Early Years
Cook was born into slavery in King William County. The names of his parents and the name of the family who owned him are not known, nor is it clear when or under what circumstances he acquired or took his surname. He was described several times as being of mixed-race ancestry. On January 23, 1847, Fields, as he then identified himself, began writing a narrative of his life, one of the longest manuscripts known to have been composed by an enslaved Virginian. The first thirty-two pages of the memoir survive and in 1902 were deposited in the Library of Congress. He recorded that he spent his youth in the Virginia countryside, where his relationship with his master’s family was close and complex. His dearest boyhood companion, the son of his master, delivered the most cutting blow of his young life when he abruptly began treating Fields as a slave. Years later the two reconciled and the white boy gave him two priceless gifts, an introduction to Christianity and literacy. F
The Real History of May Day
Photo: AFP via Getty Images (Getty Images)
For most Americans, closing their laptop or clocking out at the end of an eight-hour shift at a restaurant or construction site is the norm, give or take a half-hour or so for lunch. And as tiring as a day of work can be, it’s easy to forget that over a century ago, people died to afford us the right to an eight-hour workday.
Advertisement
Much of this country’s radical labor tradition has been erased by our political leaders’ allegiance to big business and a reverence for markets and capitalism. But the modicum of rights still afforded to workers in 2021 stem from the 19th century unionists, anarchists, and socialists who first defied the capitalists who created the abhorrent working conditions of the Industrial Revolution.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States was transforming from an agrarian country to an industrial capitalist one. For some white economic thinkers, wage work represented a form of liberty: Workers were free to find employment wherever they wished, signing mutually beneficial contracts with employers. The majority-white labor movement, meanwhile, noted the inherent power differential between capitalists and workers. It saw collective action as a counterbalance.
But as political scientist Benjamin T. Lynerd writes, Black labor leaders and theorists approached economic questions in a totally different way. Thinkers like like Frederick Douglass and Isaac Myers, the founder of the Colored National Labor Union (CNLU), drew on the Jeffersonian tradition of republicanism. (This had nothing to do with belonging to the Republican Party, though the vast majority of Black voters at the time did.)
Commentary: How Black activists aided the labor movement
Dave Kirven
It s an opportune time to reflect on how Black activists helped shape the labor movement.
Most notably was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 when he spoke in support of 1,300 sanitation workers who were on strike for better wages, working conditions and union recognition. He helped show how the labor movement was also about human rights. But it didn’t start out that way.
In 1850, Frederick Douglass helped to organize one of the country’s first Black labor unions, the American League of Colored Laborers, in response to the difficulty that Black workers had in joining white-led unions. In 1869, the first national Black labor union, the Colored National Labor Union, was established and paved the way for future Black-led labor organizations.
Amazon, Google pay the piper
You’ve landed on Human Capital, a weekly newsletter detailing the latest in diversity, equity, inclusion and labor. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Friday at 1 p.m. PT.
The events of this week perfectly encapsulate the variety of worker and workplace-related struggles happening in the tech industry. Google settled some discrimination allegations with the Department of Labor, Amazon agreed to settle a complaint with the FTC over stolen tips from Flex workers and the Alphabet Workers Union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. It was quite the week so let’s get to it.