![]() ![]() If living in this sort of economic deprivation wasn’t discouraging enough, there is then the environment of virulent racism that workers and organizers had to live in. Any attempts at organizing against such living conditions would often mean forced eviction and beatings. During periods when they were not harvesting or planting, because their housing wasn’t owned, they had to rely upon company welfare – which was often required to be paid back – or government welfare that is cut as soon as planters needs workers. Pay rates were also so poor that farmers relied upon home gardens and “odd jobs” to get by. Housing settlements are widely disbursed and are not owned by the farmers that occupy them there are no social centers besides churches that have their preachers vetted by plantation owners the caloric options from company provision outlets was poor and yet high-priced. ![]() ![]() Kelley opens by describing the feudal milieu that Communist Party activists sought to change through the Share Croppers Union. My interest in the work piqued, the book sat with the myriad others on my Amazon Wish List until I started creating a Long Civil Rights course track for the IB History classes I’m teaching and from my experience in the classroom I highly recommend it as a companion book/follow up reading to Reconstruction. ![]() Kelley, the author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Several years ago I’d heard on NPR an insightful interview of Robin D. ![]()
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