The Black Washerwomen Who Changed The Labor Movement

Kim Kelly has a book out, "Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor," that tells the compelling stories of the many unsung, everyday heroes who were at the founding of the American labor movement.  On the eve of Labor Day, an article adapted from that book looks at the contributions of one of those groups of unsung heroes:  black washerwomen in the post- Civil War American South.

In those days, washing clothes was an especially back- breaking, all- day, low- paying effort that was consigned to black females.  After the Civil War and Emancipation, things came to a head:

... It wasn’t until 1866, a year after Emancipation, that formerly enslaved Black female workers were able to launch a widespread work stoppage of their own — and by doing so, jump-start a wave of Black-led labor organizing that would spread through multiple industries and set the stage for decades of labor struggles to come.

On June 16, 1866, laundry workers in Jackson, Miss., called for a citywide meeting. The women — for they were all women, and all were Black — were tired of being paid next to nothing to spend their days hunched over steaming tubs of other (White) people’s laundry, scrubbing out stains, smoothing the wrinkles with red-hot irons, and hauling the baskets of heavy cloth through the streets. At the time, nearly all Black female workers were employed as domestics by White families, to handle the cooking, cleaning and child care, hauling water, emptying chamber pots, and performing various and sundry other tasks that the lady of the house preferred to avoid.   [snip]

This growing tension between employer and employee came to a head in 1866, when the washerwomen of Jackson presented Mayor D.N. Barrows with a petition decrying the low wages that plagued their industry and announcing their intention to “join in charging a uniform rate” for their labor. As their petition read: “Any washerwoman who charges less will be fined by our group. We do not want to charge high prices, we just want to be able to live comfortably from our work.” The prices they’d agreed upon were far from exorbitant: $1.50 per day for washing, $15 a month for “family washing,” and $10 a month for single people. They signed their letter “The Washerwomen of Jackson,” and in doing so, gave a name to Mississippi’s first trade union.  [snip]

There is no record of the 1866 strike’s outcome, but the action itself had an immediate ripple effect in Jackson and farther afield. Throughout the Reconstruction era of 1865 to 1877, Black workers rose up and struck in Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.

There's much more interesting history and context at the link. The book the article's adapted from tells similar stories of struggle by immigrant garment workers, domestic workers, factory workers, farm laborers, etc. -- many individuals whose names have been lost to time but whose contributions to the concepts of fairness and equal protection under the law, and the dignity of work, have shaped our society.

On the eve of Labor Day, it's especially important to understand and appreciate the sacrifices made by these everyday people, both then and now.

(Photo:  A family engaged in washing clothes, c. 1900/ Library of Congress)