Bottom-Up Organizing, Movements for Justice, and a Culture of Resistance in the 1930s South

“Hammer and Hoe,” a 1990 book written by historian Robin D.G. Kelley, chronicles the development of a communist movement in Alabama during the Great Depression. It highlights the struggles communists faced in organizing a sharecroppers’ union and building mass campaigns to free people accused of crimes in political frame-ups like the Scottsboro Boys. Kelley emphasizes how communism was able to synthesize with Southern Black culture. He sheds light on the unique homegrown resistance that granted Southern Blacks the ability to place their fight in the context of the anti-imperialist struggle for the first time. Kelley recounts the rise of Southern youth movements that ultimately gave birth to the student sit-ins and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/communism-and-black-resistance-in-the-1930s-south/