In the 1950s a wave of labour unrest shook a small town in southwestern Louisiana, leading to the racialisation of workers who had previously been considered white, as ‘mixed race’ or, in local terms, ‘Redbone’. This article considers why certain individuals were marked as mixed race in relation to strike violence and their opposition to capitalist expansion. Utilising a variety of methodological approaches, including archival research, historiography and oral testimony, this article seeks to examine how an instance of labour unrest was reinterpreted by local law enforcement, an interstate capitalist class and the national press as calling into question the racial integrity of a group of workers who had been formerly marked as white. This explosive and largely unstudied strike provides an opportunity to better understand how racialisation operates as a technology of control, even over individuals who appear phenotypically white. The strike at Elizabeth allows a glimpse at the tactics of representatives of white supremacy when white workers do not fully embrace the ‘wages of whiteness’.

在 1950 年代，一波劳工骚乱震动了路易斯安那州西南部的一个小镇，导致以前被视为白人的工人被种族化为“混血儿”，或者在当地称为“红骨”。本文考虑了为什么某些人在罢工暴力和他们反对资本主义扩张方面被标记为混血儿。本文利用各种方法论方法，包括档案研究、历史编纂和口头证词，试图检查当地执法部门、州际资产阶级和全国媒体如何重新解释劳工骚乱的实例，以质疑其种族完整性。一群以前被标记为白人的工人。这种爆炸性且很大程度上未经研究的罢工提供了一个机会，可以更好地了解种族化如何作为一种控制技术运作，即使是对表型为白人的个人也是如此。当白人工人没有完全接受“白人的工资”时，伊丽莎白的罢工让我们一窥白人至上代表的策略。