Since the book was published, Kelley’s work has become more interesting, perhaps in part due to the influence to his encounter with the late Chicago Surrealist Franklin Rosemont and the Black Radical Congress inaugural meeting in 1988 (see my review of Black, Brown and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora, which he co-edited with Rosemont). His book, published in 1990, is part of a current of American historiography that-broadly speaking-attempts to rehabilitate the position of the Communist Party in the interpretation of the struggle of African-American freedom struggle. Kelley is a professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. The book was written twenty years ago, but it is still widely read and its subject matter is of such importance that it warrants a brief review here. Kelley’s Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. I have finally taken the time to read Robin D.G.
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