The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical

“Among the many exemplary qualities of this narrative and its hero is their lack of sentimentality. For Hosea Hudson, there is no romance of American Communism; instead, his relationship with the Communist Party is a model of mutual exploitation. . . . [A] marvelous book. Moving, fearful, and funny, Hudson and Painter’s Narrative is as valuable an American life as has ever been wrested from anonymity.” —Benita Eisler, The Nation

Born into a Georgia sharecropper family in 1898, Hosea Hudson moved to Birmingham, Alabama, to work in the steel mills in the turbulent 1930s and 1940s and became a member of the Communist Party as well as president of a CIO union local. It was a hard, dangerous life, to be black and communist and pro-union, and Hudson talked about that life to Nell painter, who brilliantly recreates it in this collaborative oral autobiography.