"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. "A vitally important contribution to the fields of labor and African American history."- New Labor Forum "Piece together a story that is at once compelling and powerful."- North Carolina Historical Review "An exceptionally rich work of scholarship."- Journal of American History Leaves us with a richer understanding of how southern liberals fought back in the face of oppression and poverty.
"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. A major contribution to the current scholarship on labor history."- American Communist History 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. 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.īut civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. 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. 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. 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.
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