Medium | Southern Crossroads, June 4, 2020: Rednecks for Black Lives
We’re told to blame Black folks, immigrants and people of color for our suffering, keeping us fighting each other instead of rich folks, corrupt politicians and big business who are busy padding their wallets. Too many times we’ve believed these lies. But we don’t have to believe them anymore. We can make a different choice.
Poor and working class White folks showing up alongside Black folks and people of color demanding justice is actually exactly who we are. For decades the label “redneck” has been thrown at us to degrade us but it’s time we reclaim it. The term redneck actually comes from the nation’s largest labor uprising, the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia in 1921, when a multiracial group of 8,000 miners fought coal company operators to unionize.
