In this oral history classic, Alice and Staughton Lynd chronicle the stories of more than two dozen working-class organizers who occupied factories, held sit-down strikes, walked out, picketed, and found other bold and innovative ways to fight for workers’ rights.
Rank and File brings the militancy of these firebrand organizers to life, recounting how they challenged safety violations, management intimidation, and sexism and racism on the job; founded unions; and worked for broader social change.
Alice Lynd was a draft counselor and trainer of draft counselors during the Vietnam War. In 1968, she published We Won’t Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors. She later became first a paralegal and then a lawyer. After retirement from practicing labor law in the wake of plant shutdowns, she became an advocate for prisoners sentenced to death and/or held for years in solitary confinement at Ohio’s supermaximum security prison.
Jessie Wilkerson is a writer, historian, and the author of To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice.
ISBN: 9798888909621
Publication date: March 2, 2027
“One of the best works of oral history produced by radical historians. . . . For readers who want to see an alternative view to social trade union history, in which labor leaders take the center stage, Rank and File is the place to begin. These personal histories of rank-and-file organizers show how ordinary working-class men and women made their own history.”
—The Nation
“The stories, which are replete with heroism, double-dealing, hope, and su ering, make a vital contribution to an understanding of American labor’s struggle for recognition and united strength.”
—Library Journal
“A skillful compilation of interviews with working-class organizers . . . not just an oral history, but a chronicle of modern political events ignored in mainstream labor history and journalistic commentary. e value lies in what it will tell future generations about today.”
—History Workshop Journal
“The first serious installment in . . . radical labor history.”
—Labor History
Edited by Alice Lynd and Staughton Lynd
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