hammer and hoe alabama communists during the great depression

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 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. He closes with a discussion of the Alabama Communist Party's demise and its legacy for future civil rights activism.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. Kelley's analysis ranges broadly, examining such topics as the Party's challenge to black middle-class leadership the social, ideological, and cultural roots of black working-class radicalism Communist efforts to build alliances with Southern liberals and the emergence of a left-wing, interracial youth movement. And because the Party's call for voting rights, racial equality, equal wages for women, and land for landless farmers represented a fundamental challenge to the society and economy of the South, it is not surprising that Party organizers faced a constant wave of violence. In the South race pervaded virtually every aspect of Communist activity. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.

Kelley shows that the cultural identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the development of the Party. It was composed largely of poor blacks, most of whom were semiliterate and devoutly religious, but it also attracted a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, iconoclastic youth, and renegade liberals. The Alabama Communist Party was built from scratch by working people who had no Euro-American radical political tradition. Sensitive to the complexities of gender, race, culture and class without compromising the political narrative, Robin Kelley illustrates one of the most unique and least understood radical movements in American history. Hammer and Hoe documents the efforts of the Alabama Communist Party and its allies to secure racial, economic, and political reforms.

Between 19, the Communist Party organized and led a radical, militantly antiracist movement in Alabama - the center of Party activity in the Depression South.

Hammer and hoe alabama communists during the great depression