First as Tragedy, Then as Farce
WEB Du Bois, Left-Wing Radicalism, and the Problem of Interracial Labor Unionism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2370698 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C R Melcher (0000-0003-3952-6600, Department of Sociology, The Graduate Center, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 7-8 |
| Pages | 1041-1055 |
| Publication date | 2020-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0896920519887495 |
| OpenAlex | W2996479641 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 33 |
This article identifies and systemically analyzes a 'core assumption' of WEB Du Bois's social and political thought: the assumption that class-based, interracial cooperation among white and Black workers is extremely unlikely, if not totally impossible. It is argued that this assumption undergirds and informs most of Du Bois's mature scholarship, serving as the theoretical grounding for his condemnation of the large-scale attempts to organize workers interracially on the basis of class, and explaining his uneven personal relationship with the Communist Party USA. Further, it is argued that this assumption leads Du Bois to attribute a methodologically untenable transhistoric logic to white working-class behavior, which has been adopted largely uncritically by contemporary analysts of white supremacy in the USA. The untenability of this Du Boisian logic is illustrated through historical analysis of interracial labor unionism, emphasizing the instances of interracial organization that Du Bois specifically denounced
Class conflict · Communism · Political economy · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · White supremacy · Working class · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Race, History, and American Society · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Black and red
W.E.B. Du Bois
In the Interest of Others
Prelude to the Popular Front
The Cry Was Unity
Up From Exclusion
Race Relations in the United States 1917-1947
W.E.B. Dubois
Color Line and the Assembly Line
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
Grassroots at the Gateway
Black Reconstruction in America
Defying Dixie
Du Bois's Prolific “Error” and the Break with “Color-Blind” Orthodoxy
The Southern Key
Being red and black in Jim Crow America
U.S. Union Revitalization and the Missing “Militant Minority”
Race and the CIO
Competition and solidarity
Labor Unions and Support for Redistribution in an Era of Inequality
The Harlan county coal strike of 1931
A Trade Union Oriented War on the Slums
Solidaristic Unionism and Support for Redistribution in Contemporary Europe
Death Blow to Jim Crow
Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-1921
Union House, Union Bar
Labor Rights Are Civil Rights
Cold War in the Working Class
The Production of Difference
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |