Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor SolidarityRevealing the central role of Black activists in spurring interracial solidarity in the U.S. labor movement. Most accounts of interracial solidarity focus on white union activists. In Freedom Train, Cedric de Leon, a former organizer and elected leader in the U.S. labor movement, argues that we can't comprehend the history of workers' triumphs in the United States without investigating the role of Black liberation. This book shows that, from Reconstruction to the years immediately following the March on Washington and beyond, independent Black labor organizations have pushed the white labor movement toward a fierce and effective interracial solidarity. Drawing on the minutes, correspondence, and speeches of Black labor activists and organizations from 1917 to 1968, de Leon shows that Black people have been the most ardent and consistent proponents of racial inclusion, leadership representation, and programs linking economic and racial justice. He also demonstrates how conflict and consensus among Black labor groups fueled the fight for solidarity, as different factions split and consolidated to form successive and sometimes competing Black labor organizations. Freedom Train centers the contributions of Black people to the multiracial unions we have today and demonstrates that internal conflict can be a source of strategic innovation and social movement success. |
Contents
The Brotherhoods | 22 |
The Congress and the March | 69 |
A Philip Randolph | 123 |
DomingoMoore debate | 124 |
Grace Campbell | 125 |
Claude McKay | 126 |
Lucille Green Randolph | 127 |
John P Davis | 128 |
Ewart Guinier | 132 |
Frank Crosswaith | 133 |
Vicki Garvin | 134 |
Bayard Rustin | 135 |
The Council and the Committee | 136 |
The March Triumphant | 185 |
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle | 240 |
Acknowledgments | 273 |
Thelma Dale | 129 |
Negro Freedom Rally 1944 | 130 |
Negro Freedom Rally 1945 | 131 |
Bibliography | 305 |
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Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity Cedric de Leon No preview available - 2025 |
Common terms and phrases
activists AFL-CIO African Blood Brotherhood American Federation American Labor Council Anderson APRP Bayard Rustin Black civil society Black community Black labor organizations Black Trade Unionists Black women Black workers Blow to Jim Brotherhood of Sleeping called campaign CBTU civil rights coalition Coleman Young Communist Crosswaith Cry Was Unity Cyril Briggs Davis Death Blow delegates Detroit discrimination dolph employment Ewart Guinier FEPC fight Folder on March Foner founding convention Gellman Harlem hiring Hood industry interracial solidarity Jim Crow labor movement leaders leadership March on Washington militant NAACP NALC National Negro Congress National Negro Labor Negro American Labor Negro Labor Council Negro workers NNLC organized labor Party Philip Randolph political Press Pullman Rachelle Horowitz racial railroad Schomburg Sleeping Car Sleeping Car Porters strike struggle Thompson and Thompson Thompson Fullilove tion trade union Urban League Vicki Garvin Walter Reuther white workers white-led wrote