Jobs and Freedom

Abstract

May/June 2008 · Historically Speaking 25 Jobs and Freedom Robert H. Zieger My new book, For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865, traces the experiences of AfricanAmerican workers, their position within the American working class, and their relationship to the labor movement. Intended as a synthesis of the bourgeoning scholarship on this subject, it covers the post-Civil War struggles of freedmen to gain equal rights and economic opportunity , the persistence of unfree labor into the 20th century, and the complex and diverse connections between the labor movement and African-American workers during the Great Migration , the Great Depression, and World War II. It deals extensively with the role that labor issues and the labor movement played in the postwar civil rights movement and treats controversies over affirmative action extensively. The final chapters consider the impact of globalization , industrial decline, and the new immigration on both African-American workers and organized labor. They also focus attention on the role of black workers in efforts to revitalize the labor movement and to deepen the civil rights-labor political coalition that is at the heart of contemporary liberal politics. In giving presentations about the book and in discussing it widi undergraduates, one question invariably arises: "How long did it take you to write die book?" The answer, it turns out, is not so simple as might initially seem. Indeed, I find myself giving three answers: a) three years, seven months, sixteen days, nine hours, and twenty-seven minutes; b) nine years; c) my adult life (I'm almost 70). The first answer, of course, refers to the time elapsing between when I first put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and when I sent off the acknowledgments , introduction, and bibliographical essay. It bypasses all the preliminary stuff—the prospectus, the false starts, the deluded outlines, the mental jettisoning of the project on the grounds that I wasn't worthy of such an important subject. It brings me back to my litde cubicle in die documents section of die old library where for several months in the summer of 2003 I alternated between reading through the pile of books I had amassed on the post-Reconstruction political economy of the Soudi andwriting out draft paragraphs inwhich I sought to capture the drama and poignancy of 3 million newly freed Americans attempting to find their place amid bewildering economic, political, and social developments . Actually, though, when I think about it, the specific writing time embraced in the aforementioned three years, seven months, etc., figures out to only about, say, an hour-and-a-half a page. Since the book is about 300 pages long (I'm counting the index and Officers of the Tobacco Trade Union, Petersburg, Virginia, ca. 1899. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-51552]. the photos), actual writing time was 450 hours, or 11.25 forty-hour weeks spread over the three years, seven months, etc. period. Of course, as fellow historians will readily attest, writing can't be neady separated from reading and research. Writing exposes gaps of ignorance, which entail trips to the library, frantic Google searches, and hectic rummaging through one's notes. In turn, this research suggests topics orperspectives not originally consideredwhen the writing began, which in turn sends one back to the library, Internet, and note files. And so on. Let's say that the additional reading, rummaging, and searching adds an additional half-hour to each page, bringing the total to 600 hours or fifteen forty-hour weeks. So maybe the right response is to say that "The writing and associated activities consumed fifteen weeks over a three year, seven month, etc. span." But this answer seems sort of unimpressive. "If it takes only a semester's worth of work to produce a book, what is it you guys at the university do with all your time? Sure, you teach classes and you're always complaining about committee work. But with the ample free time, long summer vacations, and— let's face it—light teaching duties, it shouldn't take you almost four years to write a book." Clearly, I need to devise an answer...