Black Voices in Southern Labor Spaces: The Delta-Providence Cooperative Farms & The North Carolina Commission of Interracial Cooperation

This thesis project explores the role of voice in Black social movements in the context of US labor history. This project aims to examine three distinct spaces from 1928-1949 under the lens of struggle, versus a narrative of linear progress. This thesis argues that the social and economic conditions of these Black working class spaces have been filtered through White interpretations. This thesis seeks to build upon the historical methods and framework of Robin D.G. Kelley and Michel-Rolph Trouillot to interpret the records of these spaces beyond their surface values. This thesis examines the records and letters of the Mississippi Delta-Providence Farm Cooperative and the North Carolina Commission of Interracial Cooperation (NCCIC) to portray the realities of the Black working class realities in the rural and urban context of the US South in the Great Depression era