Radical Anti-Racist Unionism Has a History in Bessemer, Alabama
The ongoing union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, could prove to be a key beachhead for union organizing in the South. But it’s not the first time Bessemer has seen union fights. Nearly a century ago, the town was home to anti-racist union organizing with the Communist-led union Mine-Mill.
Leaders of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers gather for a 1954 convention in Bessemer, Alabama. Maurice Travis (R), secretary treasurer, lost his eye after being severely beaten during the Bessemer steelworkers union election five years prior. (Ira Gay Sealy/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are holding an important vote right now to become the first group of American workers for the company to unionize their warehouse. The fight is a key battle in the long-running and mostly elusive effort of labor to build power in the South. But this isn’t the first such unionization effort in Bessemer.
In 1949, during the Cold War crackdown on unions with leftist leadership, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (Mine-Mill), a union with deep ties to the Communist Party and a history of anti-racist organizing, was challenged by a more moderate union, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), which used racism and red-baiting to defeat Mine-Mill in the election.
Radical Mine-Mill labor organizers in the past confronted white supremacy in order to organize the working class in Bessemer. Mine-Mill’s decades of organizing in Bessemer helped lay the groundwork for today’s effort at Amazon.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.