Overview

Communists and Community seeks to reframe the traditional chronology of the Communist Party in the United States as a means to better understand the change that occurred in community activism in the mid-twentieth century. Ryan Pettengill argues that Popular Front activism continued to flourish throughout the war years and into the postwar period. In Detroit, where there was a critical mass of heavy industry, Communist Party activists mobilized support for civil rights and affordable housing, brought attention to police brutality, sought protection for the foreign-born, and led a movement for world peace.  Communists and Community demonstrates that the Communist Party created a social space where activists became effective advocates for the socioeconomic betterment of a multiracial work force. Pettengill uses Detroit as a case study to examine how communist activists and their sympathizers maintained a community to enhance the quality of life for the city’s working class. He investigates the long-term effects of organized labor’s decision to force communists out of the unions and abandon community-based activism. Communists and Community recounts how leftists helped workers, people of color, and other under-represented groups became part of the mainstream citizenry in America.

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9781439919057

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Move over, Saul Alinsky! Communists and Community uncovers the hidden history of community organizing in Detroit before Alinsky's version emerged. Pettengill's sharp portrait reveals working-class radicals attempting to connect community and workplace power struggles; these were overlooked because Communist Party history was erased. From activism that began in bowling halls and clubs to campaigns for anti-police brutality and civil rights, Pettengill shows that direct action outside the workplace was a vital part of the quest for working-class power. He also rewrites the history of postwar conservatism by showing that right-wing community activists prevailed in part because of the removal of radicals during the Cold War who had acted as a bridge between labor and community struggles. -Rosemary Feurer, Associate Professor of History at Northern Illinois University and author of Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950 Communists and Community greatly contributes to our understanding of an understudied period of U.S. communism. In this excellent monograph, Ryan Pettengill-utilizing extensive archival sources, including Detroit Red Squad records-recounts the important role Communists played in a variety of union and community-based coalitions devoted to fighting racism, wartime price and rent gouging, labor and housing discrimination, and police brutality. According to Pettengill, those alliances unfortunately did not survive the party-line shifts and the Cold War purges of the left, thus destroying the possibility of achieving a more inclusive and just social and economic order. -Gerald Zahavi, Professor of History at the University at Albany, SUNY, and author of Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism: The Shoeworkers and Tanners of Endicott Johnson, 1890-1950

Author Information

Ryan S. Pettengill is a Professor of History at Mountain View College in Dallas, Texas.

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