Labor Struggles in the Deep South & Other Writings

Memoir. Essay. In the half-century since it was written, Covington Hall’s LABOR STRUGGLES IN THE DEEP SOUTH, published here for the first time, has become an underground classic among activist historians writing on the South and on working people. Hall – journalist, organizer, rebel, professor, and above all poet – brings to life the dramatic early twentieth-century struggles of the waterfront workers of New Orleans and the militant timber workers of Louisiana and East Texas. Writing about events in which he played a central role and about the broader history of Southern labor, Hall describes many of the finest hours of integrated industrial unionism in the U.S. and the role of the Industrial Workers of the World in creating fragile unity across racial lines. The always lively narrative is heightened by dozens of rare cartoons and other period illustrations.