Civil Rights Unionism

“Well-researched and well-written . . . A major contribution to the current scholarship on labor history.”—American Communist History

“Korstad’s book sheds light on the decline of New Deal liberalism, the origins of the Civil Rights Movement, the development of interracial labor unions, and the coalescence of the Cold War consensus. . . . Leaves us with a richer understanding of how southern liberals fought back in the face of oppression and poverty. ”—Southern Historian

“An exceptionally rich work of scholarship.” — Journal of American History

“Piece[s] together a story that is at once compelling and powerful.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“A vitally important contribution to the fields of labor and African American history.”—New Labor Forum

“The breadth of Korstad’s work is impressive and so is his ability to incorporate the broader historical context into the narrative of the Local [22]. . . . One of the many significant aspects of Korstad’s book is that he gives voice to the neglected history of African American women in the trade union movement.”—Left History

“At the center of Korstad’s expansive but tightly knit narrative is the argument that unions represented the best hope for carrying the New Deal’s vision of economic democracy and social justice into the postwar period. The liberal, reformist atmosphere of the New Deal years provided the climate not only for the working-class activism but also for African American civil rights. . . . Provides readers [with] a solid sense of the political and economic exigencies that made African American unionization possible in the Solid South. . . . Korstad is to be applauded for illuminating the struggle of working-class African Americans to build a union movement that expressed their ambitions for so much more than a wage increase.”—Reviews in American History

“[This] well-researched analysis paints a rich portrait of the struggles of black working-class Americans for respect on and off the job.” — Winston-Salem Journal

“This book is exemplary. . . . Korstad’s research and writing exhibits all the standards of rigorous scholarship.”—Political Affairs

“To take the measure of Robert Korstad’s arguments in Civil Rights Unionism is to cast the civil rights movement in this bright new light.”—Industrial and Labor Relations Review