| This dissertation examines the complex connections between race, technology, economic change, labor unions, and society in the mining regions around Birmingham, Alabama, from the early 1930s through the end of the 20th Century. Based primarily on union archives, company records, oral histories, state records, and manuscript collections of political leaders, it explores the causes for the dramatic decline in employment among African American coal miners during this era.; When the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) re-emerged in the Alabama coalfields during the New Deal Era, it issued an important challenge to the power of industrial and political elites and pushed the boundaries of segregation as well. The UMWA, however, also compromised with the white supremacist society in which it operated, and the union remained in white control despite the numerical superiority African Americans enjoyed in both the mines and the organization.; In the decades that followed, the UMWA failed to protect the jobs of its black members. During the 1930s and 1940s, the coal operators increasingly mechanized their mines, causing many blacks to loose their jobs. The collapse of the Alabama coal industry in the late 1940s and 1950s accelerated this process. The level of blacks in the coal workforce declined from more than 50 percent in 1930 to about 20 percent in 1970, according to some estimates. This dissertation examines the union's slow response to this crisis.; This study also seeks to place the struggles of Alabama coal miners into a wider context. It chronicles the effects of the economic changes on coal communities and the relationship between miners and the state's political structure. Finally, this study also examines the effect of global markets on the Alabama coalfields. Beginning in the late 1960s, the Alabama coal industry entered global export markets, which helped lead to a brief rebirth of the industry. However, coal imports from overseas and western states also began to enter the region, which eventually caused a dramatic decline in coal employment in the Alabama coalfields at the end of the 20th Century. |
