The Black Steel Workers Struggle Was a Heroic Effort

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The black freedom movement was directly confronting races labor market exclusion in both steel and unionized construction. They struggled persistently, but they str led for inclusion within the structure of the post war liberal order that was itself entering crisis. Black workers movements were thus confined by the same material limits as the liberal state itself,. requiring a healthy industrial economy generating jobs whose distribution could be contested.

Historian Gabriel Winant discusses The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. It's a fascinating study of the emergence of the service sector and a new working class out of the wreckage of deindustrialization through the story of the rise and fall of unionized steel in Pittsburgh and its replacement by a massive hospital industry. Listen to my past interview with Winant on the social worlds that make US politics and how that sociality is rooted in the economy, carceral state, social media, religion, and more thedigradio.com/podcast/the-social-question-with-gabriel-winant Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet, by David Carlin and Nicole Walker rosemetalpress.com/books/the-after-normal