The challenge of interracial unionism : Alabama coal miners, 1878-1921 /
Daniel Letwin.
- Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press, �1998.
- 1 online resource (xii, 289 pages)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-275) and index.
The rise of the Birmingham district -- The world of the Alabama coal miners -- The Greenback-Labor Party and the Knights of Labor -- The United Mine Workers in the populist era -- The United Mine Workers in the age of segregation -- The United Mine Workers in the World War I era.
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This study explores a tradition of interracial unionism that persisted in the coal fields of Alabama from the dawn of the New South through the turbulent era of World War I. Daniel Letwin focuses on the forces that prompted black and white miners to collaborate in the labor movement even as racial segregation divided them in nearly every other aspect of their lives. Letwin examines a series of labor campaigns - conducted under the banners of the Greenback-Labor Party, the Knights of Labor, and, most extensively, the United Mine Workers - whose interracial character came into growing conflict with the southern racial order. This tension gives rise to the book's central question: to what extent could the unifying potential of class withstand the divisive pressure of race? Arguing that interracial unionism in the New South was much more complex and ambiguous than is generally recognized, Letwin offers a story of both promise and failure, as a movement crossing the color line alternately transcended and succumbed to the gathering hegemony of Jim Crow.
Electronic reproduction. [Place of publication not identified] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2011.
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212
English.
0807862878 9780807862872
Coal miners--Labor unions--History.--Alabama African American coal miners--History.--Alabama African American labor union members--History.--Alabama BUSINESS & ECONOMICS--Labor. POLITICAL SCIENCE--Labor & Industrial Relations. African American coal miners. African American labor union members. Coal miners--Labor unions. Business & Economics. Labor & Workers' Economics.