The Struggles That Bind: Evidence from Cross-Group Mobilization History

• In Event: Labor, Identity, and Intergroup Relations

Abstract

Can learning about a shared and overlooked history of class mobilization change contemporary attitudes around class identity, labor organizing, and redistributive policies? We test this question in a novel survey experiment with a sample of non-college educated white adults in U.S. Southern states, using iterations of 5-minute educational videos on the history of the interracial labor struggles of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in the early 20th century. In one treatment, we heighten the salience of class without any reference to race while the second arm presents nearly identical information with added salience on the racial composition of the union. We find that learning about a shared history of cross-racial unionization and mobilization increases class solidarity across racial lines and heightens support for contemporary multiracial coalitions, particularly for the video treatment that primes both race and class. These changes operate through several mechanisms specified in our pre-analysis plan: shifts in respondents’ sense of linked fate, perceptions of their political efficacy, and the salience of their class identity vis-a-vis other identities. We further benchmark these effects against a history video treatment that primes American national identity during a contemporaneous period.

Authors

• Jonne Kamphorst, European University Institute

• Roxanne Rahnama, New York University