David Williams > Quotes

“Georgia Populist Tom Watson was the party’s most vocal advocate of black-white cooperation in facing their common economic problems. Time and again, he pointed out “the accident of color can make no difference in the interests of farmers, croppers, and laborers.”105 Watson often spoke to mixed groups of black and white farmers, always hammering home the message of their shared plight. In 1892 Watson told an audience: “You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.”
― David Williams, A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom

“There should be some way to settle political differences without slaughtering human beings and wearing out the bodies and sapping the strength of those who may be fortunate enough to escape the death penalty.”
― David Williams, A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom

“Using blacks as strikebreakers had an added benefit for employers—it fomented racism, which fostered deeply entrenched divisions among the working classes and further weakened the labor movement.”
― David Williams, A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom