NAN E. WOODRUFF. American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2003. Pp. 282. $39.95

Abstract

This book tells a story of nearly constant conflict between African American workers and wealthy employers in the Mississippi River Delta areas of Arkansas and Mississippi from about 1900 through World War II. Investigating an impressive range of sources, Nan E. Woodruff details the ways those employers tried to keep workers numerous and to minimize wages and resistance and the various ways workers fought back. The differences were slight between timber work and agricultural work and between work on establishments owned by the heirs of southern plantations and those owned by northern investors. All employers wanted to keep compensation low, and almost all were willing to use violence and to manipulate the legal and political systems. Nor were there great differences, with a few exceptions, between the policies the various employers wanted and the policies granted by the state and federal governments; barons of land and lumber advertised themselves as progressive entrepreneurs, and governments went along, sometimes ignoring oppression, sometimes supporting it. Woodruff details the various ways employers tried to keep their workers dependent and cheap by using debt peonage, relying on company stores, and evicting or firing workers who tried to organize.