Michael Honey undertook more than fifty oral histories of black and white workers and labor and civil rights organizers for his first book, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights (1993). Without people’s stories, he could not tell a story that did not exist on the printed page. Inspired by the work of Theodore Rosengarten, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, and Nell Irvin Painter, he continued on with black worker interviews. In Black Workers Remember (1999), workers tell their own story, mediated by the “shared authority” of the historian. He did more interviews and drew extensively on scores of oral histories done by others located at the Sanitation Strike papers of the Mississippi Valley Collection at the University of Memphis, for Going Down Jericho Road (2007). Pete Seeger introduced Honey to John Handcox, the renowned Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union organizer and African American singer John Handcox who people had disappeared from history since the 1930s, resulting in the book, Sharecroppers’ Troubadour, and recordings of his songs. Some of these works and writing and audio clips can be explored here. He has taught oral history skills to generations of students at the University of Washington Tacoma (see link below).

"The I Am Story Broadcast," AFSCME April 4, 2023

“How America Has Failed to Achieve MLK’s Vision for Economic Justice,” KQED, Jan. 17, 2023

Opinion: Memphis police killed Tyre Nichols. It’s trauma that’s familiar in Tacoma, too,” by Michael K. Honey, The News Tribune, Feb. 10, 2023

Trauma of Tyre Nichols's Killing Echoes in Many Places

The I AM STORY Podcast

In 1968, sanitation workers in Memphis took a stand against degrading and deadly working conditions. They declared a strike that would lead to a movement that would shake the nation. The I AM STORY podcast tells the story of the sanitation workers who dared to declare: I AM A MAN.

55 Years After MLK’s Death, His Radical Vision Should Galvanize Our Struggles Today

Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated 55 years ago today while in Memphis standing in solidarity with striking sanitation workers. His life and radical words stand as a beacon of hope, urging us to keep fighting for economic and racial justice.

Here are six podcasts to listen to in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, Sharecropper's Troubadour, Songs of Solidarity in Hard Times


University of Washington historian Michael Honey learned about folk singer and union organizer John Handcox through a mutual friend whose name might be familiar: Pete Seeger.


Dr. Honey on News Beat Podcast, "MLK's Last Month: Memphis"

Dr. Michael Honey on the News Beat podcast, discussing Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s last month in Memphis. 

UWT library publications profile

Michael Honey teaches and writes about labor and civil rights history and the work and nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Honey has published five books and edited a book of King's labor speeches; has won the Robert F. Kennedy and numerous other book awards; and is a Guggenheim fellow and recipient of other academic awards. Honey is a founder of UWT, former holder of the Harry Bridges Chair in Labor Studies for the University of Washigton and current holder of the Fred and Dorothy Haley Humanities Professorship at UWT.

Keeping history alive with a digital library collection

Many of Honey’s southern labor studies oral histories are available at the Southern Oral History Collection at the University of North Carolina, here.

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