During the pandemic, 28% of Black workers were classified as “essential,” doing the work of caring for others that put them and their families at great risk. In Professor Blair LM Kelley’s new book, Black Folk — The Roots of the Black Working Class, Kelley tells the story of her own working-class ancestors, stretching back into the 19th century, who also did the essential work of our economy. They suffered exploitation and violence as slaves, sharecroppers and maids but also forged bonds of mutuality with their families and fellow workers.
Black Folk charts the history of a family while also describing how African Americans built organizations — including churches, unions and support groups — fought for economic and political rights and had a nationwide impact. Black churches, Kelley writes, were sacred spaces that “retained their subversive power” by providing a vision of liberation while serving as a training ground for political struggles. And when white-run unions showed no interest in organizing Black workers, African Americans built their own unions, like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, founded in 1925.
