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Robin D.G. Kelley on race unity and division in the
labor movement
Thanks to Michael Funke for bringing this to my attention. -mm
Here's an excerpt:
" as we revisit the 1930s, the era we hold up as the heyday of
interracial working-class radicalism, there are three things we ought to
consider. The Left, and here I mean specifically the Communist Party, was
different from other socialist parties up to that point in that it
centered anti-racism.
Whatever the CP’s many faults and missteps, it generally resisted
color-blindness, underscoring distinctive features of Black, Brown and
Indigenous workers’ struggles, while refusing to forgive or explain away
the racism of white workers. Second, the CP’s biggest mobilizations did
not center on relief or jobs or trade union struggles but the defense of
the “Scottsboro Boys,” nine young Black men falsely accused of raping two
white women on a train in Alabama.
Third, the 1930s, the period we often describe as the U.S. left turn, was
also characterized by rising fascism that drew a segment of the white
working class into groups such as the Black Shirts, the Klan, the White
Legion, and the American Nazi Party.
In other words, what often animates social justice or civil rights
unionism are movements with a vision of justice, movements that are
anti-fascist, anti-racist, and dare I say anti-capitalist (though
embracing the latter doesn’t necessarily translate into embracing the
former).
Where Organizing Succeeded
In the South, Black labor militants, many of whom were Communists, were
the key to building the CIO in the region, even during the early stages
of Cold War-era attacks on labor and the Left. Operation Dixie, the
postwar campaign to organize the South, is usually seen as a total
failure, but as Will Jones demonstrates, it succeeded where Black workers
were in leadership positions — e.g. among Black lumber workers in North
Carolina and Black tobacco and cotton-press workers in North Carolina,
Arkansas, and western Tennessee.
Black workers built and sustained the International Woodworkers of
America (IWA) campaign to organize sawmill employees in the South, in
spite of unremitting violence from employers, allied businessmen and
white workers, and the CIO’s best efforts to push race off to the side.
In Elizabethtown, North Carolina where in 1948 the IWA waged a militant
strike against one of the largest lumber companies in the Southeast, it
was precisely racial solidarity and Black community support that ensured
their success.(1)
The largely Communist-led Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers
of America (FTA) rested on the union’s ability to tap into a deep well of
black community organizing and grievances centered around workplace
conditions, wages, and racial discrimination. By 1947, FTA won 111 union
elections, bringing some 15,000 workers into the union.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, had become the epicenter of FTA strength
in the region. Led by an extraordinary group of Black women, notably
Moranda Smith, Velma Hopkins, Theodosia Simpkins, and Viola Brown, Local
22 had successfully organized workers at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
They fought for more than higher wages and better conditions; they
promoted a Black radical vision that civil and human rights were
inseparable from labor rights.
They protested segregation, fought sexual harassment at work, revitalized
the local chapter of the NAACP, launched voter registration campaigns,
set up worker education classes, and established a library stocked with
volumes on African American history and political economy, and were
largely responsible in 1947 for electing Winston-Salem’s first Black
alderman, the Reverend Kenneth Williams.(2)
Collective Power Under Attack
The success of the left-led unions such as FTA, the International Mine,
Mill, and Smelter Workers, the Farm Equipment Workers, United Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) among others, were strengthened
by the 1945-46 strike wave, only to be bludgeoned by the state and
corporate response to the postwar labor insurgency.
The collective power of labor, especially in cases of exemplary
interracial cooperation, threatened to severely curtail corporate power,
or worse for capital, usher in a new political order that would further
regulate business, expand the welfare state, protect workers’ rights, and
undermine corporate profits.
We all know what happened next: the war on labor ramped up in the name of
fighting communism. Left-oriented labor militants were fired or deported
or brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
The Taft-Hartley Act (1947) restricted workers’ right to strike; outlawed
closed shops, secondary boycotts and “sympathy” strikes; imposed hefty
fines on union officials who failed to oppose unauthorized strikes;
prevented unions from contributing to political campaigns; and required
union officers to sign loyalty oaths and affidavits affirming they are
not Communists.
Those that refused to sign were the left-led unions — the unions that
proved to be the most antiracist — for which they were summarily expelled
from the CIO between 1949 and 1950"
Read it all at
The Freedom Struggle Is a Labor Struggle
Thanks to Michael Munk for sharing this interesting history
brought to his attention by Michael Funke. You can find out more about Michael
Munk, his books and articles at his blog: https://ooligan.pdx.edu/book-author/michael-munk/
The mailing address is:
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