11/27/2023 | Press release | Archived content
This May 1963 photo from Hazard, Kentucky, shows wooden homes typical of the living accommodations in the poverty-stricken, flood-wracked mountains of eastern Kentucky. Photo: The Associated Press
By Michael R. Malone[email protected]11-27-2023
Between undergraduate and graduate studies in the mid-2000s, Max Fraser took a purposeful detour to write for magazines and periodicals such as Dissent and The Nation, pursuing his interest in the American labor movement and working-class issues.
Yet the labor beat was vanishing, unions were diminished by corporate power, and, besides, Fraser had never envisioned a career in journalism. He returned to academia, earning a Ph.D. as a scholar of American labor, cultural and political history, and began applying his writing skills on a new platform.
Fraser, an assistant professor of history for the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, combined his journalistic talents and interest in labor politics in a new book, "Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of A White Working Class."Max Fraser
While the "Great Migration"-the migration of six million Black people from the rural South to the urban North from 1916-1970-is relatively well documented, Fraser's book tells the mostly untold story of the millions of poor, white Southerners who, in flight from the economic crises of places like southern Appalachia, traversed the "Hillbilly Highway" desperately seeking jobs in the Midwest.
"This white working-class population had different ideas and attitudes about the city and their place within it," Fraser said. "In terms of race and politics, they changed the patchwork of working-class culture in the Midwest in enduring ways."
This white diaspora "southernized" a lot of these new places in very direct personal ways, Fraser explained, and their presence introduced a new social group alongside the European immigrants-who up until the 1920s had been the primary source of cheap labor for the industrializing United States.
The imprint of labor and activism on economic well-being was instilled early in Fraser, who grew up in New York City. His mother's father was a union carpenter, and his father was politically active through the civil rights and anti-war years of the 1960s.
"I grew up in a household that, both politically and intellectually, thought about labor and social justice commitments through the lens of labor politics and class issues," he said. That labor lens has informed his studies, research, and experience to "write about and amplify the narratives of working-class people as much as possible."
In telling the story of the millions who fled the coal-mining and mill towns of Appalachia, a region that stretches across eight southern states, Fraser dispels a number of myths-misjudgments with consequences that have led to cultural divisions today.
"When they arrive, they're greeted-and this is a lot of what my book is about-as a kind of 'foreigner,' and people point to their supposedly pre-modern mountaineer culture as an indication that they don't know how to survive in modern urban society," Fraser pointed out.
Overemphasis on their "hillbillyness" led to a series of misjudgments, according to Fraser.
Restrictive immigration laws in the 1920s had cut off the supply of cheap immigrant workers and northern employers believed that "the desperately poor newcomers would work for whatever pittance they were given, because they were unfamiliar with union politics and the threatening ideas of socialism and anarchism that people have brought from the Old World."
Employers believed that the hillbilly workers would share a cultural affinity with their bosses; shun identifications with other groups of industrial workers, like Jewish and Catholic immigrants and African Americans; and be docile and exploitable, Fraser explained.
"But that was totally not the case," he said. "Southern whites joined the union struggles as actively and energetically as their immigrant colleagues in the workplace. Their class identity and class experiences much more powerfully determined their political behavior in that moment."
Fraser noted that the white Southerners also were mistakenly blamed for inciting the racial conflict that convulsed Detroit and other Midwest cities in the mid-1940s. "These white southern migrants were no more or less racist than other white people were throughout the mid-20th century, but they frequently became convenient scapegoats during such moments of unrest, especially as city officials looked to deflect attention from the deeply embedded forms of structural racism that existed in urban American society throughout this period," Fraser said.
"The Appalachian migration was a window into this attitude that foretold the kind of divisions of class and culture which have yanked white working-class voters from the Democrats and into the arms of right-wing populists over the last 30 years," Fraser said.
Picha ya Mei 1963 kutoka Hazard, Kentucky, inaonyesha nyumba za mbao za kawaida za makazi katika milima ya mashariki ya Kentucky iliyoathiriwa na umaskini na mafuriko. "Mwanzoni mwa miaka ya 2000, wakati wa masomo ya shahada ya kwanza na ya kuhitimu, Max Fraser alichukua njia ya ""kuandika kwa ajili ya magazeti na magazeti kama vile Dissent na The Nation,"" kufuatia maslahi yake katika harakati ya wafanyakazi wa Marekani na masuala ya wafanyakazi." Hata hivyo, mzozo wa wafanyakazi ulikuwa ukiisha, vyama vya wafanyakazi vilikuwa vikipunguzwa na nguvu za mashirika, na, kwa kuongezea, Fraser hakuwa amewahi kufikiria kazi ya uandishi wa habari. Alirudi katika chuo kikuu, akipata Ph.D. kama msomi wa historia ya kazi, utamaduni na kisiasa ya Marekani, na akaanza kutumia ujuzi wake wa kuandika kwenye jukwaa jipya. "Fraser, profesa msaidizi wa historia katika Chuo Kikuu cha Miami, aliunganisha talanta zake za uandishi wa habari na maslahi katika siasa za kazi katika kitabu kipya, ""Hillbilly Highway: Uhamiaji wa Trans-Appalachian na Uundaji wa Darasa la Wafanyakazi Wazungu.""" "Wakati ""Uhamiaji Mkubwa"" - uhamiaji wa watu weusi milioni sita kutoka mashambani Kusini hadi mijini Kaskazini kutoka 1916-1970 - ni vizuri kumbukumbu, kitabu cha Fraser anaelezea hadithi ya mamilioni ya maskini, wazungu Kusini ambao, katika kukimbia kutoka kwa mgogoro wa kiuchumi wa maeneo kama vile kusini mwa Appalachia, kuvuka ""Hillbilly Highway"" kwa kukata tamaa kutafuta kazi katika Midwest." "Watu hawa weupe wa tabaka la wafanyakazi walikuwa na mawazo na mitazamo tofauti kuhusu jiji hilo na mahali pao ndani yake", akasema Fraser. "Kwa habari ya jamii na siasa, walibadili utamaduni wa jamii ya wafanyakazi katika Magharibi ya Kati kwa njia zenye kudumu". "Wazungu waliohamia kusini kwa njia ya moja kwa moja, ""walifanya sehemu nyingi za maeneo haya mapya kuwa sehemu za kusini,"" Fraser alielezea, na uwepo wao ulileta kikundi kipya cha kijamii pamoja na wahamiaji wa Ulaya ambao hadi miaka ya 1920 walikuwa chanzo kikuu cha kazi ya bei nafuu kwa Marekani ya viwanda." Alijifunza kuhusu kazi na ujasiri wa kijamii na kijamii katika miaka ya mapema ya maisha yake huko New York. Baba yake alikuwa fundi wa mbao, na baba yake alikuwa na shughuli za kisiasa katika miaka ya 1960 ya haki za kiraia na kupinga vita. """Nililelewa katika familia ambayo, kisiasa na kiakili, ilifikiria juu ya ahadi za kazi na haki ya kijamii kupitia lensi ya siasa za kazi na masuala ya darasa,"" alisema." Lens hiyo ya kazi imetoa habari kwa masomo yake, utafiti, na uzoefu wa "kuandika juu na kupanua hadithi za watu wa darasa la wafanyakazi kadiri iwezekanavyo". Kwa kuelezea hadithi ya mamilioni ya watu waliokimbia miji ya madini ya makaa ya mawe ya Appalachia, eneo ambalo linaenea katika majimbo manane ya kusini, Fraser anaondoa hadithi kadhaa na maoni mabaya ambayo yamesababisha mgawanyiko wa kitamaduni leo. "Wakati wao kufika, wao ni kukaribishwa - na hii ni mengi ya nini kitabu changu ni kuhusu - kama aina ya ""mgeni,"" na watu kuonyesha yao ya walidhani pre-ya kisasa mlima utamaduni kama dalili kwamba hawajui jinsi ya kuishi katika jamii ya kisasa ya mijini, ""Fraser alisema." Kulingana na Fraser, kukazia kupita kiasi "uovu" wao kulisababisha makosa kadhaa ya kuhukumu. Sheria za uhamiaji katika miaka ya 1920 zilikuwa zimekatisha ugavi wa wafanyakazi wa bei nafuu wa uhamiaji na waajiri wa kaskazini waliamini kwamba "wawasiliani wapya maskini sana wangefanya kazi kwa pesa yoyote waliyopewa, kwa sababu hawakujua siasa za chama na mawazo ya kutisha ya ujamaa na anarchism ambayo watu wameleta kutoka Ulimwengu wa Kale". "Wajiri waliamini kwamba wafanyakazi wa kijiji hicho wangeshiriki uhusiano wa kitamaduni na mabosi wao; kuepuka utambulisho na vikundi vingine vya wafanyakazi wa viwanda, kama vile wahamiaji Wayahudi na Wakatoliki na Waafrika-Wamarekani; na kuwa mnyenyekevu na wenye kutumiwa vibaya, ""Fraser alielezea." "Lakini haikuwa hivyo hata kidogo", akasema. "Wazungu wa Kusini walijiunga na mapambano ya vyama vya wafanyakazi kwa bidii na kwa nguvu kama wenzake wahamiaji katika mahali pa kazi. Utambulisho wao wa darasa na uzoefu wao wa darasa ulitawala tabia yao ya kisiasa kwa nguvu zaidi wakati huo". Fraser alisema kuwa wazungu wa Kusini pia walilaumiwa kimakosa kwa kuchochea mgogoro wa rangi ambao ulisumbua Detroit na miji mingine ya Midwest katikati ya miaka ya 1940. "Wahamiaji hawa weupe wa kusini hawakuwa na ubaguzi wa rangi zaidi au chini ya watu wengine weupe katika karne ya 20, lakini mara nyingi walikuja kuwa mbuzi wa kuuawa wakati wa msukosuko kama huo, haswa wakati maafisa wa jiji walitafuta kugeuza umakini kutoka kwa aina za ubaguzi wa rangi zilizowekwa ndani ya jamii ya mijini ya Amerika wakati huu. """ "Uhamiaji wa Appalachian ulikuwa dirisha la mtazamo huu ambao ulitabiri aina ya mgawanyiko wa darasa na utamaduni ambao umevuta wapiga kura weupe wa darasa la wafanyakazi kutoka kwa wanademokrasia na kuingia mikononi mwa watu wa mrengo wa kulia katika miaka 30 iliyopita. """