One example goes something like this: “Jim Smith assumed leadership of Organization ABC in April 1921.

This book should be on my bookshelf, and yet, I found it dry, concise in places that needed more context, and verbose in places where it needn’t be. I am a PhD candidate in sociology with an interest in political theory, history, inequalities and social inequities.

The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.Īfter discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this 25th-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the party's tactics and unique political culture. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate Black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of Whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals.

The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.Īfter discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the 'long Civil Rights movement', Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and '40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals.

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the 'long Civil Rights movement,' Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and '40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality.

Robin kelley hammer and hoe