Challenge of Interracial Unionism: Alabama Coal Miners, 1878-1921, The

The Challenge of Interracial Unionism: Alabama Coal Miners, 1878-1921. By Daniel Letwin. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. xxi, 289 pp. $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8078-2377-5. $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8078-4678-3.

In this much-awaited book Daniel Letwin fulfills the promise to investigate the dynamic relationship between class and race in the coalfields and coal towns of Alabama. Moving beyond simple formulations of "hostility to solidarity" (p. 2), Letwin argues convincingly that relations between black and white coal miners were far more complex. Time and again Alabama coal miners evinced a remarkable solidarity but one that was "constrained by the Jim Crow order" (p. 6). Throughout the period under study the coalfield workforce was evenly balanced along racial lines. In the early days of coal-mining development, relations between black and white miners never conformed to one standard. Rather they represented an amalgam of attitudes, representations, and actions. Miners remained consistently united, however, by two persistent notions: their identity as coal miners and their understanding of the need for collective action. As each political movement washed through their lives, whether it was the Greenback-Labor Party or the Knights of Labor, Alabama coal miners recognized their mutual interests and organized accordingly. Interestingly, the one time when an issue of "us" versus "them" arose was when coal operators imported immigrant workers from the North. A similar antipathy was displayed toward convict labor.

In the heat of battle, most notably during strikes, black and white coal miners repeatedly exhibited a common stand for economic justice. True, strains were evident when black sensibilities were ignored. Few black miners held leadership positions at the level of president of the union local. Surprisingly, some black miners welcomed such white control on the pragmatic grounds that the coal operator would more likely negotiate in good faith with a white union leadership. In the strikes of 1894, 1907, and 1921, Alabama's coal miners stood together and battled both white and black strikebreakers and convict labor. Letwin distinguishes these strikes from one another by the differing employer strategies. During the 1894 conflict, coal operator Henry DeBardeleben recruited black strikebreakers to encourage racial animosity between black and white strikers. Such a strategy failed, but the use of the National Guard and convict labor did defeat the strike. As the United Mine Workers (UMW ) reorganized the miners into District 20 during the first decade of the twentieth century, it provided some resistance to Jim Crow segregation. After Birmingham merchants in 1901 objected to the black presence at District 20's convention, the UMW removed itself to Bessemer in protest until an apology was made; "Before long, the merchants did" (p. 132). District 20, however, generally avoided any direct challenge to segregation. As Letwin points out, its interracialism "was highly qualified, often cramped, at times circumscribed" (p. 134).

The 1907 and 1921 strikes shattered the union's limited interracial collaboration. In addition to importing strikebreakers, convicts, gunmen, and the National Guard, the operators also warned against the prospect for "racial mixing" or "social equality" (p. 148). Utilizing the services of Birmingham's newspapers, companies described the union and strikers as engaging in dangerous liaisons. As one reporter put it, "White women and black women meeting on the basis of Social equality indeed! White men holding umbrellas over black speakers! Black men addressing white men as `brother'! . . . It is monstrous" (p. 148). Such diatribes placed the UMW and the strikers on the defensive and encouraged the state to respond violently. Shot at by Black Belt guardsmen, their tent colonies torched, the strikers were forced to admit defeat. By the end of 1921 District 20 was a mere shell, and the strikers' only options were to leave the district (which they did in large numbers) or to accept virtual peonage.

Letwin's study is firmly grounded in the labor history that attaches race to the very meaning of working-class life. Rather than presenting a series of static actors, with few roles to play other than as heroes or villains, Letwin provides a nuanced picture of working-class life that at times transcended racial stereotypes. Nevertheless, the book leaves the reader with questions. Letwin suggests that after each strike defeat much of the workforce was replaced by strikebreakers. What does this say about class formation when each replacement workforce eventually takes on the same management that offered employment during previous conflicts? Moreover, who constituted these changing workforces? How many of them were remaining strikers, and where did the replacement workers come from in Alabama?

My questions must not, however, detract from a marvelous study. Letwin shows, with admirable documentation, the tortured but outstanding attempts at biracial unionism by Alabama coal miners. Indeed, even though they suffered defeat, such a legacy would nurture a further upsurge of union activity in the 1930s. Unlike earlier attempts, the movement of the I930s has survived and prospered to this day. What Letwin shows above all is how both black and white miners transcended the racial norms of their time and embarked on a campaign of economic and, at times, social justice.

COLIN J. DAVIS

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Copyright University of Alabama Press Jul 2000
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