For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865

For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865

by Robert H. Zieger
For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865

For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865

by Robert H. Zieger

Paperback(New Edition)

$24.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

Whether as slaves or freedmen, the political and social status of African Americans has always been tied to their ability to participate in the nation's economy. Freedom in the post–Civil War years did not guarantee equality, and African Americans from emancipation to the present have faced the seemingly insurmountable task of erasing pervasive public belief in the inferiority of their race.

For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 describes the African American struggle to obtain equal rights in the workplace and organized labor's response to their demands. Award-winning historian Robert H. Zieger asserts that the promise of jobs was similar to the forty-acres-and-a-mule restitution pledged to African Americans during the Reconstruction era. The inconsistencies between rhetoric and action encouraged workers, both men and women, to organize themselves into unions to fight against unfair hiring practices and workplace discrimination.

Though the path proved difficult, unions gradually obtained rights for African American workers with prominent leaders at their fore. In 1925, A. Philip Randolph formed the first black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, to fight against injustices committed by the Pullman Company, an employer of significant numbers of African Americans. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) emerged in 1935, and its population quickly swelled to include over 500,000 African American workers. The most dramatic success came in the 1960s with the establishment of affirmative action programs, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title VII enforcement measures prohibiting employer discrimination based on race.

Though racism and unfair hiring practices still exist today, motivated individuals and leaders of the labor movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries laid the groundwork for better conditions and greater opportunities. Unions, with some sixteen million members currently in their ranks, continue to protect workers against discrimination in the expanding economy. For Jobs and Freedom is the first authoritative treatment in more than two decades of the race and labor movement, and Zieger's comprehensive and authoritative book will be standard reading on the subject for years to come.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813192598
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Publication date: 02/19/2010
Series: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 312
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Robert H. Zieger, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Florida, is the author of several books, including American Workers, American Unions, The CIO:1935–1950 and John L. Lewis: Labor Leader.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 The First Fruits of Freedom 9

2 Into the New Century 43

3 Great War, Great Migration 70

4 Race and Labor in Depression and War 106

5 Race and Labor in the Postwar World 139

6 Affirmative Action and Labor Action 175

7 Back to the Future 208

Notes 235

Bibliographical Essay 255

Index 267

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews