Winner of the Francis B. Simkins Award, given by the Southern Historical Association, 2003. Winner of the H. L. Mitchell Award given by the Southern Historical Association, 2002.  Winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize, 2002.  A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2002.   Winner of the Richard L. Wentworth Prize in American History, 2001. "This is a good book ... Read morethat is at its best in exploring coal operator paternalism and black accommodationism."
The Journal of American History "Through the poignant tale of miners' failed efforts to build a durable union during this period, the book also offers a compelling intervention into recent historical debates concerning race, class, and the nature of biracial unionism during the Jim Crow era."
Choice "Brian Kelly has cut through the tangle of controversy involving Alabama's black and white coal miners. By returning the agency of employers to the analysis of race relations, Kelly has produced a sophisticated and compelling account of race, class, and power that students of all periods of U.S. history need to read."
Judith Stein, author of Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism "This excellent book convincingly connects labor disputes in the Alabama coalfields of the early twentieth century with the legacy of plantation slavery in the Old South."
W. David Lewis, author of Sloss Furnaces and the Rise of the Birmington District: An Industrial Epic Show Less