"Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica" by Gerald Horne. Anyone ever read this book? I know that Horne has generally taken a sympathetic view towards the CPUSA or those sort of politics, at least.
I read this unflattering review a by the official historiographer of the Sailors Union of the Pacific (SUP):
Citation: Stephen Schwartz. Review of Horne, Gerald, Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica. H-HOAC, H-Net Reviews. January, 2008.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14068
The SUP has generally been portayed as being "syndicalist" in orientation. Meaning direct actionist in orientation.
A number of Wobs have been dual carders and folks like the late Sam Dolgoff have viewed the SUP in a genarl favorable light.
Over the years I have heard criticism of the SUP as being craft oriented and racist. So my curiousity peaked, I started thumbing through a few books of mine, such as "Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s" by Bruce Nelson and "Waterfront workers: new perspectives on race and class" Ed. by Calvin Winslow, but haven't come up with anything. That is, no dicussion of race and the SUP.
So, the search, in that regard, continues.
bump