Writers on the left are so intent on portraying the South as uniquely evil and racist they miss interesting and relevant history and make connections that are tenuous at best. Essays that could have been illuminating end up looking sophomoric to anyone with knowledge of history. Jamelle Bouie’s recent piece titled Let’s Talk About the Economic Roots of White Supremacy is a case in point.

Mr. Bouie’s contention is that the South’s resistance to labor unions during Jim Crow was a key element of maintaining white supremacy.

“By even attempting to organize Black workers alongside white ones, unions like the Industrial Workers of the World in the early part of the 20th century and the Congress of Industrial Organizations during the period of the New Deal threatened to undermine the entire Jim Crow system…”

He leaves out that most “craft” unions across the country actively discriminated against blacks, Jews, and other minorities. As Herbert R. Northrup explains in his 1946 essay in Commentary, “unions organized on a craft basis derive their bargaining power by controlling the entrance of new workers to a trade or by monopolizing a strategic occupation.” The industrial unions of mass production benefit from having all workers in the union as it improves bargaining power and reduces availability of workers during union stoppages.

There was country wide discrimination in the International Association of Machinists and the railroad unions covering railroad telegraphers, engineers, locomotive firemen and enginemen, trainmen, yardmasters, conductors, and dispatchers. Same was true for the American Flint Glass Workers’ Union, Granite Cutters’ International Association, and United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steamfitters.

Some unions not listed above like the Brotherhood of Blacksmiths allowed blacks in “auxiliary” unions providing blacks with “second-class” membership as helpers but with no vote on union matters and no access to the actual craft jobs.

It is disturbing Mr. Bouie would write a piece on discrimination in labor unions and not mention that it was, to some extent at least, a national issue. He also does not consider that some of the South’s resistance to labor unions could have been that they did not like unions. It was and is a legitimate position held by people in every region and says nothing about racial attitudes.