Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South / Edition 1

by Robert R. Korstad

Overview

Drawing on scores of interviews with black and white tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Robert Korstad brings to life the forgotten heroes of Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America-CIO. These workers confronted a system of racial capitalism that consigned African Americans to the basest jobs in the industry, perpetuated low wages for all southerners, and shored up white supremacy.

Galvanized by the emergence of the CIO, African Americans took the lead in a campaign that saw a strong labor movement and the reenfranchisement of the southern poor as keys to reforming the South—and a reformed South as central to the survival and expansion of the New Deal. In the window of opportunity opened by World War II, they blurred the boundaries between home and work as they linked civil rights and labor rights in a bid for justice at work and in the public sphere.

But civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. Its defeat undermined later efforts by civil rights activists to raise issues of economic equality to the moral high ground occupied by the fight against legalized segregation and, Korstad contends, constrains the prospects for justice and democracy today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807854549
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	05/26/2003
Edition description:	1
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.27(d)
Lexile:	1510L (what's this?)

About the Author

Robert Rodgers Korstad is associate professor of public policy studies and history at Duke University. He is a coauthor of Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World and a coeditor of Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Talk about Life in the Segregated South.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Written in riveting prose, Civil Rights Unionism is a breathtaking account of how black tobacco workers joined forces with the organized left to create an amazingly resilient labor movement in one of the most powerful companies in the South. At the heart of the movement were black women who believed labor unions ought to do more than demand higher wages and better working conditions; they fought to eliminate racism and fight for dignity and social justice. Korstad not only forces us to rethink the origins of the 'modern' civil rights movement, but he demonstrates how Cold War repression redirected what might have been a very different civil rights movement had these visionary workers remained at the forefront.—Robin D. G. Kelley, New York University



Civil Rights Unionism slips beyond the confines of historical sub-genres to make whole the lives of black tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, N.C. Its strong narrative voice never strays from the workers' point of view, accomplishing what some have thought impossible: a rendering of twentieth-century American politics, labor, and social struggle from the perspective of poor black people. This riveting read will become the standard by which future studies of southern communities and African American activism are measured.—Glenda E. Gilmore, Yale University

Editorial Reviews

Well-researched and well-written . . . A major contribution to the current scholarship on labor history."—American Communist History

Korstad's book sheds light on the decline of New Deal liberalism, the origins of the Civil Rights Movement, the development of interracial labor unions, and the coalescence of the Cold War consensus. . . . Leaves us with a richer understanding of how southern liberals fought back in the face of oppression and poverty. "—Southern Historian

An exceptionally rich work of scholarship.—Journal of American History

Piece[s] together a story that is at once compelling and powerful."—North Carolina Historical Review

A vitally important contribution to the fields of labor and African American history."—New Labor Forum

The breadth of Korstad's work is impressive and so is his ability to incorporate the broader historical context into the narrative of the Local [22]. . . . One of the many significant aspects of Korstad's book is that he gives voice to the neglected history of African American women in the trade union movement."—Left History

At the center of Korstad's expansive but tightly knit narrative is the argument that unions represented the best hope for carrying the New Deal's vision of economic democracy and social justice into the postwar period. The liberal, reformist atmosphere of the New Deal years provided the climate not only for the working-class activism but also for African American civil rights. . . . Provides readers [with] a solid sense of the political and economic exigencies that made African American unionization possible in the Solid South. . . . Korstad is to be applauded for illuminating the struggle of working-class African Americans to build a union movement that expressed their ambitions for so much more than a wage increase."—Reviews in American History

[This] well-researched analysis paints a rich portrait of the struggles of black working-class Americans for respect on and off the job.—Winston-Salem Journal

This book is exemplary. . . . Korstad's research and writing exhibits all the standards of rigorous scholarship."—Political Affairs

To take the measure of Robert Korstad's arguments in Civil Rights Unionism is to cast the civil rights movement in this bright new light."—Industrial and Labor Relations Review

From the Publisher