Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality (review)

Divided We Stand is a well-crafted, thoughtful book which dares to confront us with our past. Bruce Nelson uses the longshore unions and the Steelworkers Union to examine a century of progress and opposition for African-American workers. One of Nelson's chief concerns is the role of agency—workers' own role—in the evolution of their unions. His extensive research is clearly evident in his presentation of historical fact and exposure of ahistorical fiction.

Nelson contrasts the ILWU (International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union) and the ILA (International Longshoremen's Association). The case studies are critical in examining workers' realities. Where Nelson found statements of inclusiveness, for example, he also found exclusion and racism, and where he found segregation, he unearthed some advantages of segregated locals. Nelson's work emphasizes that "[r]ace has always been a complex and multifaceted phenomenon". But it also exposes the bitter and shameful history of racial intolerance within America's unions.

Nelson's book is painstakingly set in context, but he clearly establishes that union history is driven by more than economic or historical determinism. Particularly in the first half of the book dealing with the longshore unions, Nelson examines the role of immigration and the process of becoming "American" as a synonym for "becoming white". He also shows what the "wage of whiteness" means for people of color. Class, Nelson reminds us, "is lived through race and gender," and race is one tool in establishing and maintaining hierarchy and power. The stratification of American society along class lines, however, is insufficient to explain—or explain away—the racism that permeates society's institutions, including trade unions.

While Nelson's approach to his study of the Steelworkers' Union seems somewhat less detailed than his work with the longshore unions, his findings are equally revealing and well documented. One of the strengths of this section is its connection with workers' realities and the juxtaposition of those realities with the public statements of union leaders and historians.

Nelson has not flinched in the historian's task of revealing truth. This is a major strength of the book. Through extensive documentation and interviews, Nelson provides evidence that the struggle for black equality in the trade union movement was long and arduous, and as difficult as it was (is) in the larger society. Nelson documents the resistance of rank-and-file workers to integration, the tepid support of union leaders for social justice, and the failure of "glacial incrementalism and hollow declarations of good intent" to rectify horrific injustice and inequality. For many in the trade union movement, such scrutiny will not be welcome.

This book will be valuable for all students of and activists in the labor movement. It is the kind of critical examination of outcome versus intent that is necessary to strengthen resolve not only to continue the struggle, but to continue it with the depth of self-examination and self-correction that is necessary for success.