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Demonstrators against ICE in Pasadena, California.

Emma Tenayuca Championed Class Struggle and Migrant Rights

Labor activist Emma Tenayuca led Mexican American women in San Antonio’s legendary pecan shellers’ strike. Today, we can learn from her example.
by Alex Birnel via Jacobin on June 29, 2025
Black Panther Party members demonstrating outside the New York County Criminal Court, April 11, 1969.

The Black Radical Tradition Can Guide Our Struggles Against Oppression

Uncovering a tradition of African American radicalism that was—and is—a crucial part of the American left’s history.
by Robin D. G. Kelley, Daniel Denvir via Jacobin on July 6, 2023
Photograph of author Mike Davis.

Mike Davis Revisits His 1986 Labor History Classic, Prisoners of the American Dream

The late socialist writer's first book was a deep exploration of how the US labor movement became so weakened.
by Mike Davis, Daniel Denvir via Jacobin on October 31, 2022
Anti-War and Anti-Fascist Demonstration In New York

Cameras for Class Struggle

How the radical documentarians of the Workers' Film and Photo League put their art in the service of social movements.
by Max Pearl via Art In America on April 21, 2021

"Poor Whites Have Been Written out of History for a Very Political Reason"

For generations, Southern white elites have been terrified of poor whites and black workers joining hands.
by Keri Leigh Merritt, Robert Greene II via Jacobin on August 24, 2019

To Save Democracy, We Need Class Struggle

The historical record is clear: democracy was only won when poor people waged disruptive class struggle against the rich.
by Adaner Usmani via Jacobin on May 13, 2019
Whites at a Trump campaign rally.

Does the White Working Class Really Vote Against Its Own Interests?

Trump has revived an age-old debate about why some people choose race over class—and how far they will go to protect the system.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on December 31, 2017
Cover of Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

Howard Zinn's History Lessons

"A People’s History" is bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions.
by Michael Kazin via Dissent on April 3, 2004
Robert LaFollette Sr.
partner

The Legacy of Robert La Follette's Progressive Vision

Robert La Follette saw politics as a never-ending struggle for democracy and fairness and preached perseverance.
by Nancy Unger via Made By History on July 16, 2025
Samuel Gompers the president of the American Federation of Labor in December 1920.

America’s Brutal Capitalist Class Tamed Its Labor Movement

The unique brutality of the US capitalist class bred a labor movement that has often limited itself to being a private insurance provider.
by Maya Adereth via Jacobin on July 7, 2025
African American workers march past a line of National Guards troops with bayonets fixed.

The National Guard’s History of Violent Labor Repression

Donald Trump recently deployed California’s National Guard to repress protests in LA. The National Guard has a long history of breaking up protests and strikes.
by Dana Frank via Jacobin on June 30, 2025
A Los Angelas police officer walks away from a police cruiser with a damaged windshield.

"Corporate America’s Security Guards In-Blue": State Violence and Latinx Protest in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has a history of Latinx protest; one that is often marred by police violence.
by George Francis-Kelly via The Metropole on June 30, 2025
Three members of the Wages for Housework campaign running a table and handing out pamphlets.

Home Is Where the Unpaid Labor Is

A new history traces the development and influence of the global Wages for Housework movement from its founding to present day.
by Hannah Rosefield via The New Republic on March 19, 2025
Two arrows pointing in different directions. One pointing at a red circle, the other pointing to the right.

The Culture War Doesn’t Distract Us From the Class War; It Directs Us To It

On William Safire and the "nattering nabobs of negativism."
by Corey Robin via Corey Robin Blog on March 4, 2025
Sam Francis.

The Sam Francis I Knew

The late conservative thinker, who died 20 years ago Saturday, has transcended the pariah status imposed on him during his life.
by Paul Gottfried via The American Conservative on February 20, 2025
W.E.B. DuBois, seated in garden reading book, while Shirley Graham DuBois waters plants.

How Black Marxists Have Understood Racial Oppression

Black Marxist thought emphasizes the centrality of capitalism to racial oppression and the destructiveness of that oppression for all workers.
by Jeff Goodwin, Jonah Birch via Jacobin on February 17, 2025
Ku Kluz Klan imperial wizard Hiram Wesley Evans.

Making Sense of the Second Ku Klux Klan

Understanding the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early twentieth century gives insight into the roots of today’s reactionary activists and policymakers.
by Chad Pearson via Jacobin on December 22, 2024
David Montgomery in a picket line during a 1955 UE strike.

The People in the Shop

A new collection of essays by David Montgomery shows how he used labor history as a means of grappling with the largest questions in American history.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on December 17, 2024
Crowd marching on Wall Street.

Nationalize the Banks

Grassroots support for public banks early in the 20th century revealed the popularity of socialism-aligned economic ideas.
by Christopher W. Shaw via Catalyst on September 20, 2024
Alain Locke.

A Century of Cultural Pluralism

How an unlikely American friendship should inspire diversity, equity, and inclusion.
by David Weinfeld via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on August 21, 2024
At center: organized labor leader John L. Lewis surrounded by crowds of male workers of all races.

Fragile Juggernaut

Introducing a project on US labor history, exploring what we can learn from 1930s-1950s industrial struggles.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via n+1 on January 24, 2024
Black and white men, women, and children listening to a speaker at a Southern Tenant Farmers Union meeting.

When Black and White Tenant Farmers Joined Together to Take on the Plantation South

The Southern Tenant Farmers Union was founded on the principle of interracial organizing.
by David Griscom via Jacobin on December 5, 2023
An undated engraving depicting Ku Klux Klan vigilantes in Kansas.

When Bosses Were Terrorists

Historians depict late 19th-century American business elites as agents of progress, but many of them could also be called “terrorists.”
by Chad Pearson via Jacobin on November 23, 2023
Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville

Bourgeois Stew: Alexis de Tocqueville

In contrast to feudal society, where everyone, lord or serf, remained rooted to the land, and words were ‘passed on'.
by Oliver Cussen via London Review of Books on November 16, 2023
Conference of Studio Unions' months-long strike against Hollywood studios in 1945.

How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 union vs. studios battle set off broad right-wing hysteria—its lessons should resonate today.
by Gerald Horne, Anthony Ballas via Zócalo Public Square on November 9, 2023
Eugene V Debs speaking at a rally, c1912-18. Photo courtesy the Library of Congress.

For Socialism and Freedom: The Life of Eugene Debs

How Eugene V. Debs turned American republicanism against the chiefs of capitalism – and became a true crusader for freedom.
by Tom O’Shea via Aeon on October 2, 2023
Wood engraving of streets and buildings in a city scene.

The World That Municipal Socialists Built

Urban socialists blazed a path toward social democracy. Leftists who want to reclaim this tradition face a whole new set of obstacles.
by Justin H. Vassallo via Dissent on September 5, 2023
Group portrait of attendees of the NAACP-sponsored Amenia Conference in Amenia, New York, in front of tent, August 1933.

The 1933 Conference That Helped Forge Civil Rights Unionism

The radical approach employed by black leftists at the Amenia conference set the stage for the civil rights unionism that would help topple Jim Crow.
by Eben Miller via Jacobin on August 8, 2023
Striking workers at General Motors in 1970.

Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half-Century of American Class Struggle

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.
by Nelson Lichtenstein, Micah Uetricht via Jacobin on July 10, 2023
Big Bill Haywood, Adolph Lessing, and Carlo Tresca, Paterson, New Jersey, 1913.

The Wobblies and the Dream of One Big Union

A new history examines the lost promise and fierce persecution of the IWW.
by Michael Kazin via The Nation on May 15, 2023
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