Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity Book Talk and Reception
Workers’ Rights Institute at Georgetown Law (WRI) is delighted to invite you to a book talk, discussion, and reception featuring Cedric de Leon, Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He will discuss his forthcoming book, “Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity.”
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. 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.
This talk is presented for the Democratizing Work Colloquium, taught by Professor Jamillah Bowman Williams and hosted in collaboration with the Workers’ Rights Institute.