The Challenge of Interracial Unionism: Alabama Coal Miners, 1878-1921 / Edition 1

by Daniel L. Letwin

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807846780
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	01/22/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.68(d)
Lexile:	1440L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel Letwin is assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Rise of the Birmingham District
Chapter 2. The World of the Alabama Coal Miners
Chapter 3. The Greenback-Labor Party and the Knights of Labor
Chapter 4. The United Mine Workers in the Populist Era
Chapter 5. The United Mine Workers in the Age of Segregation
Chapter 6. The United Mine Workers in the World War I Era
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Maps
1. Birmingham Coal Belt
2. Birmingham Coal Mining District

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This is an example of the finest historical scholarship, which allows its subjects to describe their world and their choices in their own voices.—Choice



Letwin's carefully crafted study of Alabama coal miners reminds us that organized labor had many options open to it even when it operated in the most forbidding of environments. His book adds significantly to a growing body of literature treating the enormously complex interplay of class and race in the making of the modern labor movement.—Labor Studies Journal



A fine book by Daniel Letwin on a neglected and important aspect of race and labor relations in the South during the Jim Crow era. It has surprises for many readers.—C. Vann Woodward, Yale University



Letwin makes a compelling argument in an engaging writing style. He has done a good job of capturing the essence of coal mining as an occupation and the multiethnic as well as multiracial make-up of those who populated it. . . . Local studies like Letwin's will continue to enrich and deepen our understanding of worker behavior in the union movement's formative years.—American Historical Review



By illuminating the strengths and weaknesses of previous struggles, this book provides an important guide for the future.—Southern Exposure



Demonstrates how black and white miners initiated certain class-based actions that cut across racial lines and counteracted the widespread image of a docile southern working class.—Journal of Social History



Letwin's integrated attention to political opportunity, resource mobilization, and identity formation is particularly admirable. . . . The fact that The Challenge of Interracial Unionism crosses over subspecialty areas of our discipline is just one of many indications that we should sit up and take notice.—Work and Occupations



The Challenge of Interracial Unionism is a sensitively argued, well-researched, and impressive historical study. Letwin recovers a multiplicity of voices—of southern employers, black and white miners, and state officials—and offers a provocative, balanced, and powerful analysis of white trade unionists' racial perspectives and practices and black unionists' political and organizing agendas. This is one of the most important books on race and labor to appear in years.—Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois at Chicago



Letwin successively examines the impact of the Greenback Labor Party, the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers of America as each fought against the power of the coal operators and in the process helped define race relations in the workplace. . . . This is a clear and well-written book which deserves to be on undergraduate reading lists as an example of how the new labour history handles the complex interrelationship between race and class.—Journal of American Studies



A first-rate book that will be a benchmark in the field for many years to come.—The Journal of American History



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Editorial Reviews

His book adds significantly to a growing body of literature treating the enormously complex interplay of class and race.

"Labor Studies Journal"

A first-rate book that will be a benchmark in the field for many years to come.

"The Journal of American History"

A vital contribution to the ongoing debates on labor and race in American working class history.

"International Labor and Working Class History"

Letwin makes a compelling argument in an engaging writing style.

"American Historical Review"

This is a clear and well-written book which deserves to be on undergraduate reading lists.

"Journal of American Studies"

From the Publisher