Gateway to Equality (eBook)

Black Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis

Keona K. Ervin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
294 Seiten
The University Press of Kentucky (Verlag)
978-0-8131-6986-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Like most of the nation during the 1930s, St. Louis, Missouri, was caught in the stifling grip of the Great Depression. For the next thirty years, the "e;Gateway City"e; continued to experience significant urban decline as its population swelled and the area's industries stagnated. Over these decades, many African American citizens in the region found themselves struggling financially and fighting for access to profitable jobs and suitable working conditions. To combat ingrained racism, crippling levels of poverty, and sub-standard living conditions, black women worked together to form a community-based culture of resistance -- fighting for employment, a living wage, dignity, representation, and political leadership. Gateway to Equality investigates black working-class women's struggle for economic justice from the rise of New Deal liberalism in the 1930s to the social upheavals of the 1960s. Author Keona K. Ervin explains that the conditions in twentieth-century St. Louis were uniquely conducive to the rise of this movement since the city's economy was based on light industries that employed women, such as textiles and food processing. As part of the Great Migration, black women migrated to the city at a higher rate than their male counterparts, and labor and black freedom movements relied less on a charismatic, male leadership model. This made it possible for women to emerge as visible and influential leaders in both formal and informal capacities.In this impressive study, Ervin presents a stunning account of the ways in which black working-class women creatively fused racial and economic justice. By illustrating that their politics played an important role in defining urban political agendas, her work sheds light on an unexplored aspect of community activism and illuminates the complexities of the overlapping civil rights and labor movements during the first half of the twentieth century.

Autor

lt;P>Keona K. Ervin is associate professor of history at the University of Missouri.

Inhalt

'We Strike and Win': Food Factory Workers and Working-Class Radicalism'Their Side of the Case': Domestic Workers and New Deal Labor Reform'The Fight against Economic Slavery''Riveting the Sinews of Democracy': Defense Workers and Double V'Beneath Our Dignity': Garment Workers and the Politics of Interracial Unionism'Jobs and Homes... Freedom': Working-Class Sturggles against Postwar Urban Inequality

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.7.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century
• Reihe/Serie: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century
• Reihe/Serie: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century
• Zusatzinfo: 11 b&w halftones
• Verlagsort: Lexington
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
• Schlagworte: activism • Black freedom sturggle • Black working-class women • economic dignity • economic justice • fair employment • gender and women's studies • Grassroots movement • influential women • Labor • Labor Movement • Public housing • Racial Justice • trade unionism • women activists • Women in History • Women's history • Women's leadership • Working-class • Working Class
• ISBN-10: 0-8131-6986-0 / 0813169860
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-6986-6 / 9780813169866