Freedom Train - by Cedric de Leon

Book Synopsis

Revealing the central role of Black activists in spurring interracial solidarity in the U.S. labor movement.

Most accounts of interracial solidarity focus on white union activists. In Freedom Train, Cedric de Leon, a former organizer and elected leader in the U.S. labor movement, argues that we can't comprehend the history of workers' triumphs in the United States without investigating the role of Black liberation. This book shows that, from Reconstruction to the years immediately following the March on Washington and beyond, independent Black labor organizations have pushed the white labor movement toward a fierce and effective interracial solidarity.

Drawing on the minutes, correspondence, and speeches of Black labor activists and organizations from 1917 to 1968, de Leon shows that Black people have been the most ardent and consistent proponents of racial inclusion, leadership representation, and programs linking economic and racial justice. He also demonstrates how conflict and consensus among Black labor groups fueled the fight for solidarity, as different factions split and consolidated to form successive and sometimes competing Black labor organizations. Freedom Train centers the contributions of Black people to the multiracial unions we have today and demonstrates that internal conflict can be a source of strategic innovation and social movement success.

From the Back Cover

"Freedom Train is a timely contribution to our understanding of the role of Black labor activism in advancing the movement for racial and economic justice. Cedric de Leon complicates the popular narrative of a 'golden age' of labor organizing centered on the rise of the AFL-CIO. He demonstrates instead that independent Black labor organizing--beginning with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the African Blood Brotherhood in the 1920s--was a key driver of the push for racial justice in the labor movement. As Black elites rise to higher positions of mainstream electoral power, Freedom Train provides lessons in how to ensure that they are accountable to the Black working class."--Steven Pitts, cofounder of the National Black Worker Center

"De Leon does what few historians have in centering the Black worker as a player both in the politics of the Black Freedom Movement and in organized labor. This is a remarkable work and one that will be of critical importance to trade unionists and Black freedom activists."--Bill Fletcher Jr., activist, coauthor of Solidarity Divided, and author of "They're Bankrupting Us!" And Twenty Other Myths about Unions

About the Author

Cedric de Leon is Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.