Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South

by Robert Rodgers Korstad

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. 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.

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. 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.

But civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. 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.

Genres: History, Labor, Nonfiction, American History, Race

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jonathan Kissam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book for the general reader (it reads like the academic history treatise that it is), but it is a fascinating account of the still largely unknown history of "civil rights unionism" in the 1930s and 1940s. It tells the story of a progressive labor union, Food, Tobacco and Allied Workers (FTA) Local 22, which organized thousands of workers in Winston-Salem, NC into a biracial union in the decades before what we think of as the modern civil rights movement, and presented a working-class challenge to Jim Crow which integrated the issues of workplace rights and economic justice into its critique of racial discrimination.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really solid history of a local Left-Led Union in the 1940s. Korstad generally takes good care to avoid the hagiography/denunciation that so many of the scholars of the subject seem to display. Korstad's reading of the efficacy of the New Deal's Southern Front as an effective vehicle for Black uplift is interesting, and suggests either that urban North Carolina was a unique site for the New Deal, or that some more varied approaches to the subject need to be pursued.

Worth reading for anybody interested in local iterations of the New Deal Coalition, in forging poor people's unions, or in the social history of the US South.

[Dan Sharber · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating book on the real power of combining the struggle for civil rights with bread and butter unionism. a formula that, unfortunately, was not as common as it should have been in an era of segregated unions. worth reading not only as an inspiration but as a map to rebuilding our unions now.

[Diane Garrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent academic book on civil rights unionism in NC.
Read for work ... probably would not have read otherwise!
But am so glad I did because it has sparked my interest in other civil rights era works and people.

[Jewel Carrie Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Civil Rights Unionism is an eye-opening and deeply meaningful read for me. Growing up in this region, I knew almost nothing about the labor struggles and the courageous people who fought for both workers’ rights and civil rights. This book uncovers an important history.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written and engaging, backed by admirable scholarship. Korstad does ignore some fundamental subjects, however, the most glaring of which are the racial tensions within unions.

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to open students' minds to the city in which they live. Korstad makes the book interesting to numerous levels of audience.