Tangled Fates: Casting Racial and Economic Equality in Twentieth Century America

• In Event: Contemporary Problems in Work and Labor in the U.S. in Historical Perspective

Abstract

This paper, which is part of a larger book project, explores the ways in which legislative and administrative politics presented opportunities for coalitions of racial advocacy organizations and trade unions to push for social democratic political projects. Focusing on the postwar push for full employment, it tells the story of how trade unions and racial advocacy organizations were working together—as well as fighting with each other—in national legislative and administrative debates over employment policy amidst the consolidation of the New Deal political order. These efforts, particularly these instances of coalition-building, are often overlooked in accounts that focus on the civil rights legal campaign and racial liberalism more broadly. However, these coalitions embraced both racial and economic goals, and animated deep ideological differences among racial equality and union members advocates in twentieth-century politics. While they were ultimately unsuccessful in strengthening the left-flank of the New Deal coalition, their efforts are instructive in the kinds of ideological positions and contextual factors that can facilitate or thwart these coalitions.

Author

• Katie Rader, Christopher Newport University