Blue Texas - (Justice, Power, and Politics) by Max Krochmal (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This book is about the other Texas, not the state known for its cowboy conservatism, but a mid-twentieth-century hotbed of community organizing, liberal politics, and civil rights activism. Beginning in the 1930s, Max Krochmal tells the story of the decades-long struggle for democracy in Texas, when African American, Mexican American, and white labor and community activists gradually came together to empower the state's marginalized minorities. At the ballot box and in the streets, these diverse activists demanded not only integration but economic justice, labor rights, and real political power for all. Their efforts gave rise to the Democratic Coalition of the 1960s, a militant, multiracial alliance that would take on and eventually overthrow both Jim Crow and Juan Crow.

Using rare archival sources and original oral history interviews, Krochmal reveals the often-overlooked democratic foundations and liberal tradition of one of our nation's most conservative states. Blue Texas remembers the many forgotten activists who, by crossing racial lines and building coalitions, democratized their cities and state to a degree that would have been unimaginable just a decade earlier -- and it shows why their story still matters today.

Review Quotes

"Blue Texas is thorough, detailed, and ambitious. Deeply rooted in archival research, it tells the story of the ordinary people who came to realize over several decades that to change Texas politics they needed to build coalitions across racial divides."--Pacific Historical Review

"A historical blueprint for Texas activists. . . . [This] history of multiracial civil rights movements in Texas offers lessons for progressives in the age of Trump, one of which is that demography is not necessarily destiny."---Texas Observer

"A remarkable accomplishment in both breadth and depth of narrative and in its analytical reach."--Western Historical Quarterly

"A springboard for sharing new and desperately needed information. Bubbling over with long-forgotten names, events, and facts, this archive of Texas history will be dog-eared in advance and in hindsight of many elections to come."--Fort Worth Weekly

"An amazingly well researched contribution to comparative racial, labor, and ethnic studies and must be read by historians of Texas, labor, Mexican American, and African American history."--American Historical Review

"It would be hard to find a more timely book about Texas political history than this dive into the coalition-building that brought together African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Anglo progressives and labor activists."--Austin American-Statesman

"Krochmal has created a source base that should spawn numerous student papers, theses, and dissertations, not to mention offering many new directions for scholars of social movements, modern southern and U.S. politics, labor and working-class studies, and the modern civil rights movement. . . . Essential for graduate seminars."--Journal of Southern History

"Krochmal provides solid analysis and consistent optimism in his 421-page work. His use of sixty-six of his own oral histories, as well as many archival ones, makes Blue Texas a wonderful read."--Oral History Review

"Rewrites the history of the modern civil rights movement, organized labor, and modern southern politics . . . expanding both the geography and the scope of the 'long civil rights movement.'"--Journal of Southern History

"Well written, well researched, and cogently argued, this book is an exceptionally rich work of scholarship that utilizes rare archival sources, original interviews, and a plethora of primary and secondary sources. Krochmal's study forges new ground and may cause many to adopt his method of retelling the story of the civil rights movement. . . . A template for balancing local and state research with the national narrative. The book is a captivating, must-read for historians of postwar labor and civil rights and for union officials and community organizers."--Journal of American History