Kelley’s dissertation on that subject became Hammer and Hoe, a book that explores what might have seemed to be a fairly esoteric topic yet offered lessons that activists have been drawing on for twenty-five years. As a young activist and campus organizer, Kelley was part of the movement that pushed the University of California system to divest from its holdings in South Africa, but he was also discovering a tradition of black radical organizing closer to home-that of the Communist Party in Alabama. There was an uprising against police violence in Liberty City, Florida multiracial coalitions propelled Harold Washington to the mayor’s office in Chicago and the presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson was gathering steam. Kelley began work in the 1980s on what would become his classic work of radical history, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, he was surrounded by activism. Kelley discusses the lessons Alabama’s forgotten black communists can offer today’s activists. On the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking history, Hammer and Hoe, author Robin D.G.
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