"'Organize the South!': Black Workers for Justice and Black Political Power in North Carolina, 1980s-1990s" - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2023

"'Organize the South!': Black Workers for Justice and Black Political Power in North Carolina, 1980s-1990s"

Résumé

This paper examines the re-appropriation of electoral politics in the 1980s and 1990s by Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ) – a radical grassroots Black labor organization founded in Rocky Mount, North Carolina in 1982. The organization was at the forefront of Black labor organizing in the state from the 1980s on, in a context of renewed activism to resist the rampant deindustrialization and extremely anti-union environment of the state. BWFJ saw the achievement of Black political power through both increased unionization and electoral representation thanks to voting power at the local, state and national level as necessary for the emancipation of the Black working class in the South and therefore as an integral part of the Black freedom movement. The articulation of race, class and the specificity of the South was very much at the center of their work as they saw organizing southern Black workers as the key to Black liberation in the country at large and one of the unachieved goals of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Studying the history of the organization can help to better understand the evolution of the long Black freedom movement in North Carolina in the 1980s and 1990s at the intersection of the history of the labor movement, Black politics and voting rights activism in that state. Using some of the organization’s archives, its newspaper and interviews with members of the organization, this paper will explore BWFJ’s efforts to achieve political representation at various levels and to create an independent political platform for Black workers, thereby contributing to the conference’s reflections on both the articulation of class, race and space in the US South and the history of the interactions between labor, social and political movements in the South.
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Dates et versions

hal-04628489 , version 1 (28-06-2024)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04628489 , version 1

Citer

Anissa Khamkham. "'Organize the South!': Black Workers for Justice and Black Political Power in North Carolina, 1980s-1990s". International Conference. Class, Race and Place in the US South: American Politics through the Lens of Michael Goldfield's Work, IMAGER (Université Paris-Est Créteil) and CREW (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), Feb 2023, Paris, France. ⟨hal-04628489⟩
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