In Black Folk, Blair Kelley portrays generations of Black workers — Pullman porters, domestic laborers, USPS employees, COVID-19 essential workers — who have contributed to the nation’s prosperity.
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Over the last few years, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Blair Kelley would often bristle when she heard the way TV commentators used the term white working class. She felt the news media was obscuring the existence of one of America’s vital work forces. From slavery to the formation of labor unions as we know them, it is the Black working class, Kelley writes in her new book, that is also at the center of the American story. Blair Kelley is director of the Center for the Study of the American South and Joel R. Williamson distinguished professor of Southern studies.