(Dock)Workers Matter: Struggles for Racial Equality in the United States and South Africa

History@Work is an occasional lecture series through the Center for Social Concerns inviting scholars, writers, advocates, and activists to address compelling contemporary labor questions within historical context.

Dr. Peter Cole is a historian of the twentieth-century United States, South Africa  and comparative history. He is a professor of history at Western Illinois University, and also holds an appointment as a Research Associate in the Society, Work, and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. His latest book, Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, discusses how workers in the world's ports can harness their role, at a strategic choke point, to promote their labor rights and social justice causes. 

Cosponsored by the Departments of American Studies and History, with generous support from a Teaching Beyond the Classroom Grant from the College of Arts and Letters.