Continuing our mini-interviews with Reconsidering Southern Labor History contributors, today @m_hild & I talk to @JM_Thompson about his fascinating essay on #Atlanta#ATL , #labor, & #race:
So the story from this weekend: Sat night was discussing political messages in the old Warner Bros./Bugs Bunny cartoons. Sunday morn I drive a couple miles down the road & see this:
Anyhow, it had me thinking about the "Father of Contemporary Animation," Chuck Jones. I had been to one of his galleries in New Mexico but still didn't feel like I knew the real story behind his greatness. /2
And greatness of this caliber is often associated with early lives of pain & suffering.
I immediately looked him up, & found my answer within the first few paragraphs about his childhood.
You see, Chuck Jones was born in Spokane, but his family moved to CA in the 1920s. /3
As much as I wish to stay off of Twitter right now I've got to get back on to promote a few things professionally.
I appreciate all of the support I received this weekend after being called "gross" by a fellow historian. /1
A little context: I jumped into the conversation after seeing him absolutely mansplain a WOC - a PhD scholar of slavery and race - abt Maxine Waters.
The minute I pointed out that he had never personally experienced racism/misogyny, he lost his cool. /2
Anyhow, I truly appreciate everyone who came to my defense.
As to the men who like to DM me privately abt the situation but continue to follow & interact w the men who threaten & call women vile names, go ahead & unfollow me now.
How do ppl not know many of the OG country ⭐s were progressives??
Cash:
"I wear the black for the poor & the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times."
FTR: Country music (& "musicians") took a hard-right political turn precisely at the same time the genre went super-corporate & mainstream...
George Strait & Alan Jackson, 1999:
"The almighty dollar and the lust for worldwide fame
Slowly killed tradition and for that someone should hang
They all say not guilty, but the evidence will show
That murder was committed down on music row."
Thread as promised on the Solid White (#Confederate) South thesis, including the "herding thesis," culture of honor, "Cracker culture" tropes, & why overturning these rids us (false) history written by white supremacists.
1. In the years following the Civil War, all the way to the post-Depression era, historians-both racists like U.B. Phillips, as well as anti-racists like WEB DuBois & William M. Brewer (the editor of the Journal of Negro History for nearly two decades)-described the white South
2. as deeply divided bw wealthy slaveholders & poor whites. There were middling-class yeomen, as well, but their focus was on the tensions bw the haves & the "helots." But by the 1920&30s rich white Southerners were frightened by a rapidly industrializing, urbanizing country- &
I'm seeing some misinformation here re: non-slaveholding southerners fighting in the #CivilWar since @TheTattooedProf 's #RobertELee thread went viral. So let's get a few things right:
1. Support for the #Confederacy varied greatly among non-slaveholders, depending on rural/urban, Upper/Lower South, slave societies/societies w slaves, & ties to slaveholders. Class also mattered: many landholding yeomen DID think 1 day they could own slaves, some rented slaves.
2. But for many cyclically-poor landless whites, esp in the cotton South (abt 1/3 white pop), there was no desire to fight & die to protect slave property. They even realized that their lives were negatively impacted (socio-economically) by the "peculiar institution."