Extend Your Learning
Historical Interpretations
In this session, you looked at the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and its role in a national struggle for civil rights. In the years that followed the decision, Birmingham, Alabama, became one of the central battlegrounds of the Civil Rights Movement.
Dr. Horace Huntley, University of Alabama - Birmingham and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, reflects on the connections between the labor and civil rights struggles in Birmingham:
"Birmingham is a post-Civil War city and has no antebellum past. It came into being during the Jim Crow era and matured along with the 'separate but equal' doctrine that ensued from the United States Supreme Court decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896. In the 1890s there was interracial cooperation among workers in the locals of the United Mine Workers of America and the Western Federation of Miners. If these labor organizations could have retained their thrust of equitable racial associations, the city possibly would not have degenerated to the abyss of the racial divide.
"Birmingham's civil rights and labor histories have always been closely connected and have called up many of the same demons: divisiveness, fear, manipulation, terror, intimidation, illogic, and greed. In addition, class divisions, the fear of job loss and bodily harm, white manipulation of traditional black leadership, the ability of the police and the Klan to terrorize and intimidate, and the illogic of turning away half of one's clientele because they were black have set the tone for the city's history. When all else fails, racial divisiveness has always stifled social, political, and economic progress in Birmingham. The emotionalism that race brought to the labor and civil rights struggles created a disadvantage that was difficult to overcome."
This quotation is excerpted from Black Workers' Struggle for Equality in Birmingham. Horace Huntley and David Montgomery, eds. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
Present Your Historical Interpretation
Discuss with your colleagues or reflect in your journal about why you think the Civil Rights and Labor Movements were so closely connected in Birmingham at this time. What was the importance of equitable labor policies to moving civil rights forward, and vice versa?
Note: If you need to refresh your understanding of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement, particularly in relation to its labor history, check out the stories of local movement participants:
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: Online Resource Gallery
http://www.bcri.org/resource_gallery/interview_segments/ index.htm
Huntley, Horace and David Montgomery, eds. Black Workers' Struggle for Equality in Birmingham. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004.