Joe William Trotter, Jr., is a pioneering Black scholar best known for his book, Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia, 1915-32, published in 1990 by the University of Illinois Press. The five chapters and the Epilogue of this new book bring together thirty years of seminal research and writing by Trotter from a variety of academic sources. “Joe William Trotter Jr.’s African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry is more than a topical collection of essays by a pioneering scholar summarizing the history and historiography of Black coal miners. At a time when race, class, labor, and structural violence are coming back into sharp thematic focus due to the disproportionate effects of a major global pandemic on many communities of color, Trotter’s work is also a prescient—and deeply personal—exploration of the formation and growth of Black working-class communities, institutions, social and cultural networks, and political movements for reform and liberatory change over time.” - Clarence Lang. “Joe Trotter has had a profound impact on the way I approach African American history both as a scholar and as a teacher. A collection of his groundbreaking work is long overdue.” - Robert H. Woodrum. The author, Joe William Trotter, holds an endowed professorship at Carnegie Melon University.
Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2022. 157 pages with an Index, Bibliography, Notes, Appendix, and photos. Hardback in dust jacket.