MARTIN: All Gods Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw, I remember that. One memoir by a man named Hosea Hudson and then another story in a book called All Gods Dangers which is about an African-American sharecropper. And there, I discovered a very vibrant movement that very few people wrote about, there basically are two stories. And so, I discovered the second blackest place in the world and that is Alabama. I couldnt get into South Africa in 1986 because of the state of emergency. And I was planning to do a comparative study looking at South Africa and the West South. And I wanted to know how the Communist Party organized African-Americans, particularly in places where black people were the majority.Īnd so, at first, my study took me to South Africa. I became interested in this as a doctorate dissertation back in the mid-80s when I was very active in other social movements in actually in the L.A. And this is a story that actually predates the civil rights movement as we know it, going back to the 1930s. MARTIN: How did you get interested in this topic? And as I mentioned, it is a sensitive topic because there are those, for decades, whove worked to tamp down the suggestion that anybody in the civil rights movement was attracted to the Communist Party at all. Professor ROBIN KELLEY (American History, University of Oxford Author, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression): Thanks, Michel. And this semester, hes the Harmsworth Professor of American History at the University of Oxford. Hes a professor of American studies and history at the University of Southern California. It documents how the Communist Party worked to secure racial, economic and political justice. Now, thats a sensitive subject since those working for equality have often been accused of being communist in this country, but some were.Īnd were joined now by Robin Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Today, we want to hear about communists in the civil rights movement. Throughout this Black History Month, we have been focusing on new news about black history, new scholarship that has emerged in recent decades that sheds new light on the story of black people in America. Well talk about her provocative collection of essays in a few minutes.īut first, we continue our Black History Month series of conversations. Writer Rebecca Walker wanted to capture the many new faces of the American family. Im Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.Ĭoming up, whats going on in your house? But it doesnt look like the set of Leave It to Beaver.

Robin kelley hammer and hoe