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‘The hope for white and black’? race, labour and the state in South Africa and The United States, 1924–1956

This article compares US and South African labour relations from 1935 to 1956, a period that saw the rise and decline of left‐led trade unions, significant initiatives of independent black trade unionism, and a new receptivity on the part of some white trade unionists to cooperation with the black working class. However, interracial unionism in both the US and South Africa fell victim to a post‐war anti‐left purge, unfavourable legal structures and right‐wing trade union factions. Consequently, blacks in the US looked to the racially liberal state to attack racism, but the civil rights movement lacked the mass participation of black workers. In South Africa, the state offered white workers protection against black encroachment and denied black workers a place in the trade‐union movement. As a result, black workers played an integral part in the liberation movement. In both cases, the defeat of interracial unionism can be attributed primarily to state action, not working‐class racism.