Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Packs the emotive power of a zillion 'race' memoirs precisely because it is the story of what happened when black and white workers collectively challenged the powers-that-be in the meanest city in the South."--Robin D. G. Kelley,
The Nation"A vitally important contribution to the scholarly debate about the relationship between class and race in American history."--Bruce Nelson,
Journal of American History"Among the best and most ambitious recent works on labor in the South. . . . Few readers of this book are likely to remain unmoved by Honey's account of the exceptional sacrifice, courage, and vision displayed by labor activists in Memphis."--
Georgia Historical Quarterly"Sheds considerable light on numerous themes of importance to historians of a multiplicity of specialties, from labor and African American history, to historians of the South and twentieth-century America."--
Labor History"A well-researched and carefully written book. . . . Anyone interested in the Southern labor movement must consult this work."--
Mississippi Quarterly"A major contribution to the history of labor, race relations, and the twentieth-century South. . . . Honey vividly brings the labor movement to life and places Memphis in the wider context of southern and national history."--Pete Daniel, author of
The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901-1969"A major new study of how the Solid South restrained social reform and labor's strength in New Deal America."--David Montgomery, author of
The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925Table of ContentsAcknowledgements xi
INTRODUCTION: Labor and Civil Rights 1
I: Southern Apartheid and the Labor Movement
ONE: Segregation and Southern Labor 13
TWO: No Bill of Rights in Memphis 44
II: Labor's Struggle for the Right to Organize
THREE: The Rise and Repression of Industrial Unionism 67
FOUR: Black and White Unite 93
FIVE: Race, Radicalism, and the CIO 117
SIX: Black Scares and Red Scares 145
III: Industrial Unionism and the Black Freedom Movement
SEVEN: War in the Factories 177
EIGHT: The CIO at the Crossroads 214
NINE: The Cold War against Labor and Civil Rights 245
CONCLUSION: Legacies 279
Abbreviations 293
Notes 295
Primary Sources Consulted 349
Index 353
