Cedric de Leon, "Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity" (U California Press, 2025)

·47 min·4 clips

A labor scholar confronts pushback against his vision of linking economic and racial justice, sparking a search for overlooked Black organizers.

Host Tom DeSena and student co-host Sharal Simmons interview Cedric de Leon, a professor of sociology and labor studies at UMass Amherst and former union organizer. De Leon explains his book project originated from pushback he received as director of the UMass Labor Center when advocating for intersectional solidarity linking economic and racial justice. He found labor scholarship predominantly focused on white workers in the Communist Party and CIO, prompting him to investigate Black organizers. The book traces Black political organizing from early 20th-century Harlem, where Caribbean radicals like Cyril Briggs played key roles, through the formation of the National Negro Congress in 1935. De Leon emphasizes that Black politics involved intense internal debates, such as between centrist A. Philip Randolph and left factions, which led to tactical innovations like the March on Washington movement. He details how the 1963 March was primarily organized by the Negro American Labor Council and Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, with Martin Luther King Jr. as a later coalition partner. The discussion covers cultural elements, noting artists and intellectuals were integral to movements, and examines complex figures like Walter Reuther, who supported the march but resisted desegregating UAW leadership. The Memphis sanitation strike of 1968 is highlighted as a resurgence of interracial solidarity, where Black workers' organizing, amplified by King's involvement and assassination, catalyzed public-sector union growth. De Leon concludes by addressing why Black workers' roles have been historically overlooked, citing confirmation bias and racial revisionism that favors narratives of white progressive leaders.

As heard by us

Black political conflict helps explain how marching became a tactic for interracial solidarity.

Freedom Train links interracial solidarity to the internal arguments in Black political organizing that helped make marching a useful tactic. Cedric DeLeon, author of Freedom Train, Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Solidarity, frames the march as something that…

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