'Black Folk' by Blair LM Kelly
After slavery ended, the Black washerwomen of the urban South became autonomous entrepreneurs, “taking in wash from several [white] families” and “laboring away from white supervision.” Blair LM Kelley, University of North Carolina professor of Southern Studies, adds that the women also worked together as an informal union. “As a group, they could bring cities to a halt just by not showing up.” No affluent white woman would be caught doing her own laundry!
It's one of several aspects of Black working class life Kelley investigates, among them, the storied role of Black Pullman porters. Drawing from family stories, newspaper archives and memoirs, Black Folk sets out to demonstrate that whites held no monopoly within the American working class. Although shunned by trade unions for many years, Blacks often organized on their own behalf, a lesson she hopes the upcoming generation will follow.
