Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements

by James R. Green

Deftly blending autobiography and history, James Green here reflects on thirty years as an activist, educator, and historian. He recounts how he became deeply immersed in political protest and in recovering and preserving the history of progressive social movements, and how the two are linked. His book, written in an engaging and accessible style, tells powerful stories of people in struggle, framed by the personal account of his own development. As a historian, Green gives voice to generations of Americans who banded together to fight for social justice. His subjects range from the martyrs of the Haymarket tragedy to the Bread and Roses strikers of 1912, from depression-era struggles for democracy to the civil rights crusaders, from recent Rainbow Coalition campaigns to the latest union organizing drives. As an activist, Green describes how his participation in the civil rights and labor movements of our own time has transformed his life, first as a student and radical scholar in the 1960s, then as a public historian and teacher of working-class students. He also describes his efforts to break free from academic confinement and "tell movement stories in public," in an attempt to offer hope and counsel to those still fighting for equality and fairness. He concludes with a revealing look at how awareness of past social activism has contributed to the revival of the labor movement during the last ten years, an effort in which Green has been vigorously engaged.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2000

About the author

James Robert Green (November 4, 1944 – June 23, 2016) was an American historian, author, and labor activist. He was Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Green received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1972. Green studied under the legendary historian C. Vann Woodward, and became acquainted with the leftist historians Eric Hobsbawm and Herbert Gutman. During this time he also was involved in the anti-war movement, which eventually sparked his interest in the history of radicalism in the United States.

Green's research focuses on radical political and social movements in the U.S. (including new social movements), as well as the history of labor unions in the United States. Green writes social and political history from "the bottom up." He writes from a leftist theoretical standpoint.

In 1987, in addition to continuing on the faculty at UMass-Boston, Green was named a lecturer at the Harvard Trade Union Program (now called the Labor and Worklife Program) at Harvard Law School.

In 1995, Green founded the Labor Resource Center at UMass-Boston.

In 1998, Green was named a Fulbright scholar and taught at the University of Genoa in Italy.

Green was a member of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA). He was a vice president of LAWCHA from 2001 to 2003 and its president from 2003 to 2005.

Reviews

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

I read this book for comps, which is finished now (yay!) but I have quite the backlog of books I wish to comment upon briefly on goodreads from those lists. I did not expect to finish reading all the books on my lists but somehow I did, though I read through some books extremely quickly and less than carefully.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. You might have had a professor like James Green who spends quite a bit of time bragging about all the time he spent around renowned celebrity academics. Perhaps you find this sort of namedropping bothersome. I, however, love it. I had a professor like that two years ago and enjoyed his class very much. Green spends many pages in this book describing his experiences rubbing shoulders with various celebrated Marxist and New Left historians like Hobsbawm, Raymond Williams, and E.P. Thompson. Green seems to be in the New Left camp himself, and I have many political disagreements with him, but I still enjoy reading stuff by people like him. It was interesting to see how university history departments changed during the course of his academic life, and the various struggles that were involved in that transformation.

I happened to arrive at Green’s excellent May Day chapter on International Workers’ Day itself which was excellent happenstance. May Day ended up being so rainy and wet though (as it was last year when I decided to stay home). The turnout was rather low understandably, and by the end I was exhausted, drenched, cold, and covered in random paint stains from the bleeding signs I was holding. But afterwards I ended up at a wonderful Myseum exhibit called Patuloy ang Laban (The Fight Continues) on the history of Filipino activism in Toronto that my comrades put together, and it was so re-energizing to be there.

Green talked a lot about public history in this book and how historians can produce history in support of workers’ struggles and aims, and how monuments and May Day rallies are capable of memorializing important figures and events in working class history. It was so cool to see a manifestation of something like that in real life by Filipino diaspora and allies in my community, who work closely with Filipino migrant workers, in some cases are Filipino migrant workers and international students, and so on, coming together to create an exhibit that was so engaging. The exhibit was crowded the entire time I was there, shoulder to shoulder. And so many people were so interested in the little parts of it, and it was honestly beautiful with so much wonderful art. It convinced me that artistic public history interventions, organized by activist groups themselves, are powerful tools in political struggle and worth time, attention, and organizing energy.

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has undermined many of the 5-star ratings I’ve given on this platform – it is simply outstanding, encouraging, and humbling. James Green is a US-based labour historian who, in this collection, explores doing history in critical support of the movement. The three sections trace, in the first Green’s biographical move to Movement history, in the second case studies of doing history with and for the Movement, and in the third the importance of a civil rights movement inflected history for contemporary labour movement struggles. I am impressed that he is as willing to self-criticise as he is to celebrate, to highlight the limits of academic scholarly activity and its failure to address broader audiences but more importantly the challenges in translating it to more popular media – such as film and television. The case made is inspiring and uplifting, and a useful criticism of both the history-for-history’s sake empiricists and the reflexivity of much of the ‘cultural turn’ which means that they’ve lost the drive of the early practitioners of cultural histories. Green’s celebration of E P Thomson and Raphael Samuel is a useful reminder of the importance of history in the interests of people’s struggles, while his analysis of the role of Movement history in Boston community organising, workers and union campaigns such as the Pittston mine strike in Virginia, and campaigns such as Justice for Janitors is a reminder of how and why we historians should be doing what we do. A must read.