stereotypes and helped to forge the very identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. Full of insight regarding the precarious positions of not-quite-white Irish immigrants to the US and the fate of working class abolitionism, Wages of Whiteness contributes mightily and soberly to debates over the 1619 Project and critical race theory.
Download or read book Labor in the Modern South written by Glenn T. Eskew and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embracing but moving beyond the traditional concerns of labor history, these nine original essays give a voice to workers underrepresented in the scholarship on labor in the twentieth-century South. Covering locales as diverse as Atlanta, Richmond, Tampa, and Houston, the essays encompass issues related to the specialized jobs of building ships and airplanes in the defense industries of World War II and to the unskilled work of oyster shuckers and cigar tobacco "stemmers." Heeding issues of race gender, and class in labor history, Labor in the Modern South includes an analysis of how young female workers spent their wages and an account of how purported underground unions of domestic workers fed white anxieties about the loosening hold of Jim Crow. Additional materials include an interview with, and an afterword by, Gary Fink, one of the foremost senior scholars in American labor history. Filled with new insights into southerners' concerns about workplace safety, access to training, job mobility, and worker solidarity, these essays offer a sophisticated and inclusive interpretation of twentieth-century labor.
Download or read book Black Labor in Richmond 1865 1890 written by Peter J. Rachleff and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ''The best study yet written about the ex-slave as urban wage-earner. It is essential reading for students of Afro-American and working-class history.'' -- Herbert Gutman''This book shows that black and white workers could act together and that a working-class reform movement, at least in one southern city, could challenge the existing status quo. . . . Rachleff presents an interesting story of social, economic, and political intrigue in a post-Civil War urban environment where class was pitted against class and race against race.'' -- C. K. McFarland, Journal of Southern History
Download or read book Work Engendered written by Ava Baron and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In tobacco fields, auto and radio factories, cigarmakers' tenements, textile mills, print shops, insurance companies, restaurants, and bars, notions of masculinity and femininity have helped shape the development of work and the working class. The fourteen original essays brought together here shed new light on the importance of gender for economic and class analysis and for the study of men as well as women workers. After an introduction by Ava Baron addressing current problems in conceptualizing gender and work, chapters by leading historians consider how gender has colored relations of power and hierarchy—between employers and workers, men and boys, whites and blacks, native-born Americans and immigrants, as well as between men and women—in North America from the 1830s to the 1970s. Individual essays explore a spectrum of topics including union bureaucratization, protective legislation, and consumer organizing. They examine how workers' concerns about gender identity influenced their job choices, the ways in which they thought about and performed their work, and the strategies they adopted toward employers and other workers. Taken together, the essays illuminate the plasticity of gender as men and women contest its meaning and its implications for class relations. Anyone interested in labor history, women's history, and the sociology of work or gender will want to read this pathbreaking book.
Download or read book Masterless Men written by Keri Leigh Merritt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-08 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the lives of the Antebellum South's underprivileged whites in nineteenth-century America.
Download or read book Labor and Community written by Gilbert G. Gonzalez and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence, maturity, and decline of the southern California citrus industry is seen here through the network of citrus worker villages that dotted part of the state's landscape from 1910 to 1960. Labor and Community shows how Mexican immigrants shaped a partially independent existence within a fiercely hierarchical framework of economic and political relationships. González relies on a variety of published sources and interviews with longtime residents to detail the education of village children; the Americanization of village adults; unionization and strikes; and the decline of the citrus picker village and rise of the urban barrio. His insightful study of the rural dimensions of Mexican-American life prior to World War II adds balance to a long-standing urban bias in Chicano historiography.
