Through the use of organizational records, newspapers, oral history interviews, and other primary and secondary sources, this dissertation examines Black Workers for Justice’s history from 1981-1988. I explore the organization’s founding, key leaders, its vision for social transformation, and its commitment to building independent political structures to strengthen the workers and Black freedom movements. As scholarship on the 1980s continues to develop, I argue that the history of Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ) is an important window into the African American freedom struggle of that time. BWFJ’s history belongs to a larger story about the world and movement in which they organized. That is, BWFJ did not have a narrow conception of freedom and how to achieve it. Ultimately, this dissertation on BWFJ argues that the organizing and political program of BWFJ demonstrates the centrality of the South and North Carolina in the African American freedom struggle.
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