We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
"Did Emmett Till Die in Vain? Organized Labor Says No!": The United Packinghouse Workers and Civil Rights Unionism in the Mid-1950s.
- Authors
Nichter, Matthew F.
- Abstract
Emmett Till's mangled face is seared into our collective memory, a tragic epitome of the brutal violence that upheld white supremacy in the Jim Crow South. But Till's murder was more than just a tragedy: it also inspired an outpouring of protest, in which labor unions played a prominent role. The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) campaigned energetically, from the stockyards of Chicago to the sugar refineries of Louisiana. The UPWA organized the first mass meeting addressed by Till's mother, Mamie Bradley; packinghouse workers petitioned, marched, and rallied to demand justice; and an interracial group of union activists traveled to Mississippi to observe the trial of Till's killers firsthand, flouting segregation inside and outside the courtroom. Analysis of antiracist unions like the UPWA can help rectify a weakness in the "whiteness" literature by illuminating the contexts and strategies that have fostered durable interracial working-class solidarity. The UPWA, which managed to survive the Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s relatively unscathed, represents an important link between the "civil rights unionism" of the 1930s and 1940s and the civil rights movement of the mid-1950s and 1960s.
- Subjects
TILL, Emmett, 1941-1955; CIVIL rights workers; CIVIL rights movements; INTERRACIAL couples; COLLECTIVE memory; SUGAR factories; WHITE supremacy; SOLIDARITY
- Publication
Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, 2021, Vol 18, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
1547-6715
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1215/15476715-8849556