By Michael Smith - Reflective MVS
By tomorrow, most folks will be posting Labor Day selfies—grilling, relaxing, hitting festivals, or getting in that last summer trip.
But before all that, I’m asking you to pause.
👉🏾 The Untold Labor History of Black America
This isn’t your typical Labor Day content.
It’s a report that pulls back the curtain on the systems, policies, and exploitations that shaped Black labor from emancipation to today.
💭 Why I Made This
My grandfather, John Thomas Smith, was a union man who worked with the AFL-CIO in Pittsburgh. He came out of Youngstown, Ohio—a place where Black labor meant something, even if history didn’t always say so. I didn’t grow up hearing a lot of these stories in school. But I knew enough to ask: Where were our names? Our voices? Our struggles?
This report is an attempt to fill in some of what’s been left out.
Because every time we hear that America “pulled itself up by the bootstraps,” I think about who made the boots, who picked the cotton, who worked the steel, and who was locked out of the benefits of that labor.
📚 What You’ll Find Inside
This multi-chapter report walks through the layered, often brutal labor systems Black Americans endured and resisted:
- Black Codes and Convict Leasing: How emancipation turned into re-criminalization.
- Sharecropping: The next generation of economic bondage.
- Organized Resistance: The rise of Black-led unions and rural uprisings.
- Modern Labor Battles: From Jim Crow to Amazon warehouses.
It’s image-rich, cited, and meant to be both readable and shareable.
📥 Read or Download
You can dive into the chapters or grab the full version:
🔗 Read the Full Report Online
📄 Download the Full PDF
✊🏾 Why It Matters This Labor Day
I wrote this report to draw a line—from the fields to the factories to the fight we’re still in.
Because no matter how much time passes, the legacy of labor injustice continues to shape Black lives and Black futures.
So no, this isn’t just about history.
It’s about pattern recognition.
Labor Day shouldn’t be an amnesia day. It should be a day to remember who kept the wheels turning in this country—and at what cost.
If this report speaks to you, pass it on.
Let’s make Labor Day about more than a long weekend.
— Michael Smith, Reflective MVS
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