Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression

Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies

by Robin D.G. Kelley

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the "long Civil Rights movement," Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality.

The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. In this book, Robin D. G. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.

After discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.

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

414 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Robin Davis Gibran Kelley is an American historian and academic, who is the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA.

Reviews

[Sunny Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating and densely packed with largely untold history! Southern communists ahhhh

[Subashini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this information is new to me, so I can't critique the book on grounds of inaccuracies, etc.

A really thorough and enlightening study on communist and labour organising in the American South. This book goes a long way towards demonstrating how American anticommunism is deeply rooted in white supremacy. In some ways, it is also a depressing read--Kelley talks about how a young black man was arrested once, and subject to police brutality, simply because he was having a seizure and a theatre manager "misread" the situation and called the cops instead of an ambulance. This was around 1940. Having a seizure while black is a risk to your life in more ways than the obvious one. That brief anecdote left me reeling.

Another illuminating quote:

Indeed, the [KKK], the League to Maintain White Supremacy, and the Alabama American Legion deftly appropriated Cold War language to legitimize white supremacy before the rest of the world. The racist response to Communism was not limited to white supremacist and conservative groups, however. After taking a strong stand against anti-Communist legislation throughout most of 1947, Southern Labor Review editor A.H. Cather assailed efforts to integrate colleges as "a part of communistic doctrine ... aimed at America with the intention of provoking revolution." "To insist that Africans leave their own institutions and attend Aryans," Cather complained, "would place this nation in the ridiculous position of fighting communism abroad and encouraging it at home."

This fascist resistance to "integration" and intermingling of races, genders, etc. brings to mind Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies, which also talks about how fascists deplored "communistic" ideas that would to lead pure, Aryan masculinity and femininity being "contaminated" by working-class and nonwhite elements.

A dense and fascinating read and recommended to those interested in learning more about racism, class politics and black radical activism and organising in the US.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal work detailing the history of the Communist Party in Alabama from its inception to the beginning of World War II, a fascinating and inspiring narrative of the struggles of Black communists to overcome racism and capitalism whilst working hand in hand with the few whites not indoctrinated by segregationist ideology. Building on Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism, Kelley posits the existence of a strain of Marxist-Leninist ideology influenced just as much as by the Black-Christian religious tradition as it was by Marxist ideology.

Kelley's use of primary sources and oral histories provide a wonderful connection to the lives and thoughts of the activists he investigates, as well as a valuable bank of experience for future organizing and activism.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this on my shelf for a long time but kept passing it over for other, seemingly more immediately relevant works. That was a shame because this book is both excellent and completely relevant to today's struggles. Drawing largely from primary sources, Kelley examines the history of radical organizing in the South from the late 20s until WW2 from a variety of angles. The successes and failures of the CPUSA, when taken with an understanding of the historical context in which they occurred, should be able to provide us helpful ways to inform our organizing today.

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of the Black communists (and some white) in Alabama. I loved how this enriched history for me, as in media I've consumed wouldn't really show communists organizing, but maybe it would show the brutal repression. It's interesting how the various identities of people involved influenced the political situation: some of the white communists coming from the North helped, others were utter shits, the trade unions tried to separate themselves from the communists and the Black people, the middle class Black people were trying to get assimilated into white society and prove they're 'respectable' and were willing to let poor Black people lose their voting rights. And so on and on.

Definitely a part of the civil rights movement that has not been talked about enough, as American authorities and capital have been waging war on anything that's a bit more on the left, and they also somehow managed to succeed in making socialism and communism seem evil and 'anti-American' and almost scary to discuss in public.

I did find it very dry, though. It's definitely a history book that goes through events in succession and doesn't linger too much on relevant characters (which usually helps me connect to things more emotionally). Definitely worth a read though!

[Romina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The inability to permanently organize the working class in the US South marks the historical failure of labor activists to improve the overall conditions of the working class. But the elephant in the room is actually the failure to maintain a labor movement dedicated to smashing racism within the white working class (see The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class) and in solidarity with the entire needs of laboring people. Hammer and Hoe presents an important (and less discussed) element: the need to learn about those silenced narratives. The continual fear to organize workers in the South is embedded in the lack of historical background in the long history of labor resistance led by black workers. Popular knowledge about the history of black radicalism is miniscule, focusing usually on the Civil Right's Movement of the 1960s or the Black Power Movement of the 1970s. Knowledge of militant and self-directed black militancy prior to the 1960s has been overshadowed by the dominant trope of a helpless and hapless black populace. Did black workers and black sharecroppers organize for better conditions and openly protested against lynching? The answer is yes. Some gains were made and some individuals lost their lives, but nevertheless, the struggle was militant and alive.

Kelley presents in Hammer and Hoe a history of black radicalism during the 1930s in Alabama that pops out with life. He also simultaneously tells a story about the Communist Party, USA and why black radicals in Alabama were attracted to the organization. The book is divided into three parts. The first section focuses on the time period of 1929 to 1935. The initial period explains how white communists from the North moved to Birmingham to recruit to the party. The initial effort organized sharecroppers and young black workers. The Alabama section of the CP developed as strong antiracist stance which attracted black laborers. Individuals who were considered white chauvinists were forced out of the organization. The activism of that period focused on neighborhood organizing, which also attracted a fare amount of black women. Trade union activism also played an important role in this period, influencing the development of a sizable black membership within the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). However, the Share Croppers' Union (SCU) played a central role in promoting black resistance against Jim Crow and demands for better conditions. From shootouts to arrests to killings, the radicals of this period placed their lives on the line to change the oppressive conditions they lived under.

The second part of the book focuses on the time period 1935 to 1939. This era was marked politically by the CP, USA's decision to support the call by the Comintern for the formation of Popular Fronts. Kelley argues that the move towards PF politics watered down the antiracist line that the Alabama CP held. Support was given to politicians who opposed anti-lynching legislation in order to create "needed" alliances. This policy also opened the door to racist white workers. In the early 1930s, CP members would call out racists as white chauvinists. Kelley notes, "Hosea Hudson's recollections suggest that "white chauvinism" during the Popular Front might have contributed to the decrease in active black membership. He recalled incidents in which several of his friends left the Party because of treatment meted out by district leadership or for lack of financial support for black organizers." (137) In meeting the goals for alliances, the CP leadership in Alabama sought a fusion of the SCU with the white-dominated Alabama Farmers Union (AFU). Kelley argues that the dissolution of the SCU into a broader coalition not only sidelined black union leaders in the SCU, but it also created a hierarchy when they separated the alliance between field workers and farmers. This move motivated many blacks within the CP to leave. According to Kelley, some black radicals found a home in the CIO and especially in the UMWA. They didn't disappear, they searched for other organizational tools to continue their fight. However, the CP's decision in 1936 to place more emphasis on trade union organizing made community organizing and support for sharecroppers secondary. This also led to an exodus of black female members.

The third section discusses the years 1939 and 1941--before the onset of the Second World War. By 1939, the Comintern decided to move away from the Popular Front. It doesn't seem that the Hitler-Stalin pact impacted the Alabama CP membership. However, the CP USA moved politically towards a Democratic Front--entry into the Democratic Party and by 1941 some party leaders called for the dissolution of the party. Interesting enough, this time period was also marked by a new wave of youth into the CP. One of those individuals was Sallye Davis--Angela Davis's mother--who joined the YCL in Birmingham.

In describing the downfall of the CP in Alabama during the war period, Kelley notes two factors. First, the anti-Communist repression led by the government and labor bureaucrats. Second, the betrayal by the black middle-class (and emphasizes the NAACP) in not defending black workers and farmers who were politically persecuted, socially isolated, and economically affected by a witch hunt. Was it all for nothing? Absolutely not. Kelley notes that history and experiences of these struggles set the stage for a new fight. He explains that when Stokely Carmichael moved to the South in 1965 to start a voter registration drive: "The tiny band of non-violent student activists was somewhat startled when poor farmers of all ages, especially the older folk, came to meetings enthusiastic and fully armed." They learned in the 1930s that their fight for freedom came with a price and they came fully prepared in 1965 to take up that fight once more. As a last note, if you find the message of this book appealing, you should watch the film Deacons for Defense.

[Gabriella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5 stars

I am glad I read this book! Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression describes an understudied piece of Black Southern history in a manner that is easy to understand, if a bit underwhelming. While I did wish this book were written in a less dry manner, one could argue that the brave actions of these Alabama Communists don’t require conventional literary flourishes—their work is impressive all on its own.

A fitting read for Black History Month
In the preface to the 25th anniversary edition of Hammer and Hoe, Robin D.G. Kelley explains that he wrote this book to show how Black people in Alabama made Communism their own. It’s a great book to read with that goal in mind, especially during the month of February, when so many Black history celebrations ignore our more subversive political histories. Kelley celebrates the fact that not only were Black Alabamians some of the most dedicated Communist Party members, but they were often the first to express interest when the CPUSA finally came south in the 1930s.

Not only did the party speak directly to the interests of working-class Black Southerners when many other political groups (expressly the NAACP) wouldn’t, but Communist organizing also resulted in meaningful improvements of the daily lives of their members. Black farmers learned to read due to their work in the Communist Party, at a time when many of them were deprived of public K-12 education by the State of Alabama. Party work allowed people to travel in support of their unions and other organizations, and it also reshaped some of the gender norms in marriages. Of course, Party actions also tangibly improved the lives of millions of Alabamians through higher pay, worker protections, welfare reform, and more. These wins were hard-fought concessions from Alabama’s plantation and mill owners, and they were achieved thanks to countless demonstrations, strikes, and community organizing efforts—nearly all of which were led by Black members of the Communist Party.

Additionally, Hammer and Hoe explains in great detail just how serious it was to be a Communist in the 1930s and 1940s—like this was a political identity that came with a steep price. Many of the labor struggles described in this book were violently repressed, and members branded as Communist sympathizers could expect to suffer fates including eviction, firebombing, kidnapping, assault, torture, and even murder. When discussing this book with several friends, we all agreed that few people we know would have continued to push forward with their political actions, knowing there was so great a risk. Shockingly though, Kelley shows that Alabama’s party membership often increased after anti-Communist attacks, because people were eager to fight back against this violence and the system it upheld. In other words, Hammer and Hoe offers even more evidence that our ancestors were *truly* built different.

Correcting the current political record
Hammer and Hoe is instructive because it takes us back to a time that is often misunderstood, but when properly explained, can bear great relevance for our modern era. For instance, this book adds important context to modern critiques of Democrats’ nostalgia for the New Deal era. While I’ve read arguments about how the New Deal co-opted socialist policies and excluded Black Americans, I’ve never before read a book about how everyday people experienced these programs. Kelley’s description of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)’s existence in Alabama is harrowing. He shows how the agency functioned as a literal chain gang, often enslaving people without adequate or any pay, and employing “drivers” to act as twentieth-century overseers of the WPA workers.

When the book describes the fight against such tyranny, it also reveals the central role of unemployed people in Alabama’s Communist organizing during the Great Depression. Many of this era’s demonstrations were protesting the tyranny of the Red Cross and welfare rolls, with local unemployed councils taking on a leading role in this fight. In later years, unemployed councils actually taught the labor and farmer unions various eviction defense tactics they could use when they were on strike. I think this is another important historical correction, and one that made me think about how my support of social causes is perhaps too focused on people are fighting against their employers or landlords, and what I could do to learn from and support people fighting on entirely different (broader?) terms.

Finally, as a planner, I learned a lot from Kelley’s criticism of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). Alabama Communists put particular efforts into fighting against this New Deal-era law, which had disastrous implications for sharecroppers, wage workers, and tenant farmers:

“Congress and President Roosevelt attempted to reinvigorate the country's dying cotton economy with the [Agricultural Adjustment Act]…Southern sharecroppers were supposed to receive one-ninth of the [AAA] benefit checks, but in most cases they received nothing since local planters controlled distribution of parity payments. Moreover, landlords used the Gin Tax Act as a lever to obtain their tenants’ cotton.…most planters did not have to engage in fraud in order to benefit from New Deal policies. They merely reallocated land, evicted redundant tenants, and applied the cash subsidies to wages rather than sharing it with their tenants. New Deal policies, therefore, indirectly stimulated a structural change in the cotton economy—the mechanization of agriculture.” (53-54)

When I read about how the AAA benefits intended to provide relief for sharecroppers never actually made it down to them, I immediately saw how little we have progressed in this area today. In 2020, many PPP loans went to business owners who fired their employees and pocketed the money for themselves, and far too much rental assistance was paid out to landlords who still evicted their tenants. So many of our current emergency aid systems still make it way too easy for the owning class to steal even the scraps of relief offered by the government.

Place is important here, too
I also enjoyed how Hammer and Hoe focused on Birmingham as an industrial Southern town, distinct from the colonial and antebellum-era cities. Many of the booming population centers of the I-85 corridor—Greenville, Charlotte, Durham—share Birmingham’s industrial history and growth patterns, and I’m more familiar with these places. Kelley actually mentions one of Charlotte’s satellite towns, Gastonia, by name for its labor history. As someone whose childhood church is directly across the street from one of the town’s largest textile mills, this was a particularly cool call-out. Gastonia has such a powerful labor history around the mills, but this history is not celebrated as much as it should be. Back to the point, I thought Kelley did a really good job of casting Birmingham as a novel sort of Southern city, and showing the possibilities its growth pattern created for the Communist Party.

Hammer and Hoe pays homage to Alabama’s urban labor movements without at all leaving out the state’s rural workers. Kelley’s description of the Sharecroppers’ Union (SCU) was one of my favorite parts of this entire book, particularly in Chapter 2. He shows that in many cases, Black rural farmers were some of the first members of the Alabama Communist Party, in some cases because their current working conditions were so abysmal. The SCU was an all-Black organization that was more explicit about its Communist values than many other political groups, and this militancy directly resulted in its success as a vehicle that could meaningfully meet the needs of its members. I was awed by the SCU’s creativity in coordinating cotton picking strikes across multiple plantations, all through an underground network. In these sections, Kelley makes the clearest connection to the varying forms of revolt, resistance, and escape that these Communists’ enslaved ancestors would’ve enacted just a few generations earlier.

Staying ready so you don’t have to get ready
So much of this book feels hard to not just read about, but take lessons from. As I’ve described earlier, Kelley is describing a group of people with a level of bravery and commitment that is nearly unfathomable to me. Some of this, certainly, is because of my class position. All of the organizations described in Hammer and Hoe were led by working-class individuals, with scant support (and often direct competition) from Black middle-class organizations. However, Kelley does show how some Black lawyers, teachers, business owners, and preachers supported party members, and a few brief periods where Black organizations joined in the work of the Communist Party. This seems like the sort of thing I could aspire to, instead of just throwing my hands up and saying “I’ll never be like that.”

I also think some of the lessons about the individual Party members themselves are relevant to all people. Many of the union members were known for being “community people” in all ways—they were active in their local churches, in arts groups, and their neighborhoods well before the Communist Party came along. I think that’s a sign that being connected to others, in whatever ways I can, makes it easier to connect politically when those opportunities arise. I can often be socially anxious, conflict avoidant, and generally keep to myself. It’s encouraging to know that working on my conflict resolution skills, and taking a few more steps each month to connect with the people around me, can put me on the path to greater actions in the future.

Finally, Hammer and Hoe includes lots of scattered notes about how physical preparation allowed Black Alabamians to become so essential to Communist activity. Many people were skilled in gardening, sewing, and other underappreciated skills that enabled them to resist the bosses’ threats of retaliation. I think about how many people I know would be much more willing to participate in a strike if they knew that losing their jobs wouldn’t keep them from being able to feed or clothe themselves and their families. That is something that just a few generations ago, most of our ancestors knew how to do! The fact that there are many groups trying to make that a reality in our current times is another encouraging point for me coming out of this book.

Final thoughts and other recommendations
I definitely learned a bunch from Hammer and Hoe, but I do wish that I enjoyed it more as a reader. Kelley basically writes this book as a series of separate academic articles, and it does require a bit of effort from the reader to connect the pieces and missing context (for instance, I had to separately research the Popular Front and Nazi-Soviet Pact to understand some of the later chapters.) I wanted him to spend a bit more time “landing the plane” in the epilogue, instead of speeding through the Party’s wartime decline period so hastily.

I do have to give Kelley credit, because for an academic text, Hammer and Hoe is relatively accessible (outside of his irritating choice to never explain abbreviations in the actual chapters, instead opting for a glossary at the front of the book.) However, while Kelley doesn’t make it hard to understand the information, he makes it hard to *feel* strongly about this information. I think a more literary-minded editor could have helped Hammer and Hoe be written in a way that mirrored how moving these times really were. It wouldn’t have taken much more effort for this story to really jump off the page, and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t.

If readers are looking for a more emotionally-stirring story about this information, you actually can find some of it in a childhood favorite for many of us. During the first few chapters of Hammer and Hoe, I was struck by how much of this information called to mind the union subplot in Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor. In addition to a potential reread of that one, my next stop on this Black Southern Communist reading train will be Things of Dry Hours, a play that Kelley actually recommends in his introductory comments. Until then, I would recommend Hammer and Hoe to people seeking to learn more about this part of our history, as long as they are patient with the writing. 😊

[danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, well, the fact that it took me three years to finish this should be taken as a reflection on me, not the book! I've been wanting to read Robin Kelley for a long time, and this book in particular - about the incredible history of black communists in Alabama in the thirties - felt particularly important for this period in my life (some of my friends will recognize this quote, but it bears reiterating: "Ain't no foreign country in the world foreign as Alabama to a New Yorker. They know all about England, maybe, France, never met one who knew 'Bama.' - anonymous black Communist, 1945"). As a New Yorker moving to the Deep South and Alabama in particular, I can't emphasize how important it was to have my narrative of this region and this state un- and then re-learned (of course, still in progress).

While Robin Kelley is a masterful writer, and injects a lot more detail into the plot than other social or economic historians might, this is clearly a rigorous, academic work (with all of the attendant ease of reading implications). Part of me wishes that I had encountered it in college in a class, because I think I'd be able to analyze the historical arguments and the critical context a lot better (and that this review would be more incisive). At the same time, I don't think this book would have the same resonance if I had not been living in Alabama, spending time driving through Ensley and Bessemer and Hope Hull and the other industrial and rural locales that are the setting for much of the story of this book.

One of the most common observations made about Montgomery and Alabama by transplants and visitors is that the history of the state is present everywhere - be that the Selma-Montgomery trail, the Dexter Parsonage, or any of the many other civil rights sites in the state. That is certainly true, but encountering this text is a good reminder that what is visible is at best a limited set of historical narratives. Even in the historical work done by places like EJI, this history - of violent repression of communist organizing, of black moderate opposition to the radical civil rights demands of poor black communists, and of racism within the trade unions - is not elevated.

While I've said a lot about the particular Alabama resonances of this book, I would also recommend it to lefty friends with no experience in the South! The actual progression of the book is a fascinating history of shifting priorities of the Communist Party, the ways it interacted with and was shaped by local political culture, and the ways in which attempts at joining broad-based political coalitions with more moderate left and liberal organizations ultimately undermined and helped lead to the demise of a more radical, exciting brand of politics.

One last comment about this book as a work of history is that it impressively decenters specific leaders and organizations, to the extent that I will probably not recall many names if you asked me in a year (perhaps with the exception of Hosea Hudson, Mine Mill, SCU, etc). While this could be frustrating at times in the book - because it reads narratively, you're inclined to invest in the leaders and orgs that are introduced - I think it's an ultimately successful technique at sketching out a history that has more to do with localized contexts, fleeting kinds of collectivity, and temporary bouts of radical energy than it does with specific characters.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense and thorough history of communism in 1930s Alabama, which is necessarily also a history of Black resistance and intra-racial class politics. Assiduously researched and clearly written, if a little dry.

[anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

goes into great detail, based mostly on primary sources, offers an incredible story full of names & anecdotes. and yet unfortunately that's simultaneously its weak point: it's so focused on the small facts, it struggles with grabbing the reader's attention. also definitely written for an audience who's already familiar with the time period - doesn't spare any time to explain some of the big things.

really, this is the only problem with reading nonfiction: a lot of the time people who are amazing scholars, aren't very good writers...

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a key text in understanding the long term fall of Jim Crow and the continued resistance to white supremacy in the years before the Civil Rights era. It details how the oppositional nature of the Communist Party in the early 1930s made it a mostly African-American organization in Alabama, coupled with the construction of the Sharecroppers Union. The repression against the CP in Alabama was brutal and naked in violence. Interestingly, when the party switched to the Popular Front model, which led it to become very influential in the booming labor movement throughout the country, it had the opposite effect in Alabama, where allying with liberals meant allying with white supremacists. This led black members to leave the CP to focus on CIO organizing (where the CP had hard roots in the rest of the country.) The generational memory of Communist organizing in Alabama was striking to later civil rights workers, who noticed that older black citizens had militant organizing experience. A must read.

[Cool_guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing piece of scholarship. Robin Kelley has unearthed the crucial and largely forgotten role the Alabama Communist Party played in maintaining the fight for black freedom during the grim years of Jim Crow and the Great Depression.

I felt all the usual frustrations that I normally do whenever I read about the Communist Party during this period. In Alabama as in the rest of the country, the Party struggled to keep up with the shifting demands of the leadership in New York and Moscow. Nonetheless, Kelley argues, despite its many permutations, the Party played an essential, if hidden and hard to trace, role in laying the groundwork for the southern civil rights battles which came at the end of the 1950s.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote recently in a review that "Detroit: I Do Mind Dying" was the best book I had read in 2016. "Hammer and Hoe" gives it a run for its money. The year 2016 is a dark, bleak time for the left all over the world, but especially in the United States. These two books gave me life. They made me feel for a brief time that another world was indeed possible, and for that I can't thank Robin Kelley enough!

[Grant Stover · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I’ve read all year.

The author shows that there was an organized group of black workers who viewed the Communist Party as integral to their own community. There are examples of black workers in Alabama who say they were so shocked when they went to their first party meeting, because it was the first time they ever saw a white man in a black man’s home. And it was the first time where they saw black workers talk with white people in general on an equal footing.

And he throws in a few really good examples of how white communists were so afraid of being seen as white chauvinists that they would often hide criticism from their black comrades because their black comrades were ready to attack them as chauvinists, racists, klan members haha. And this one white organizer complained about how his co-worker, who was black, was not doing his job. The party made him apologize to the black organizer and say he’s sorry for white chauvinism influencing him. It’s really incredible because this is at the same time that the Klan was organized within local governments, police, etc. So the fact that, in any organization, a black person could hold power in a formal way, even if they weren’t doing their job, was revolutionary.

It also shows how a more nuanced view of stalin from the point of view of black workers in america is necesssary. I’ve always seen stalin as counter-revolutionary, so it’s very weird to hear about black workers seeing him, at the very least, as similar to Lincoln, and of course, as the rightful heir to Marxism and Leninism. Stalin offered to send troops to Mobile, AL in a propaganda campaign outlining racism in the US. Black Alabama communists got to visit moscow with other party members in the late 20s/early 30s and they talk about being treated as equal members of society. So whatever was wrong with the soviet union. you can’t say anything like that about the US at that time, especially alabama.

He also talks about the failures of the USSR and their political positions on international politics, especially with regard to the popular front, democratic front, and WWII. Overall it’s just enlightening to hear about the civil rights movement led to the Official civil rights movement.

Just imagine being black in alabama, not having food to eat, not being able to read or write, and working in the steel mill since the age of 12. I think I’d go listen to some organizer read the communist manifesto and the Daily Worker (the communist party’s newspaper) out loud in hidden forests and sympathetic churches too.

This book should be mandatory for any good revolutionary. I wish I read it earlier.

[Dana Sweeney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly excellent, excavating history of the Communist Party and radical politics in Alabama between 1929 and 1941. Who knew that communists had such a strong foothold in Alabama? I’ve lived in Alabama for my entire adult life, and I certainly didn’t. I am deeply familiar with many of the places described in the book, where strikes, study groups, mutual aid collectives, and more are detailed to have formed. I travel these cities and towns and fields so often, and this amazing, radical history has apparently been present all this time, just out of my view. It is surreal and fortifying to establish a connection with the people and movements who precede us through this book. I’m that way, it is a very rewarding read. The book has greatly expanded my view of the amazing people and movements born in Alabama.

One star is deducted because the book is (I must admit) quite dry. Kelley is extremely granular in his accounts of the people, campaigns, and processes involved with the Alabama Communist Party. On the one hand, this is great scholarship: it is a phenomenally detailed record and resource. On the other hand, it makes for pretty dense reading at times, so the book definitely shouldn’t be picked up lightly out of casual interest.

On the whole: it’s excellent, and I’m so glad that I finally read it. If you decide to pick it up, too, just know that it will be a demanding read to get the reward!

[kz · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book that is so zoomed in into a region that is not talked about very often and a time where most people only read what was happening in the Soviet Union and China, Hammer and Hoe has many lessons on how communists have had to organize in the United States and how much the liberal, and even the trade unionist parties would work against the communist party due to the effective anti-communist campaigns from the reactionary, right-wing side of politics, even when the communists, liberals, and trade unionists shared the same goals. Being so zoomed in though makes hard to recommend this book to many people but the people that do pick this up can find a lot relevance in the right-wing tactics that conservatives use today. I’m glad I’ve read this.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most illuminating and important part of this book for me is one that’s only briefly explored in the book’s conclusion, and that’s the through-line between radical organizing in Alabama in the 1930s and the Civil-Rights-turned-Black-Power moment there in the 1960s. Birmingham has been a primary site of Black struggle for so long we may as well deem it to be a spiritual capital of New Afrika, and it was fascinating to learn about the middle stages of that history here.

[Will Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is now one of my favorites. It's incredibly niche, but rewarding, frustrating and ultimately inspiring for anyone in Alabama who feels the need to learn another facet of the history of the work here against racism, capitalism, state repression, lynching and murders carried out by police officers.

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give this 5 stars for significance / quality of research, maybe 3–4 for readability (it can be dry). That's not a critique as much as a caution. I would especially recommend it to organizers to read with each other in a discussion group, but absolutely everyone should know this history.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book really changed how I think about the role of race & class in political struggle. Feels like required reading for US leftists, or anyone curious about US history and a time where revolution was possible here.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

kind of a dry read, but still super interesting to learn about!

[Marc Gonzalez]

A very rich history with a lot to teach. This book feels very niche, but I think the lessons about coalition building, leftist politics, and building a movement across different barriers is still incredibly poignant, and a lesson I feel many leftist spaces still need to heed.

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for anyone who is an organizer in the US South.

[Ai Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really a delight. I strongly recommend getting the 25th-anniversary edition if you can find it, because my #1 favorite part was in that (a quotation from Lemon Johnson--god it was so good, ahh.) In a lot of ways, this is definitely a product of its time; it reads just like an old-school labor history book, and it can be very easy to get lost amid all the names and acronyms (and Kelley for some reason decided to just dive into those and not do like a first-reference full name thing, which was a Choice for sure) but also it's an incredible story of Black radical politics and Black folks doing what they can and organizing to survive. WITH added 'well-meaning white Communists fucking up' which is my favorite genre. Overall a great read, and a deep reminder of what I love about history.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When I asked Mr. Johnson how the [sharecroppers’] union succeeded in winning some of their demands, without the slightest hesitation he reached into the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a dog-eared copy of V.I. Lenin’s What Is to Be Done and a box of shotgun shells, set both firmly on the bed next to me, and said ‘Right thar, theory and practice. That’s how we did it. Theory and practice’.”

Hammer and Hoe is an incredible and deeply moving history of the communist movement in Alabama in the 1930s, a period that is often ignored but was an important precursor to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and much of the Civil Rights Movement. Robin D. G. Kelley highlights many of the struggles the Communist Party engaged in, such as forming a Sharecroppers' Union amidst harsh conditions and brutal, white supremacist repression, organizing and advocating for racial equality in industrial unions, and building mass movements against police brutality, lynchings, and racist frame-ups such as the Scottsboro Boys. The book also recounts the leading role women played in the movement, as well as the efforts within the Party to practice full social equality at a time when even many progressive organizations weren’t integrated. Importantly, Hammer and Hoe also emphasizes the ways the Communist Party in Alabama—primarily composed of poor Black farmers and workers—fused the unique traditions of Southern resistance, especially Christianity, with international struggles. There are so many relevant lessons for organizers today in this text (especially around the mistakes of the Popular Front period), and the book is an important reminder that the U.S. has a rich history of revolutionary struggle to draw from and take inspiration in!

[Nathaniel Flakin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was recommended to me while we were reporting on the unionization drive in Bessemer, Alabama, which has a much longer history of worker militancy than people realize. I had never heard of communists in Alabama. In fact, if you had asked me a few months ago, I would have guessed the Communist Party never had more than half a dozen members. What a shock to discover a movement of thousands of poor Black workers and sharecroppers, alongside a few white radicals, fighting for liberation! The Communist Party represented a working-class alternative to the tepid reformist politics of the NAACP, and at times had much more support. It was only when the Communist International switched to popular front politics in the second half of the 1930s, courting the support of Southern liberals and joining the NAACP, that the party lost much of its militant base. What stands out about this book is the unimaginable amount of research: every page is backed up by interviews, newspapers, leaflets, archival material, FBI reports, and academic research. The incredible level of detail, however, also makes for a challenging read. I like how Kelly presents Alabamian Communism as a fusion of a global program for socialist revolution with local traditions of Black resistance. There are lots of lessons to be drawn here: the incredible spirit of sacrifice needed to build up a revolutionary movement — but also how heroism can be squandered by politics oriented to the Democratic Party (or to a Stalinist bureaucracy). My favorite scene is from the preface, in which a veteran communist presents a copy of Lenin's "What Is To Be Done" and a box of shotgun shells: "Theory and practice!" he calls them

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s pretty fun to watch people’s reactions when I tell them I’m reading a book about Communists in Alabama during the Great Depression. There’s such bewilderment on their faces until they eventually get to the question … why?

Because it’s our history damn it! Granted it’s a short history but it’s interesting.

I recognize this is incredible research. Its presentation could have made that research easier to consume. I would have organized it in around some of the key players as they moved through the 30’s and early 40’s rather than the organizations. There’s so much change and so many abbreviations. It also could have used a map of who was where, what industries, what organizations, etc. But as you read a few chapters it becomes a series of repeating events with different names and groups.
• Black people are under paid, mistreated, and murdered/lynched.
• Communists try to bring relief or gain justice.
• Black people become Communists.
• But no one can say they are Communists because so many people hate Communists because Communists say blacks and white should be equal.
• Communists prop up or start other organizations to help workers and blacks.
• They have relative success.
• Whites go on a purge.
• [REPEAT]

It’s incredible people even tried to do this. The audacity to think you could have ANY success. And that they achieve some success is miraculous.

It’s a tough read because there are so many details rather than a central story that follows a few people. But that’s life, and this is non-fiction. You don’t want real life, I’m sure you can find a Dan Brown paperback on a random shelf somewhere waiting to be recycled.

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

A really fascinating history of the Black communist tradition in Alabama. It’s very interesting to me, but also understandable, that a lot of the communists in this region happened to be Black. Kelley writes of “the largest Communist-led demonstration in Alabama's history, attracting an overwhelmingly black crowd of five to seven thousand” and periods when the communist party had “earned a reputation as a “race” organization”

Kelley writes:

“The Central Committee of the CPUSA chose Birmingham, the center of heavy industry in the South, as headquarters for the newly established District 17, encompassing Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi… Through Giglio, Johnson met with black TCI workers in Ensley, an industrial suburb of Birmingham, and subsequently recruited the first Communist Party unit at a street-corner meeting in a black section of town. The Party even opened an office downtown (2117!/2 Second Ave. North), though its presence was brief. A few weeks later, on March 23, 1930, the TUUL held its first mass meeting. Some two hundred participants, about three-quarters of whom were black, piled into the Joy Boys Dance Hall in downtown Birmingham to hear speeches by Giglio, Tom Johnson, and Walter Lewis, a newly recruited black steel worker from Montgomery. The meeting went without incident, but within days Giglio's home was firebombed.”

I’ve been meaning to read this book for a few years after hearing it mentioned on The Magnificast, but glad I finally got around to it this year.

I loved this little glimpse into Kelley’s conversation with Lemon Johnson (who was part of the communist organized Share Croppers Union) shared early on in the book:

“He told stories about the 1935 cotton pickers’ strike, Stalin’s pledge to send troops to Mobile to help black sharecroppers if things got out of hand, and the night a well-armed group of women set out to avenge their comrades who had been beaten or killed during the strike. When I asked Mr. Johnson how the union succeeded in winning some of their demands, without the slightest hesitation he reached into the drawer of the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a dog-eared copy of V. I. Lenin’s What Is to Be Done and a box of shotgun shells, set both firmly on the bed next to me, and said, “Right thar, theory and practice. That’s how we did it. Theory and practice.””

At the time Kelley wrote Hammer and Hoe, this field was a fairly understudied aspect of American history, with only a handful of books that he mentions in the preface: “Theodore Rosengarten’s 1974 oral narrative All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw, and Nell Irvin Painter’s The Narrative of Hosea Hudson”

In this book, Kelley writes quite a lot on Black communist women who played very central roles within the movement. The section on Esther Cooper Jackson was particularly enjoyable to read. This is an excerpt on her getting involved in communist politics while participating in the Student Christian Association:

“Graduating in 1938, Cooper continued her studies at Fisk—at the behest of distinguished social scientist Charles S. Johnson—to pursue an M.A. degree in sociology. There she met a small coterie of Communist professors, mostly white, who brought her into their inner circle. One in particular invited her into “a little ‘Anne Frank’-type room at the back of his house where he lifted up the curtains and it was just full of books by Marx, Lenin, [and] the Communist International.” As her relationship with radical faculty grew, so did her interest in Communism: before leaving Fisk she joined the Communist Party. Meanwhile, she remained active in student politics, joining the Student Christian Association and attending SNYC's historic Birmingham conference in 1939. By the time Cooper graduated in 1940, she was highly regarded for her scholarly as well as political endeavors. Her master's thesis on domestic workers and unions captured the attention of renowned sociologist Robert Park, who offered her a scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. under his direction at the University of Chicago. ”

The stuff Kelley wrote on religion was likely my favourite part of this book. Kelley writes: “I came to understand why the Bible was more important in challenging the dominant ideology than, say, Marx or Lenin.”

Kelley later in the book writes:

“Nearly all black rank-and-file Party members attended church regularly, and in Montgomery black Communists initiated the ironic (and short-lived) practice of opening their meetings with a prayer.40 The Bible was as much a guide to class struggle as Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto; rank-and-file black Communists and supporters usually saw nothing contradictory in combining religion and politics. Communist “agents” told Alabamians, John Garner remembers, the same thing that “Jesus Christ himself told us”: that “our burden was gonna be heavy like this.” Angelo Herndon initially interpreted the struggle in biblical terms. While at an unemployed meeting, he was reminded of a phrase popular among black folks: “And the day shall come when the bottom rail shall be on top and the top rail on the bottom. The Ethiopians will stretch forth their arms and find their place under the sun.”41

The mass meetings and oratory describing the possibilities of a future without masters or slaves may have also paralleled the church experience. “The conversion of the masses to Communism is an emotional conversion,” wrote a black Baltimore minister in 1933. “They are shouting happy over what Communism has done for them, and praising God for what they expect it to do. . . .” ”

Maybe the most interesting little tidbit I gathered was a mention of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) in Kelley’s book:

“Malcolm Cotton Dobbs, a Communist minister who had joined the staff in early August. Nicknamed “Tex” for his native state, the twenty-three-year-old activist had already earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from St. Lawrence University, studied at Union Theological Seminary, and worked for the Student Christian Movement.”

Communists mingling about the ranks of SCM is a tradition that’s still alive and well today I am happy to report. Great book that’s a springboard into a lot of fascinating nooks of American communist history.

[Mitra · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible, invaluable, beautiful

[counter-hegemonicon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very comprehensive history of a somewhat peripheral Black liberation movement that hasn’t gotten enough attention. I I would say a bit too granular in scope and leaves out some narratives that the author assumes to be common knowledge, though not to younger generations, namely US communist reactions to the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact