Adding to the growing body of scholarship on the long civil rights struggle.

In A New Deal for All? Andor Skotnes examines the interrelationships between the Black freedom movement and the workers' movement in Baltimore and Maryland during the Great Depression and the early years of the Second World War. Adding to the growing body of scholarship on the long civil rights struggle, he argues that such "border state" movements helped resuscitate and transform the national freedom and labor struggles. In the wake of the Great Crash of 1929, the freedom and workers' movements had to rebuild themselves, often in new forms. In the early 1930s, deepening commitments to antiracism led Communists and Socialists in Baltimore to launch racially integrated initiatives for workers' rights, the unemployed, and social justice. An organization of radicalized African American youth, the City-Wide Young People's Forum, emerged in the Black community and became involved in mass educational, anti-lynching, and Buy Where You Can Work campaigns, often in multiracial alliances with other progressives. During the later 1930s, the movements of Baltimore merged into new and renewed national organizations, especially the CIO and the NAACP, and built mass regional struggles. While this collaboration declined after the war, Skotnes shows that the earlier cooperative efforts greatly shaped national freedom campaigns to come—including the civil rights movement.

"“A New Deal for All? is an insightful…study of obscure but influential activism in the Depression…. Skotnes reminds us that scarcity can produce vibrant activism and a new sense of the possible.”" - History: Reviews of New Books

"The arguments persuasively advanced in A New Deal for All? will be of particular interest to historians of the 'long civil rights movement,' trade union development, and radical politics." - Journal of American History

"“[T]his book… contributes to the body of scholarship illuminating the early years of the “long civil rights movement”…. Among the book’s distinctions is its use of oral history, and the interviews Andor Skotnes conducted especially enliven descriptions of the people and events that comprised the Baltimore freedom movement.”" - American Historical Review

" . . . A New Deal for All provides an important contribution to the study of race and labour during the Depression." - Labour/Le Travail

"Through effective uses of sources, especially oral histories, Skotnes interweaves fascinating individual and organizational historical narratives . . . what is most useful is Skotnes's ability to make visible the multiple lines connecting these campaigns and organizations." - Journal of Southern History

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“The most significant contribution of A New Deal for All? is its detailed accounting of the groups that engendered early 1930s activism…. The book is well written and keeps the reader's interest with its arresting accounts of local activists.”

"A New Deal for All? is a valuable and important study of race, labor, and social activism that fills a significant gap by meticulous­ly charting the critically important, but previously overlooked, history of Baltimore's freedom struggle. Well written and provocative."  - Journal of African American History