Race against Liberalism: Black Workers and the UAW in Detroit (Working Class in American History)

By David M. Lewis-Colman

Book Overview

Race against Liberalism examines how black worker activism in Detroit shaped the racial politics of the labor movement and the white working class. David M. Lewis-Colman traces the substantive, long-standing disagreements between liberals and the black workers who embraced autonomous race-based action. As he shows, black autoworkers placed themselves at the center of Detroit's working-class politics and sought to forge a kind of working class unity that accommodated their interests as African Americans. The book covers the independent caucuses in the 1940s and the Trade Union Leadership Council in the 1950s; the black power movement and Revolutionary Union Movements of the mid-1960s; and the independent race-based activism of the 1970s that resulted in Coleman Young's 1973 election as the city's first black mayor.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252075056
• ISBN13: 9780252075056
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"