A study of Birmingham, Alabama, and the black struggle for civil rights. It argues that Alabama's path to industrialism differed significantly from that in the North and Midwest. No other industrial city in the United States depended so much upon the exploitation of black labour.

No American city symbolizes the black struggle for civil rights more than Birmingham, Alabama. In this critical analysis of why Birmingham became such a focal point, Bobby Wilson argues that Alabama's path to industrialism differed significantly from that in the North and Midwest. True to its antebellum roots, no other industrial city in the United States would depend so much upon the exploitation of black labour so early in its development as Birmingham. A persuasive exploration of the links between Alabama's slaveholding order and the subsequent industrialization of the state, Wilson's study demonstrates that arguments based on classical economics fail to take into account the ways in which racial issues influenced the rise of industrial capitalism.