Histories of the civil rights movement have generally overlooked
the battle to integrate the South's major industries. The paper
industry, which has played an important role in the southern
economy since the 1930s, has been particularly neglected. Using
previously untapped legal records and oral history interviews,
Timothy Minchin provides the first in-depth account of the struggle
to integrate southern paper mills.
Minchin describes how jobs in the southern paper industry were
strictly segregated prior to the 1960s, with black workers confined
to low-paying, menial positions. All work literally had a color:
every job was racially designated and workers were represented by
segregated local unions. Though black workers tried to protest
workplace inequities through their unions, their efforts were
largely ineffective until passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
opened the way for scores of antidiscrimination lawsuits. Even
then, however, resistance from executives and white workers ensured
that the fight to integrate the paper industry was a long and
difficult one.