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Class and race boundaries, and interracial political coalitions, in two significant 19th century social movements
A lauded contribution to historical sociology, Class and the Color Line is an analysis of organizing across racial lines by two labor movements in the U.S. South during the 1880s and the 1890s. The Knights of Labor and the Populists were the largest and most influential labour movements of their day, and the first to undertake large-scale organizing in the former Confederate states, where they attempted to recruit African Americans as fellow labourers and voters. Scholars have long debated whether the two movements were genuine in their efforts to enroll black workers. Joseph Gerteis argues that that debate is misguided. At different moments and in various settings, the Knights and the Populists included some non-whites and excluded others. Where and why they drew racial boundaries are the subjects of Class and the Color Line.
Gerteis moves back and forth between broader examinations of the movement and more specific investigations of local organizing. At the movement level, his analysis is based on data from the central journals of the Knights of Labor and the two major Populist organizations, the Farmers Alliance and the Peoples Party. These organizational narratives reveal how the movements defined their own interests and identities, and how they made sense of the tangled boundaries between race and class. Gerteis explores how these collective narratives motivated action in specific contexts: in Richmond and Atlanta in the case of the Knights of Labor, and in Virginia and Georgia in that of the Populists. In the process, he demonstrates how local material, political, and social conditions enabled or constrained interracial organizing.