I recently finished the first part of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal by Charles Denby and have to say that it is a great, great read.
The book is a written account of his life as orally told by Denby (or rather, by Si Owens who originally wrote under the pseudonym of Matthew Ward and later under the pseudonym of Charles Denby). Denby was originally born in Alabama in the early 20th century to a family of sharecroppers and farmers. He joined a massive migration northbound in 1924 when he moved to Detroit to find work in the factories.
During the Depression he was laid off so he temporarily moved back South, first to Alabama with his family and then to Memphis when he found the farm work unbearable. He would eventually return to Detroit in the 40s to work in the auto plants. He was a rank and file militant and recounts numerous episodes of the everyday resistance among black workers against the white racists of the rural south, against the bosses in the northern factories and the growing union bureaucracy.
Continue reading
