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. 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. In this book; Robin D. G. 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 result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.After 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.
#446214 in Books The University of North Carolina Press 2013-08-01 2013-08-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x .63 x 6.13l; 1.19 #File Name: 1469609835256 pages
Review
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful. "A Strange Conclusion to a Triumphant war"By Alan F. SewellKentucky was arguably THE pivotal state in the Civil War. It was the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln; Jefferson Davis; and Henry Clay; the "Great Compromiser." At the outset of the war Kentucky elected a pro-Union legislature that prevented the secessionist governor from taking the state out of the Union and thereby encouraging Maryland and Missouri to follow suit. During the war prominent Kentuckians filled President Lincoln's cabinet; reassuring Border State residents that Lincoln was not their enemy. Kentuckians refused to rally to the Confederate cause when Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army occupied most of the state.Thus it may be fairly said that the Confederacy's back was broken in Kentucky.Yet as soon as the war ended influential Kentuckians embraced the Southern causes of States Rights (i.e. "keep the Negroes in their place") to such an extent that most Kentuckians came to see their state as having been a keystone of the Confederacy instead of the other way around. A few years after the war a Kentucky Unionist lamented: "A consistently loyal man in Kentucky; is of all men most miserable;--persecuted; trodden under foot; hooted at by rampant rebels--And disowned Cast off--by the government; he hazarded all to Support--he finds no security; no ray of hope Anywhere--It is a political mystery if not iniquity; that a triumphant government; should exalt its enemies--and abase its friends--This is a Strange Conclusion to a Triumphant war."So why DID Kentucky repudiate the Confederacy during the war only to embrace it after it had been defeated? Dr. Marshall answers that question as succinctly as I have ever seen it stated:==========="For many Kentucky whites; who had traded their loyalty to the Union in return for protection of slave property; black enlistment (in the Federal Army) was the ultimate blow; the final realization that the Union cause had evolved and was no longer their own."==========In other words Emancipation caused a majority of White Kentuckians to switch their sympathies from the Union to the Confederacy but only AFTER it was too late to have a material impact on the course of the war. Kentuckians were also annoyed by the heavy-handed administrations of its Union Military Governors; but Emancipation is clearly the fundamental factor that alienated them.The most important conclusion I drew from this book is that President Lincoln was exactly right in his timing of the Emancipation Proclamation. If he had issued it during early 1862 Kentucky would most likely have entered the Confederacy during Bragg's invasion in September 1862 and the Union cause may have unraveled. This book makes it clear that maintaining White hegemony over Blacks was the primary political interest of Kentuckians during and after the war. As soon as their hegemony was broken White Kentuckians began to identify with the Confederacy.This book also hints at the importance of African-Americans in Kentucky. The book states that 40;000 Black Kentuckians enlisted in the Federal armies and many more labored as civilians in the railroads and ports. Thus; African-Americans accounted for much of Kentucky's Union war effort.Those were the important points that expanded my education about Kentucky during and after the Civil War. Here are some other things I liked:* The writing is lucid and the length of the book is right. The breath of material is wide but there is no useless filler. Every paragraph is interesting.* There are no hidden agendas. It is a deeply researched factual account that doesn't have any ideological or revisionist axes to grind. It is always a comfort to read this kind of book when so many these days are written by people aligned with outrageously bogus revisionist agendas that make a mockery of the Civil War era and the people who lived through it. This book lets the facts speak for themselves.* It captures the feeling of postwar melancholy. After the war Kentucky became the step-child of the Union --- a loyal state that somehow wasn't loyal enough. Coincident with the war the political and economic center of the United States shifted toward the emerging Northeastern and Midwestern industrial centers; leaving Kentucky as a backwater. This was a severe demotion for a state that had played such a prominent role in national politics until 1860.* It tells how the images of controversial Confederate Kentucky partisans like John Hunt Morgan were rehabilitated by postwar Kentuckians from being "horse thieves and highway robbers" to heroes.* It tells the entertaining stories of how prominent Kentuckians like colorful newspaper editor Henry Watterson dedicated their lives to creating a mythology of Kentucky as a Southern state with Northern values. Some of the yarns they spun were hilariously exaggerated mischaracterizations of Kentuckians. Maybe they were trying a bit too hard to "spin" an image that really didn't need to be spun. Just let Kentucky be what it is.This book is an excellent complement to SISTER STATES; ENEMY STATES another well-written book that vividly describes Kentucky's Civil War years. By reading both books you will come away with a thorough understanding of how the Civil War shaped Kentucky both in fact and in mythology right on down to our own time. The human interest story in CREATING A CONFEDERATE KENTUCKY is about how during the past 150 years Kentuckians have spent so much effort inventing stories of what they THINK their ancestors did during the Civil War.5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. A look at CREATING A CONFEDERATE KENTUCKYBy Douglas LippmanDr. Ann Marshall's CREATING A CONFEDERATE KENTUCKY is a well written and well researched book. It points out the deception used by President Lincoln in order to keep the border states from seceeding. Lincoln's famous quote that to lose Kentucky would be to lose it all reveals the importance he gave to the state of his birth. The constant promise that the best way to protect slavery was to stay in the Union turned out to be a deception for the slaveowners in the Commonwealth. Dr. Marshall plays heavily on this deception; revealing how this angered many Unionists in Kentucky when they realized they had been deceived. They rightly felt betrayed. Unfortunately; the author does not play enough on the importance of the war crimes of General Stephen Burbridge; who was the military governor of Kentucky in the later months of the conflict. His cruelty turned the stomachs of even the staunchist Unionists in the state. The result was a Kentucky characterized by lawlessness and bitterness after the war. Anarchy reigned; as former Confederates were voted into many of the most important positions in the commonwealth's government.The treatment of the contradictions in Union policy is clearly revealed in her treatment of Camp Nelson. This is a book which will interest many students of the Civil War or Reconstruction. While it goes well beyond 1877 in its treatment of a state in crisis; it will certainly prove a fascinating read for fellow Kentuckians.Doug Lippman0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Strong Narrative; Accurate HistoryBy joshua baderThe book is a sobering read; highlighting the ability of people to rewrite historical facts to suit current interests. While Kentucky became important as a Union state during the Civil War; racial politics interested in keeping freedpeople subservient radically obscured Kentucky's true history. Dr. Marshall does a good job of setting the record straight in this highly readable narrative.
