Kelley, Robin G. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression.Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

== Summary ==
Robin
D.G Kelley’s Hammer and Hoe examines
communist radicals in Alabama in the first part of the 20th century.
These “unlikely radicals” built a communist party by themselves and were composed
mostly of poor semiliterate, and religious blacks, and a small cadre of white
folks – ranging from ex-Klansmen to former Wobblies.  To get at their experiences, this book
examines the communist political opposition through the lenses of social and
cultural history. Kelley pays particular attention to “the worlds from which
these radicals came, the worlds in which thy lived, and the imaginary worlds
they sought to build” in order to understand how class, race, gender work,
community, region, history, upbringing, and collective memory shaped the
worldviews of these radicals.  Their
ideas shaped the communist parties local practices in Alabama and contrary to
the communist debates (Draper, 1980s), Alabama communists developed strategies
and tactics that had nothing to do with the international crises or the
“orders” of the Soviet Union (xiv). This study not only highlights black
radicals in the South, largely ignored, but also suggests “that racial
divisions were far more fluid and Southern working class consciousness far more
complex.” (xiii) It is a story about the rise and fall (invisible to visible to
invisible) of the communist part in Alabama.