February is Black History Month, and this year's this is "African Americans and Labor." Here are three books I recommend:
1. Robert Higgs, Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the American Economy 1865-1914. Higgs argues that despite significant coercion, there were sufficient competitive forces in the American (and in particular southern, where most black Americans lived) economy to allow African Americans as a group to significantly improve their standard of living during the relevant time period. The book, written in the 1970s, received an undeservedly negative reception from the Marxist-dominated labor history world.
2. Paul Moreno, Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History. In my review of this book, I wrote:
