‘An eloquent and essential correction to contemporary discussions of the American working class.’—The Nation
From the ongoing issues of poverty, health, housing, and employment to the recent upsurge of lethal police-community relations, the black working class stands at the center of perceptions of social and racial conflict today. Journalists and public policy analysts often discuss the black poor as “consumers” rather than “producers, ” as “takers” rather than “givers, ” and as “liabilities” instead of “assets.”
In his engrossing history,
Workers on Arrival, Joe William Trotter, Jr., refutes these perceptions by charting the black working class’s vast contributions to the making of America. Covering the last four hundred years since Africans were first brought to Virginia in 1619, Trotter traces the complicated journey of black workers from the transatlantic slave trade to the demise of the industrial order in the twenty-first century. At the center of this compelling, fast-paced narrative are the actual experiences of these African American men and women. A dynamic and vital history of remarkable contributions despite repeated setbacks,
Workers on Arrival expands our understanding of America’s economic and industrial growth, its cities, ideas, and institutions, and the real challenges confronting black urban communities today.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Foregrounding the Black Worker
Part 1 Preindustrial Beginnings
Chapter 1 • Genesis of the Black Working Class
Chapter 2 • Building the Early Community
Chapter 3 • Prelude to the Modern Age
Part 2 The Twentieth Century
Chapter 4 • The Industrial Working Class
Chapter 5 • African American Workers Organize
Chapter 6 • Demolition of the Old Jim Crow Order
Chapter 7 • Demise of the Industrial Working Class
Epilogue: Facing the New Global Capitalist Economy
Appendix: Interpreting the African American
Working-Class Experience, an Essay on Sources
Notes
Index
About the author
Joe William Trotter, Jr., is Giant Eagle Professor of History and Social Justice, and Founder and Director of the Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Black Milwaukee and Coal, Class, and Color and past president of the Labor and Working Class History Association.
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