Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class

You can change many things in your life, but race is not one of them. We’re born into a race and culture, and we often see the world through that lens. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been drawn to books by Black authors since I was a teen wondering why I happened to be born white. Was it chance? Luck? Or were the Black people the lucky ones because they shared a culture and history that ran throughout their community? They had things in common that outsiders might never understand. I wanted that sense of belonging, and I searched for it in Black literature, so when I had a chance to read Blair LM Kelley’s Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class, I happily said yes.

Reading the book, I was embraced by the same joy of discovering another culture that I felt years ago in sociology classes. I got to be a fly on the wall and experience the life of a blacksmith, a laundress or washerwoman, a Pullman porter, a postal worker, and more. I cheered both the author and the washerwoman when I read, “…the washerwomen continued to work on their own terms,” then sighed as she continued, “…but there were limits to their autonomy.”

I got an inside look at the struggles Black people endured and the way they adjusted their attitude when they were around whites while at the same time fighting for the rights they were entitled to. I’ve never been black, but the book encouraged me to imagine what my life might have been like if I lived in their circumstances.

In this well researched and thoroughly documented exploration of the Black working class, Kelley presents hard-working, entrepreneurial people determined to overcome ridiculous obstacles imposed by whites who believed they were superior. “They wanted a fair shot at better jobs, a life away from the boundaries of segregation and subjugation.” They lived in a society that set them up as second class and inspired them to fight back.

She includes stories from her own family, beginning with Henry, an enslaved blacksmith from Elbert County, Georgia and ending with her grandmother, Brunell, who she remembers holding her hand whenever they went out. “Her handhold soothed her worry and kept my young mind and thin body from roaming away. I learned that her tight clasp was protective, confirmation that I was right there.”

As a reader I was right there with the people, the culture, and the struggles that Kelley describes and analyzes. They say that those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it, so if you want to learn the history of the whole country, including the parts that aren’t included in textbooks, this historical, factual, lively account of Black folks in a white world is worth your time.