In an interview with Daniel Denvir… Dr. Robin D. G. Kelley, Professor of History at the University of California Los Angeles, spoke about this vital history, documented in his 1990 book, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. The Alabama Communists and their allied organizations won major victories, but they also lost many fights and lost many lives to police and vigilantes. Hammer and Hoe reminds us that, then and today, the class struggle and fight for black freedom has never been easy. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Above: Evicted Arkansas sharecropper who was active in the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, now building his new home in Hill House, Mississippi.