Funding for this study was generously provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Michigan. Kimeldorf wishes to acknowledge the numerous colleagues and friends who have provided valuable comments and insights into the larger project of which this article is a part.

1. Dubois, W.E.B., The Philadelphia Negro (New York, 1899), 98, 128.Google Scholar

2. Spero, Sterling D. and Harris, Abram L., The Black Worker: The Negro and the Labor Movement (New York, 1931), 335.Google Scholar

3. Solidarity, November 5, 1921, 1. The only article-length study of the Philadelphia longshoremen concludes similarly that “the IWW's non-discrimination policies enabled black workers to obtain a voice unheard of in industrial affairs of the day.” See McGirr, Lisa, “Black and White Longshoremen in the IWW: A History of the Philadelphia Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union Local 8,” Labor History 37 (1995):377–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Spero and Harris, The Black Worker, 335.

5. Trotter, Joe William Jr, “African-American Workers: New Directions in U.S. Labor History,” Labor History 35 (1994):499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. See, for example, Cayton, Horace R. and Mitchell, George S., Black Workers and the New Unions (Chapel Hill, 1939);Google ScholarNorthrup, Herbert, Organized Labor and the Negro (New York, 1944);Google ScholarSpero, and Harris, , The Black Worker; Weaver, Robert C., Negro Labor: A National Problem (New York, 1965);Google ScholarMarshall, Ray, The Negro and Organized Labor (New York, 1965):Google ScholarWesley, Charles H., Negro Labor in the United States, 1850–1925: A Study in American Economic History (New York, 1967);Google ScholarFoner, Philip S., Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619–1973 (New York, 1974). Historical research conducted by sociologists and other social scientists on split labor markets also presumed integration to be the goal of racially exploited groups.Google ScholarSee, for example, Bonacich, Edna, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market,” American Sociological Review 37 (1972):547–559;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedBonacich, Edna, “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Relations in the United States,” American Sociological Review 41 (1976):34–51;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMarks, Carole, “Split Labor Markets and Black-White Relations, 1865–1920,” Phylon 42 (1981):293–308;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGordon, David, Edwards, Richard, and Reich, Michael, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States (Cambridge, 1982);Google ScholarBoswell, Terry E., “A Split Labor Market Analysis of Discrimination Against Chinese Immigrants, 1850–1882,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986):352–71;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBoswell, Terry, “Strikebreaking or Solidarity in the Great Steel Strike of 1919: A Split Labor Market, Game-Theoretic, and QCA Analysis,” American Journal of Sociology 100 (1995):1479–1519.Google Scholar

7. Arnesen, Eric, “Following the Color Line of Labor: Black Workers and the Labor Movement Before 1930,” Radical History Review 55 (1993):65.Google Scholar The “new” historical research on race and class that began appearing in the late 1960s generally viewed racial identities as less resilient and more permeable than those of class. See, for example, Gutman, Herbert, “The Negro and the United Mine Workers of America: The Career and Letters of Richard L. Davis and Something of Their Meaning, 1890–1900,” in The Negro and the American Labor Movement, ed. Jacobson, Julius (Garden City, 1968), 49–127;Google ScholarWorthman, Paul, “Black Workers and Labor Unions in Alabama, 1897–1904,” Labor History 10 (1969):375–407;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBrier, Stephen, “Inter-racial Organizing in the West Virginia Coal Industry: The Participation of Black Mine Workers in the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers, 1880–1894,” in Essays in Southern Labor History, ed. Fink, Gary M. and Reed, Merle E. (Westport, 1977) 18–43;Google ScholarJordan, Daniel P., “The Mingo War: Labor Violence in the Southern West Virginia Coal Fields, 1921–1922,” in Essays in Southern Labor History, ed. Fink, Gary M. and Reed, Merle E. (Westport, 1977), 102–43.Google Scholar The significance of class remains a dominant theme within neo-Marxian scholarship on race. See, for example. Fields, Barbara J., “Ideology and Race in American History,” in Region, Race and Reconstruction, ed. Kousser, J. Morgan and McPherson, James M. (Oxford, 1982), 143–177;Google ScholarSolomos, John, “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of ‘Race,’ Class and the State: A Critical Analysis”in Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations, ed. Rex, John and Mason, David (Cambridge, 1986), 84–109;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWolpe, Howard, “Class Concepts, Class Struggle and Racism,” in Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations ed. Rex, John and Mason, David (Cambridge, 1986), 110–30;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGoldfield, Michael, “Race and the CIO: The Possibilities for Racial Egalitarianism During the 1930s and 1940s,” International Labor and Working-Class History 44 (1993):1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Omi, Michael and Winant, Howard, Racial Formation in the United States (New York, 1988);Google ScholarPainter, Nell Irvin, “Remembering Herbert Gutman,” Labor History 29 (1988):336–43;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGrossman, James, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Chicago, 1989);CrossRefGoogle ScholarKelley, Robin D.G., Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, 1990);Google ScholarTrotter, Joe William Jr, Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in South West Virginia, 1915–32 (Urbana, 1990);Google ScholarLewis, Earl, In Their Own Interests: Race, Class, and Power in Twentieth-Century Norfolk, Virginia (Berkeley, 1991);Google ScholarArnesen, Eric, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class and Politics, 1863–1923 (New York, 1991);Google ScholarHoney, Michael, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers, 1929–1955 (Urbana, 1993);Google ScholarRoediger, David, “Race and the Working Class Past in the United States: Multiple Identities and the Future of Labor History,” International Review of Social History 38, Supplement 1 (1993): 127–43;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAlmaguer, Tomás, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley, 1994);Google ScholarHill, Herbert, “The Problem of Race in American Labor History” Reviews in American History 24 (1996):189–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Roediger, David, The Wages of Whiteness (London, 1991), 9.Google ScholarSee also Boston, Thomas D., Race, Class, and Conservatism (Boston, 1988);Google ScholarSaxton, Alexander, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth Century America (London, 1990);Google ScholarWest, Cornell, Race Matters (Boston, 1993);Google ScholarWellman, David T., Portraits of White Racism (Cambridge, 1993);CrossRefGoogle ScholarAllen, Theodore W., The Invention of the White Race, vol. 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control (New York, 1994).Google Scholar On the persistence of white working-class racism, see Mink, Gwendolyn, Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920 (Ithaca, 1986);Google ScholarHill, Herbert, “Myth-Making as Labor History: Herbert Gutman and Afro-American History,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 2 (1988):132–200;CrossRefGoogle ScholarQuam-Wickham, Nancy, “Who Controls the Hiring Hall? The Struggle for Job Control in the ILWU,” in The CIO's Left-Led Unions, ed. Rosswurm, Steve (New Brunswick, 1992), 47–67;Google ScholarArnesen, Eric;Like Banquo's Ghost, It will not Down': The Race Question and the American Railroad Brotherhoods, 1880–1920,” American Historical Review 99 (1994):1601–33;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNelson, Bruce, “The Lords of the Docks Reconsidered: Race Relations among West Coast Longshoremen, 1933–1961,” in Essays in Waterfront Labor History, ed. Wilson, Calvin (Urbana, forthcoming).Google Scholar

10. Workers of color, except in those accounts focusing specifically on them, remain marginalized in most analyses of race relations, particularly so in studies of interracial unionism and the construction of whiteness.

11. Barnes, Charles, The Longshoremen (New York, 1915), 181–83.Google Scholar

12. Barnes, The Longshoremen, 4–12; Rubin, Lester, The Negro in the Longshore Industry (Philadelphia, 1974), 58.Google Scholar

13. Spero and Harris, The Black Worker, 333; Rubin, Lester, The Negro in the Longshore Industry (Philadelphia, 1974), 79;Google ScholarKane, Joe, interview with Howard Kimeldorf, Philadelphia, 05 2, 1989; Joe Biginski, interview with Howard Kimeldorf, Philadelphia, May 3, 1989; Edward Kelly, telephone interview with Howard Kimeldorf, Ann Arbor, March 10, 1990.Google Scholar

14. Foner, Philip S., History of the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 4: The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905–1917 (New York, 1965), 126.Google Scholar

15. Russell, Maud, Men Along The Shore (New York, 1966), 50–52, 248.Google Scholar

16. For an insightful discussion of the IWW's syndicalism, see Dubofsky, Melvyn, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Urbana, 1988). chap. 7.Google Scholar That such syndicalist impulses extended beyond the IWW is the main thesis advanced in an important and controversial essay by Montgomery, David, “The ‘New Unionism’ and the Transformation of Workers’ Consciousness in America, 1909–1922,” Journal of Social History 7 (1974):509–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Solidarity, May 24, 1913, 2.

18. Ibid., 2.

19. On the ILA's racial practices, see Rubin, Lester, The Negro in the Longshore Industry (Philadelphia, 1974);Google ScholarArnesen, Eric, “‘What's on the Black Worker's Mind’? African-American Workers and the Union Tradition,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 10 (1994):5–18;Google ScholarArnesen, Eric, “‘It Aint Like They Do in New Orleans’: Race Relations, Labor Markets, and Waterfront Labor Movements in the American South, 1880–1923,” in Racism and the Labour Market: Historical Studies ed. van der Linden, Marcel and Lucassen, Jan (New York, 1995),57–100.Google Scholar

20. Insisting that “race prejudice has no place in a labor organization,” the Wobblies urged blacks to join the IWW “as the organization that best expresses the interest of the whole working class”; see “Colored Workers of America: Why You Should Join the IWW,” 2 (n.d.), Box 158, folder: Colored Workers of America, Papers of the Industrial Workers of the World, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University (hereafter cited as IWW Papers). For a more thorough discussion of the IWW's racial policies, see Brown, Mylan Rudolph, The IWW and the Negro Worker (Ed.D. diss., Ball State University, 1968).Google Scholar

21. Quoted in Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619–1973, 113.

22. Philadelphia Public Ledger, June 19, 1913, 2.

23. Wright, Richard R. Jr, The Negro in Pennsylvania: A Study In Economic History (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1912), 94, 98.Google Scholar

24. Bird, Stewart, Georgakas, Dan, and Shaffer, Deborah, eds., Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW (Chicago, 1985), 183–84.Google Scholar

25. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 22, 1913, 17; Philadelphia Inquirer, July 23, 1913, 6.

26. The Wobblies were thus not, strictly speaking, “colorblind.” They did recognize distinctions between black and white labor, and consciously built into the union's governance structure a mechanism to insure representation of both groups. But the thrust of their organizational efforts and rhetoric was to suppress as much as possible such intraclass differences as obstacles to labor solidarity. Foner, Philip S., “The IWW and the Black Worker,” Journal of Negro History 55 (1970):51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Messenger 3 October 1921, 263.

28. For more on Fletcher's life, see Seraile, William, “Ben Fletcher, IWW Organizer,” Pennsylvania History 46 (07 1979): 213–32;Google ScholarMarcus, Irwin, “Benjamin Fletcher: Black Labor Leader,” Negro History Bulletin 35 (10 1972): 138–40;Google ScholarKimeldorf, Howard, “Benjamin Fletcher,” in American National Biography, ed. Garraty, John (Oxford, forthcoming).Google Scholar

29. In addition to Flynn and Quinlan, Fletcher's early years in Philadelphia may have put him in contact with many leading radicals of his day, among them John Reed and Joe Hill; see unsigned correspondence (from Fred Thompson?) to Sam and Esther, dated January 6, 1967, Box 12, Folder 26, Fred Thompson Collection, IWW Papers.

30. On Fletcher's early contact with the IWW, see correspondence from John B. Campbell to the director of military intelligence, cover letter dated October 27, 1919, Records of the War Department General Staff, Military Intelligence Division, Correspondence, 1917–1941, Record Group 165, Box 2776, File No. 10110–1460–2, National Archives, Washington D.C. On Fletcher's position as corresponding secretary, see Solidarity, August 10, 1912, 3.

31. Voice of the People, October 16, 1913, 1; Solidarity, August 1, 1914, 1; August 23, 1914, 1, 4; November 28, 1914, 1.

32. Solidarity, May 30, 1914, 2; August 1, 1914, 1.

33. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 7, 1916, 1.

34. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 7, 1916, 1.

35. “The Philadelphia Controversy,” Box 79, Folder 20, 1, IWW Papers.

36. Solidarity, May 27, 1916, 1.

37. International Socialist Review 17 (April, 1917):616.

38. Philadelphia Public Ledger, February 22, 1917, 1, 9; International Socialist Review 17 (April 1917):617.

39. Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 21, 1917, 6.

40. The undercover operative is quoted in Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Record Group 65, Microfilm Reel 806, Case File No. 366145, dated October 29, 1918, National Archives, Washington, DC (hereafter cited as FBI Papers).

41. On the wartime migration of black labor from the south to Pennsylvania, see U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Secretary, Division of Negro Economics, Haynes, George E., Ph.D., director, Negro Migration in 1916–17 (Washington, 1919; reprint, New York, 1969), 123–25.Google Scholar

42. The number of weekly initiates is from an unsigned report, dated July 14, 1917, Microfilm Reel 555, Case File No. 160053, FBI Papers. Estimates on the proportion of black members are from Seraile, “Ben Fletcher,” 217, and John J. Walsh Testimony, 9356, Box 114, Folder 5, “U.S. vs. William D. Haywood et al,” trial transcript, IWW papers.

43. Biracialism and, as a result, weak unions were common along the Gulf Coast—except for New Orleans. See Rosenberg, Daniel, New Orleans Dockworkers: Race, Labor, and Unionism, 1892–1923 (Albany, 1988);Google Scholar Arnesen, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans.

44. “Philadelphia Controversy,” IWW Papers, 21, 22; Solidarity, December 4, 1920, 3.

45. The coastwise trade was limited to vessels plying the Atlantic coast. Given the presence of inexpensive alternative modes of regional land-based transportation like rail and truck, coastwise shipments were few and far between. In many larger ports, including Philadelphia, coastwise shipping was left to “casual” workers who frequented waterfront bars and flophouses. Deepwater shipping, consisting primarily of foreign commerce and some inter-coastal traffic, was the core of unionization in most US ports.

46. On the federal government's wartime persecution of Local 8, see Seraile, “Ben Fletcher, IWW Organizer,” 219–25; Kimeldorf, Howard, “Radical Possibilities? The Rise and Fall of Wobbly Unionism on the Philadelphia Docks,” in Studies in Waterfront Labor History, ed. Winslow, Calvin (Urbana, forthcoming).Google Scholar

47. Solidarity, December 4, 1920, 3.

48. “Philadelphia Controversy,” IWW Papers, 16–17.

49. On Local 8's expulsions see Renshaw, Patrick, The Wobblies: The Story of Syndicalism in the United States (Garden City, 1967), 249–50;Google Scholar McGirr, “Black and White Longshoremen,” 394–97; and Kimeldorf, “Radical Possibilities?”

50. It is not clear whether Local 1116 was formally chartered as a separate “colored” local, although it clearly functioned as one, with a leadership and membership that was from its inception exclusively black.

51. Although FBI informants reported a growing “number of colored longshoremen… leaving the IWW” for the ILA during the summer of 1921, it appears that most of Local 1116's recruits were not Wobblies but rather casual workers confined to the unorganized coastwise trade. This is based on the fact that Local 8 reported no substantial loss in membership around the time, except for the expulsion (and subsequent readmission) of some twenty-five to thirty- five African-Americans who were charged with fraternizing with the ILA.

52. Report of unidentified agent, dated April 15, 1922, received by Freedom of Information Act request from the Federal Bureau of Intelligence by Howard Kimeldorf (June 30, 1993), 14.

53. Philadelphia Public Ledger, August 20, 1920, 3; Negro World, March 7, 1925, 2.

54. Negro World, September 25, 1922, 2.

55. Stein, Judith, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (Baton Rouge, 1986), 92–93, 104.Google Scholar

56. Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 7, 1920, 5.

57. Messenger 3 (July, 1921):215.

58. Messenger 3 (August, 1921):234.

59. Messenger 3 (July, 1921):215.

60. Fair is quoted in Bird, Georgakas, and Shaffer, eds., Solidarity Forever, 182. Messenger 3 (July 1921):214; Messenger 3 (October 1921):263.

61. Tuttle, William M., Race Riot, Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York, 1970);Google ScholarHalliburton, R. Jr, The Tulsa Race War of 1921 (San Francisco, 1975);Google ScholarRudwick, Elliott, ed., The East St. Louis Race Riot of 1917, microform ed. (Frederick, MD, 1985).Google Scholar

62. Philadelphia Public Ledger, April 28, 1919, 4.

63. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 8, 1919, 6.

64. Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 13, 1920, 3; July 18, 1921, 2.

65. Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 31, 1921, 2.

66. Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 15, 1922.

67. Vote totals are from report of Agent No. 10, October 29, 1922, Records of the United States Shipping Board, Record Group 32, Investigated Cases Files of the Home Office, Case File No. 1494, National Archives, Washington DC (hereafter cited as Shipping Board Papers). Baker is quoted in Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 15, 1922, 16.

68. Report of Agent No. 10, October 15, 1922, Shipping Board Papers.

69. Report of Agent No. 10, October 27, 1922, Shipping Board Papers.

70. ILA activities are detailed in an unsigned report (Agent No. 2?), October 17, 1922, and Report of Agent No. 10, October 29, 1922, Shipping Board Papers. O'Connor's offer is reported in Solidarity, November 18, 1922, 1.

71. Philadelphia Public Ledger, OCtober 14, 1922.

72. Report of Agent No. 2, October 19–20, 1922, Shipping Board Papers.

73. Report of Agent No. 2, October 23, 1922; report of Agent No. 10, October 29, 1922, Shipping Board Papers.

74. Report of Agent McDevitt, October 31, 1922, Record Group 60. Department of Justice, Case File 61–2353, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

75. General Office Bulletin 1925, 8–9, Box 32, Folder 1, IWW Papers.

76. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 16, 1923, 2.

77. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 23, 1923, 2; August 6, 1923, 2; August 7, 1923, 2.

78. Philadelphia Public Ledger, September 9, 1923, 2.

79. Marine Worker, July 31, 1924, 3.

80. Marine Worker, August 28, 1924, 1.

81. Philadelphia Tribune, July 18, 1925, 6.

82. Baker's continuing belief in the IWW is in correspondence from Fred Thompson to unidentified, (May 10?), 1976, Box 10, Folder 6, Fred Thompson Collection, IWW papers. Baker's comments on the race question are from Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth Convention of the International Longshoremen's Association, July 11–16, 1927, 135.

83. Moses, Abraham, interview with Williams, Greg and Kirlin, Ed, 05 12, 1980,Google Scholar electronic tape 00011, Philadelphia Maritime Museum, Philadelphia.

84. Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth Convention, 135–136.

85. Ibid., 15.

86. Lewis, In Their Own Interests. On the intersection of race and class, see Schmitt, Richard, “A New Hypothesis about the Relations of Class and Gender: Capitalism as a Dependent System,” Social Theory and Practice 14 (1988):345–65;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGriffin, Larry, “How Do We Disentangle Race and Class? Or Should We Even Try?” Work and Occupations 22 (1995):85–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This argument can be extended to include gender as well. See Milkman, Ruth, Gender At Work: The Dynamics of Job Segmentation by Sex During World War II (Urbana, 1987):Google ScholarScott, Joan W., Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988):Google ScholarBaron, Ava, “Gender and Labor History: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future,” in Work Engendered, ed. Baron, Ava (Ithaca, 1991), 1–46;Google ScholarHigginbotham, Evelyn, “African-American Women's History and the Meta-Language of Race,” Signs 17 (1992):251–74;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRose, Sonya, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1992);CrossRefGoogle ScholarGriffin, Larry and Korstad, Robert, “Class as Race and Gender: Making and Breaking a Labor Union in the Jim Crow South,” Social Science History 19 (1995):425–54.Google Scholar

87. Correspondence from BHF (Benjamin Fletcher) to Mr Abram Harris, July 29, 1929, Abram Harris Collection, Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Howard University.

88. Hall, Stuart et al. , Policing the Crisis: Mugging, The State, and Law and Order (New York, 1978), 394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar