In, The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the U.S., James posit that it is Black workers and the Black working-class that was central and unique in the fight against capitalism. Specifically, James outlined the following: We say, number 1, that the Negro struggle, the independent Negro struggle, has a vitality and a validity of its own; that it has deep historic roots in the past of America and in present struggles; it has an organic political perspective, along which it is traveling, to one degree or another, and everything shows that at the present time it is traveling with great speed and vigor. We say, number 2, that this independent Negro movement is able to intervene with terrific force upon the general social and political life of the nation, despite the fact that it is waged under the banner of democratic rights. We say, number 3, and this is the most important, that it is able to exercise a powerful influence upon the revolutionary proletariat, that it has got a great contribution to make to the development of the proletariat in the United States. James also argued for independent Black movements against capitalism because Black workers would be subject to special prejudices generated by the bourgeoisie against them. Here, James tackled in depth one of the most important challenges for building an interracial working-class movement, namely the role of white workers. In his 1945 essay “White Workers’ Prejudices,” written three years before “Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem,” James explained that white workers would always be vulnerable to absorbing racial prejudices against Black workers because capitalism was built out of slavery, segregation of the races and racial hierarchy which shaped the society as a whole, especially the workplace. W.E.B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction, offers a supporting contribution as he presents the racial “bribe” of white privilege as the “wages of whiteness.” He argued that after the Civil War, southern plantation owners sought to implant racism in the minds of white workers to prevent them from unifying. What we will hear next, in contribution to the tradition partially laid out above, is a critical intervention in the dominant conversation on the current strike. Organized by Communiversity South, this intervention is focusing on Black Workers and the UAW strike: centering the long genealogy of the work of Black worker organizing in auto industry. The conversation included: Nsea Brenda Stokely, longtime activist, Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; N.E. Regional Coordinator, Million Worker March Movement. Clarence Thomas (a.k.a. The Real Clarence Thomas) is a 3rd generation retired member of International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 in San Francisco and a leading radical African American trade unionist. Past-secretary-treasurer and executive board member of his local. He is author of, Mobilizing in Our Own Name: Million Worker March. Willie Brown, City of Durham public works; worker and member of UE150. Robin DG Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA, active-intellectual; and Board member, Communiversity South. The conversation was moderated by Menelik Van Der Meer, longtime activist, Chair of the Board of Communiversity South, Senior Lecturer in Africana Studies at UMass- Boston. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly …!