As America’s foremost democratic body, one that sets the standards for fair employment in this country, Congress should be the model of a democratic workplace. Yet in his new book, The Last Plantation: Racism and Resistance in the Halls of Congress, Dr. James Jones reveals that persistent racism in the congressional workplace continues to shape American democracy at large.
Readers might think it seems melodramatic to compare the halls of Congress to the forced labor camps of America’s worst history, but Jones, an associate professor of Africana studies and sociology at Rutgers University-Newark, shows how the metaphor is grounded in historical reality. Enslaved laborers built the Capitol, quite literally enshrining White supremacy into its physical structure. Additionally, the invocation of the plantation is not a top-down imposition from a detached researcher. It is instead a comparison that bubbles up repeatedly in conversations Jones had with congressional staff during his research — a constant reminder that the past molds contemporary labor relationships.
Jones exposes how race and racism enable Black workers’ exclusion from social networks, how they are ignored or made to feel invisible by White lawmakers, and how there is a pervasive power imbalance within the Capitol walls.
The Last Plantation holds crossover appeal for anyone interested in how congressional staffers — whose names never make it onto legislation — play an important role in our democratic system. Combining archival research and first-person accounts, Jones exposes how race and racism enable Black workers’ exclusion from social networks, how they are ignored or made to feel invisible by White lawmakers, and how there is a pervasive power imbalance within the Capitol walls. Despite these prevailing obstacles to a functional multiracial democracy, readers may find hope in learning about the decades of Black congressional workers who attempted to actualize a more democratic workplace.
In the best tradition of minting sociological currency from personal pique, Jones draws upon his experience and the valuable networks he developed during his time as a congressional intern to write what I think will become the definitive book on how race and racism shape the congressional workplace. As an undergraduate at Georgetown, he interned on Capitol Hill for two lawmakers — one White and one Black. The stark contrast between working conditions in these respective offices planted the seed of his research. In the Black congressman’s office, Jones was nurtured and given room to develop his professional interests, while at the White lawmaker’s office, he felt “ignored,” and was relegated to dead end, menial tasks. To escape the tedium, Jones looked for errands that allowed him to explore the Capitol and noted that the congressional workplace was segregated, and people of color were rarely members of White lawmakers’ staff.
As a Black man working on the hill, Jones’ experiences were not anomalies. Many other Black congressional workers told him they felt similarly alienated. He interviewed senior staffers who believe there’s “a level of recognition they should be afforded but did not receive,” not being acknowledged for their work or ignored in shared spaces like hallways and elevators. Some of this alienation resulted from the institution’s history, as legislators refused to subject themselves to workplace conduct directives they imposed on the rest of the nation’s employers, including the National Labor Relations Act, National Fair Standards Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Ten years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, congressional offices were still openly advertising jobs, explicitly seeking a “White Republican” and making it clear that “no minority” should apply.
Though Black congresspeople, Black staffers, Black workers and their allies continuously pushed for a more dignified workplace, reforms came slowly. At first, just a series of nonbinding and unenforceable House and Senate rules barring discrimination (1975’s Rule 43 and 1977’s Rule 50), which relied entirely on the good-faith compliance of individual lawmakers rather than external enforcement. This changed in 1995 when the House and Senate passed the Congressional Accountability Act, which evaded the separation of powers issue by creating an “independent nonpartisan agency within the Capitol” to oversee compliance.
Ten years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, congressional offices were still openly advertising jobs, explicitly seeking a “White Republican” and making it clear that “no minority” should apply.
Jones’ deep dive into this history shows that even these formal legal mandates did not immediately translate into actual workplace equality in practice. This compelled Black congressional workers to continue to find both symbolic and material ways to combat racism in the workplace and broader polity. My favorite example of Black resistance and solidarity is the chapter on “the Black nod.” As Jones walked around Capitol Hill, he noted that Black staffers and workers often acknowledged one another with a slight nod. Recognition in the form of a nod — a small but meaningful gesture of shared history and community — became a way for Black workers to say “I see you” to one another as they navigated the overwhelmingly White workplace.
Though they largely work behind the scenes, Jones highlights cases of Black staffers improving Congress by diversifying its staff ranks and shaping the political agenda. Discriminatory hiring definitionally misses talent, and senior Black staffers understood that an all-White group of job finalists was the result of a narrow search reliant upon social networks and nepotism. Senior Black staffers would often force hiring agents to cast a wider net and prided themselves on the results of their fastidiousness. The inclusive hiring process benefits everyone, because when given a chance, these candidates often outperform those found through networks or nepotism.
One senior Black staffer to whom Jones spoke “articulated claims of social invisibility; his concerns were more about those outside of Capitol Hill who do not realize that African Americans occupy senior and influential roles in the legislature.”
Congressional staffers conduct research on behalf of lawmakers, often educating congressional representatives on issues that, by dint of their race and class, they may not be familiar with. Black staffers often spearhead these efforts, for example — organizing hearings on how credit scores are created and implemented, and directing political attention to issues that disproportionately harm people of color.
Congress should be held to a higher standard than other workplaces, because of its history as a central cog in America’s system of White supremacy and its democratic pretensions.
Jones’ frustration with the slow pace of change can be sensed in this book. Congress is perpetually rediscovering the underrepresentation of people of color in their workforce, but there seems to be little change in the right direction. Almost annually, Jones recounts, academic researchers and Capitol Hill press outlets alike release empirical evidence that Congress remains woefully racially unequal. In response, Congress engages in a pattern familiar to anyone who has challenged racism in their workplace, school or, indeed, the wider political system. First, a brief flurry of outrage, then promises to do better, and finally perhaps the formation of a task force or committee. Once the evidence of underrepresentation recedes from the headlines, the organization regresses to the status quo of racial exclusion.
Jones holds that this perennial regression to the norm of racial exclusion is not inevitable. He ends the book on an upbeat note, pointing to the history of Black resistance on antebellum plantations, where Black workers withheld their labor and contributed to the dissolution of America’s system of slavery. I understand Jones’ hope, and I share it. This hope, however, sits uncomfortably with both the evidence of congressional intransigence that Jones documents and the current national backlash against even modest efforts to diversify organizations.
That being said, due to its history as a central cog in America’s system of White supremacy and its democratic pretensions, Congress should be held to a higher standard than other workplaces. To do that, Jones makes a compelling argument that we must understand and address the struggles of Black congressional workers.
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