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From the University of
Texas at Austin, KUT Radio.

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This is in black America.

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Black women were, were part of this
household of labor and, and the

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work that they had to put in in
this field was, was really hard.

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And so you had black women who were,
uh, taking in laundry in the south in

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early days and trying to, uh, build
a cash base and the independence.

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You have black women who are
migrating in the 20th century away

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from agricultural work who end up
in, in domestic household labor, uh,

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working for white households as made.

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Uh, nannies cook and, and, you know,
really, really suffering under a, a

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lot of victimization, a lot of sexual
exploitation, uh, not being protected

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by the labor laws that click in For
most workers in the 20th century,

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neither agricultural workers nor
domestic workers were protected.

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Dr. Blair Kelly noticed scholar of
Black History and the African-American

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Experience Director of the Center
for the Study of the American South

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Co-Director of the Southern Future
Initiative, and author of Black Folk.

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The roots of the Black Working class
published by Live Right Publishing

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Incorporated in her book, Keller
Restored the African American

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working class where it should be at
the center of the American story.

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The journey takes us from Georgia
to Philadelphia, Florida to

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Chicago and Texas to Oakland.

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We learned of the resilience of the
community found among African American

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workers in the face of adversity.

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Taking the jobs shunned by white people,
black folk found solace and supporting

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intimate spaces with the confines of
racially segregated neighborhoods.

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Also, Kelly takes us beyond during
African American workers, sos

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laborers, class members or activists,
recognizing them as individuals

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who everyday experiences matter.

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I'm John L. Hansen Jr. And welcome to
another edition of In Black America.

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On this week's program, black Folk, the
Roots of the Black Working Class with Dr.

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Blair Kelly in Black America.

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So I think of the solicitor
story, the story of my

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great-grandfather, solicitor Duncan.

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Um, as the founding story of my
family, uh, it was a story my

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mother, uh, who passed away about 10
years ago told me very frequently.

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It was a story that my grandparents
told all the time, and it was

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really the story of how we came.

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Uh, north our migration story and, uh,
my great-grandfather was a preacher,

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but he was also a sharecropper
and he basically had the value of

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his crop stolen by the landowner.

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Told that he owed money at the
end of the year, and so he fled.

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In the nighttime, in the dark with his,
his family and his wife, and to move to

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North Carolina out of calmer Georgia.

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Drawing on family histories and
continuing into the archives, black folk

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illuminates the adversities and joys
of the African American working class

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in America in the past and present.

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Covering 200 years from one of Dr. Kelly's
earliest known ancestors and enslaved

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blacksmith to the essential workers
of the COVID-19 Pandemic black folk

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highlight the lives of the washer women,
Pullman Porters, domestic maids, and

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poster workers who entrenched the African
American working classes of forest in

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the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Through emotional stories of a
great-grandfather, a sharecropper

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named solicitor, and a grandmother
Bruell, who worked for more

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than a decade, is domestic.

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Maid.

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Kelly captures in intimate detail how
generation after generation of labor

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was required to improve and at times
maintained her family status Recently

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in black America, spoke with Dr.

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Kelly.

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You can call me Dr. Blair anytime.

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I'm, I'm thrilled to be here.

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Of all the websites I went to, to
find out a little bit more about

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yourself, I couldn't as, as find
out where were you born and raised.

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I was born in Kansas, New Jersey.

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I was raised in South Jersey, but I am
the child of, you know, southern folks

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and so it all interconnected for me.

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My version of New Jersey is not everyone
else's version of New Jersey because

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it, you know, my grandmother had a lot
of land and everybody was growing food

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in the yard, so it just wasn't that.

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North Jersey, more urban experience
that a lot of people have.

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And before we started this conversation,
I was talking about starting the

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conversation at the beginning of the
book, but I wanted to start at the

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conclusion because what you wrote
about your grandmother really reminded

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me of the time I spent with my
grandmother as far as learning how to.

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Cook and come conversation she was having
with her sisters and what have you.

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Talk to us about your grandmother
and how that had an, a lasting

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effect on who you are today.

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Yeah.

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My grandmother was, uh,
Brunell Rayford Duncan.

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Uh, she was born in
Newbury, South Carolina.

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Um, but she migrated with her family as
a young girl, uh, to Thomasville North

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Carolina, and then on to Philadelphia.

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Uh, eventually, um, you know, building
a home for herself in South Jersey

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and West Atco, New Jersey, and she was
such an incredible influence on me.

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She was, uh, a Deacon Nest.

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My grandfather was a deacon.

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She had.

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Basically land that should
have been for three houses.

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Uh, so she had the one house, she
had like her big garage and then she

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had all these fields and so she would
plant corn and tomatoes and okra

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and string beans and strawberries.

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She had grapevines and so beautiful
marigolds lining her long driveway.

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So I just spent my young childhood.

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In her yard.

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Um, learning from her in her kitchen
where she was canning and cooking

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those chicken and dumplings and making,
she was the best pie maker by far.

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She would burn her cake sometimes,
but those pies were always perfect.

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And so just learned so much
about where I came from, um, and

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who I was from my grandmother.

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Now from your grandmother to
your mom, talk to us about her.

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I understand she, you know, worked
in the shipyard, a navy yard.

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I mean

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Yeah.

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She worked in the Philadelphia Navy yard.

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Okay.

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Um, that was a job she got after
the, basically after the advent

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of the civil rights movement.

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So after the 1950s, she was
able to get a job at the, the,

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uh, Philadelphia Navy Shipyard.

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A place of importance for
my whole family, my mother.

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And father met on a bus at
the shipyard, and my daddy was

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like, that's gonna be my wife.

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So that was a place where, you know,
there really was an opportunity and

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transformation for my grandmother and,
and for the rest of my family as well.

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What made you undertake this journey
of telling your family's ancestry?

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I, when thinking about writing about the
black working class, wanted to make sure.

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That I was thinking through my family's
history and centering the way that

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I talk about the black women class
through their everyday experiences,

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and that was so important for me as
I thought about the everyday people

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that I wanted, the Chronicle, the
oral histories I wanted to use.

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My family is not extraordinary.

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They weren't leaders of movements or
those kinds of things, but they were.

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Exemplary in teaching us
why everyday people matter.

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So starting with them was just a gate
gateway for thinking about this history.

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Now when most people think of the
working class, African Americans

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are not thought of in those terms.

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Why?

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So

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I think we center, uh, the
white working class politically

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in, um, this time period.

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You know, we only really think about
the working class during election

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season, and reporters will go to
a diner somewhere in the Midwest

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and find some folks to talk to.

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And we've centered, you know, this white
working class as the American working

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class and we've erased people of color
in general and black people in part.

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From our understandings of it.

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But if we put black people back into
the story, we learn a whole lot.

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They're not just a parallel subset, just
like white working class communities.

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They are really unique people who've
gone through a tremendously challenging,

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uh, journey, but also built some
amazing things in the process.

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And so there's a lot to
learn from that history.

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I found it interesting and as far as a
history lesson that you talk about how

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slavery had an effect on, on, on people
of color, but also how the land was

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distributed and when African Americans
wasn't afforded that same opportunity,

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considering the land was owned and,
and and cultivated by Native Americans.

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Talk to us about that history.

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I think, you know, when we think about it.

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From these origins, from a native point
of view, um, that people who had been

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on this land for centuries and who were
forcibly removed from their historic land,

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uh, and then that land was made productive
with the stolen labor of Africans.

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We have to, we have to
think of that long story.

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So, you know, I, I do that over and
over and over again in the book.

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I talk about.

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Our native presence, their removal, and,
and then the, the, the building, the

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upbuilding of enslavement as the means
by which, uh, the colonial experiment

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in this country and the expansion
of this country was facilitated.

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But in that process, black Americans
were paying attention to what they saw,

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uh, who they were, the role that they
played, the wealth that they built.

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And so when they finally did
reach freedom, well, they were

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prepared to really think about.

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Um, the ways to strategize, ways to
build collectively and ways to use

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the community they had fostered in
enslavement, uh, for their benefits.

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You begin the book with solicitor
John d. Why that particular

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ancestor over someone else?

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So I think of the solicitor's
story, the story of my great

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grandfather solicitor Duncan, um,
as the founding story of my family.

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Uh, it was a story my mother, uh,
who passed away about 10 years

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ago, told me very frequently.

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It was a story that my grandparents
told all the time, and it was

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really the story of how we came,
uh, north, our migration story.

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And, uh, my great-grandfather was a
preacher, but he was also a sharecropper.

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And he basically had the value of
his crop stolen by the landowner.

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Um, told that he owed money at the
end of the year, and so he fled in

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the nighttime, in the dark with his
family and his wife, and to move to

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North Carolina out of calmer Georgia.

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And that founding story really was my
mother's way of saying, you know, we were.

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Sure of ourselves, we were accomplished
and yet we were cheated and there

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was nothing that was wrong with
my family and having to leave.

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There was something wrong with
the system that forced them to run

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like slaves, even as free people.

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And so I wanted to start the story there.

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That's not the normal working class.

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Mm-hmm.

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Labor history story, but
it's black people come from.

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And, you know, it's, it's, it's how
we're learning who we are in the world.

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It's, it's a common story and I
just wanted to begin there as a

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different kind of framework for
thinking about the meaning that can

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be found in a black working class.

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Now, solicit the left South Carolina
and went to Thomasville and the

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situations there wasn't as much.

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Better than what he had just left.

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Absolutely.

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My family, um, both branches of my
family, uh, my, my grandmother's

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family leaves Newbury, South
Carolina and goes to Thomasville.

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My grandfather's family leaves Comer,
Georgia and ends up in Thomasville.

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That's where my grandparents meet
and where my mother was born.

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And, uh, Thomasville wasn't any
better because of the segregation.

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There.

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They, they were a lot of carpenters in my
family and they wanted to do that work.

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Um, black men weren't being that given
that opportunity to be furniture makers.

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Um, they were only janitorial staff
at, if at all, in those big factories.

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And so my family kept moving and, and kept
trying to seek out a better situation and,

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and all end up, uh, the surviving folks
who, uh, make it past Thomasville end up

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in Philadelphia and then in South Jersey.

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Tell us why Philadelphia,
above all them places North.

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I, I dunno, that's a, that's
an interesting question.

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I guess that's where
they got off the train.

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I heard that.

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And, you know, you know, the migration
stories are so amazing because like, if

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you have one relative who goes mm-hmm.

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And that, that's the place that stacks
up and everybody ends up going there.

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So it's amazing.

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You know, as I've, I've researched the
far off branches of cousins and families.

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They're all in Philadelphia
for the most part.

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I have a few relatives that kept
going, uh, to New York and a few

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relatives that made it to Boston,
but, um, Philadelphia was where 90%

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of them stopped on both branches
and, and really lived right there.

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I.

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Before African American women
became domestic workers, they

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also, they worked in the fields.

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Talk to us about that experience when
you write about them toing the soil, but

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it was something that they were looking
forward to for a better existence.

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Yeah, I think, you know, black women were,
were part of this household of labor.

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Um, and, and the work that they had to put
in, in the fields was, was really hard.

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Uh, and so you had black women who
were taking in laundry in the south

226
00:14:02,115 --> 00:14:06,765
in, in early days and trying to
build a cash base and independence.

227
00:14:07,125 --> 00:14:11,805
You have black women who are migrating in
the 20th century away from agricultural

228
00:14:11,805 --> 00:14:16,485
work who end up in, in domestic household
labor, uh, working for white households

229
00:14:16,485 --> 00:14:21,345
as maids, uh, nannies, cooks, and,
you know, really, really suffering.

230
00:14:21,735 --> 00:14:26,385
Under a, a lot of victimization, a
lot of sexual exploitation not being

231
00:14:26,385 --> 00:14:31,065
protected by the labor laws that click
in For most workers in the 20th century,

232
00:14:31,065 --> 00:14:34,695
neither agricultural workers nor domestic
workers were protected, and domestic

233
00:14:34,695 --> 00:14:36,495
workers are still not protected today.

234
00:14:36,735 --> 00:14:39,285
They're still suffering under
sort of the segregationist

235
00:14:39,345 --> 00:14:41,895
mindset of those earlier policies.

236
00:14:42,255 --> 00:14:46,305
And so it's an incredible story, but
again, it's a story of of, of fighting

237
00:14:46,305 --> 00:14:50,955
back, of organizing and resistance, uh,
that also has to be told at the same time.

238
00:14:51,704 --> 00:14:57,255
Now we somewhat romanticized about
cotton being king, but during that

239
00:14:57,255 --> 00:15:03,584
period, slave holders measured
productivity by the weight of the

240
00:15:03,584 --> 00:15:05,235
cotton, which they picked that day.

241
00:15:05,474 --> 00:15:06,824
Yes, absolutely.

242
00:15:06,824 --> 00:15:09,915
And so you can, you know, in
those historic photographs you can

243
00:15:09,915 --> 00:15:15,285
see, you know, these massive, uh,
bundles of, of cotton picked by

244
00:15:15,285 --> 00:15:17,770
individual, uh, hands in the field.

245
00:15:18,690 --> 00:15:22,500
And it, it's incredible, you know,
when you think both of the skill that

246
00:15:22,500 --> 00:15:26,400
the enslaved and then the free folks,
uh, who did that work, had to put

247
00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:31,950
into, um, uh, harvesting that cotton
and then the, the, the fundamental

248
00:15:31,950 --> 00:15:37,020
devaluation of them as people, uh, as
humans, that that's still part of it.

249
00:15:37,320 --> 00:15:41,010
Um, you know, I, I, now I'm talking
about this book, I meet people who all

250
00:15:41,010 --> 00:15:42,600
the time are like, I picked that cotton.

251
00:15:42,690 --> 00:15:45,660
I know that work, my mother and
my father picked their cotton.

252
00:15:46,170 --> 00:15:51,870
Um, it's, it's, it's a, a tremendous
part of our legacy as the skill of

253
00:15:51,870 --> 00:15:57,570
our, our hands, making this country
wealthy and yet, um, robbing us

254
00:15:57,570 --> 00:15:59,460
of our future in many key ways.

255
00:16:00,165 --> 00:16:06,104
I found it interesting when you wrote
about slavery, but you also wrote about

256
00:16:06,135 --> 00:16:12,525
the overseers and how they kept the
enslaved, or called the the folks in

257
00:16:12,525 --> 00:16:18,885
Bonders, in check choc was how that
mentality worked in their favor, but it

258
00:16:18,885 --> 00:16:21,209
also worked against them in the long term.

259
00:16:22,530 --> 00:16:22,860
Yes.

260
00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:27,210
I think it's really powerful for us to
remember that the white working class

261
00:16:27,210 --> 00:16:31,380
of the South really had to participate
in the slave economy because that

262
00:16:31,380 --> 00:16:35,640
was the only economy around them,
and so they were the infrastructure

263
00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:37,410
that made plantations function.

264
00:16:37,410 --> 00:16:38,855
They were the controls and the checks.

265
00:16:39,850 --> 00:16:43,089
On the enslaved who were always
resisting and always fighting back.

266
00:16:43,660 --> 00:16:45,880
Um, so they were trying
to keep pace in the field.

267
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:49,449
They were trying to, they worked
as patroller keeping, um, the

268
00:16:49,449 --> 00:16:51,819
enslaved from escaping on the roads.

269
00:16:52,839 --> 00:16:56,980
And so, um, it, it, it, it put
a damper on the whole economy.

270
00:16:56,980 --> 00:17:01,689
If you're a, a free farmer and you're
competing with somebody that holds a whole

271
00:17:01,689 --> 00:17:05,920
bunch of people in bondage up the street,
you, you're never really gonna make it.

272
00:17:06,010 --> 00:17:07,180
And you're never, um.

273
00:17:07,740 --> 00:17:12,150
You're never gonna be able to afford,
uh, to compete in that kind of market.

274
00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:16,410
And so instead, they were paid with
the what I, uh, a historian has called

275
00:17:16,410 --> 00:17:18,180
the, uh, the wages of whiteness, right?

276
00:17:18,329 --> 00:17:21,359
This notion that somehow any
second now, they were gonna burst

277
00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:26,550
forth and have, uh, a similar
opportunity to own people in bondage.

278
00:17:27,075 --> 00:17:30,615
Most of those, those, uh, slave
holders began that process of

279
00:17:30,615 --> 00:17:33,435
inheriting slavery in colonial times.

280
00:17:33,435 --> 00:17:39,255
And so there really was no chance for a
white working class, uh, to, to benefit

281
00:17:39,405 --> 00:17:42,225
from slavery the way that the others had.

282
00:17:42,225 --> 00:17:45,735
But they were not seeing, uh,
those slave holders as their

283
00:17:45,735 --> 00:17:48,285
competition, but as their their peers,

284
00:17:48,525 --> 00:17:49,395
they sure didn't.

285
00:17:50,745 --> 00:17:52,155
This is in Black America.

286
00:17:52,275 --> 00:17:54,940
We'll be back with more of
our conversation in a moment.

287
00:17:55,754 --> 00:17:58,875
If you're just joining us, I'm
Johnny O. Hanson Jr. And you're

288
00:17:58,875 --> 00:18:03,105
listening to In Black America, from
KUT Radio and speaking with Dr.

289
00:18:03,105 --> 00:18:08,925
Blair m Kelly PhD, the Joe R. Williams,
distinguished Professor of Southern

290
00:18:08,925 --> 00:18:14,985
Studies at the University of North
Carolina Chapel Hill and author of Black

291
00:18:14,985 --> 00:18:17,774
Folks, the Roots of Black Working Class.

292
00:18:18,405 --> 00:18:20,175
Talk to us about the, the.

293
00:18:20,545 --> 00:18:24,655
As I stated earlier, my
grandmother was a a washer woman.

294
00:18:24,655 --> 00:18:31,165
Talk to us about washer women and how
that particular profession really led

295
00:18:31,165 --> 00:18:34,255
to the modern day black middle class.

296
00:18:35,155 --> 00:18:39,655
Yes, I mean, I loved having
the opportunity to write

297
00:18:39,655 --> 00:18:41,995
about washer women really.

298
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:50,190
A class of women who were so independent,
uh, so determined to set the terms

299
00:18:50,220 --> 00:18:54,510
of how they would work, that the way
that wash was done throughout the

300
00:18:54,510 --> 00:18:56,700
entire region was set by black women.

301
00:18:56,970 --> 00:18:57,060
Mm-hmm.

302
00:18:57,390 --> 00:18:58,775
Uh, white customers, they wanted.

303
00:18:59,370 --> 00:19:02,730
Black women to labor in their
yards or in their household, right?

304
00:19:02,790 --> 00:19:02,880
Mm-hmm.

305
00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:04,770
They wanted their stuff done faster.

306
00:19:04,770 --> 00:19:06,150
They're like, why does it take so long?

307
00:19:06,540 --> 00:19:11,760
But as a class across the south,
black women determined the schedule of

308
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:14,280
picking it up on a Friday or Saturday.

309
00:19:14,925 --> 00:19:18,795
Uh, when they dropped off the previous
load and then having the entire week to,

310
00:19:19,004 --> 00:19:25,305
to wash on Monday, dry on a Tuesday, press
on a Wednesday, fold stuff up and deliver

311
00:19:25,305 --> 00:19:27,135
it back on that Friday or Saturday.

312
00:19:27,555 --> 00:19:31,875
That was a powerful, uh, labor
negotiation that happens.

313
00:19:31,875 --> 00:19:32,145
Right?

314
00:19:32,625 --> 00:19:37,455
One of the very first unions I could find
of black women was the washer women of,

315
00:19:37,545 --> 00:19:41,235
of Jackson, Mississippi, who in 1866.

316
00:19:41,385 --> 00:19:47,865
A year after freedom come together
and demand a living wage, demand

317
00:19:47,925 --> 00:19:50,985
certain terms for doing their
work, demand, that independence.

318
00:19:51,705 --> 00:19:56,715
Um, these women come out of bondage
with a full sense of who they are

319
00:19:56,745 --> 00:20:01,995
as a class and what they can demand
because of the stigmatization on doing

320
00:20:01,995 --> 00:20:04,095
laundry that white women suffered.

321
00:20:04,155 --> 00:20:08,145
And so they knew that if only black
women are gonna do this whi then we're

322
00:20:08,145 --> 00:20:09,625
gonna set the terms of how we do it.

323
00:20:10,785 --> 00:20:14,565
I found it interesting because I
was kind, I was kind of remembering

324
00:20:14,625 --> 00:20:20,295
how my grandmother, uh, used to
wash clothes and press and get them

325
00:20:20,295 --> 00:20:25,425
starch, but it was interesting prior
to modern day laundry assistance.

326
00:20:25,455 --> 00:20:25,545
Mm-hmm.

327
00:20:25,845 --> 00:20:29,600
Talk to us about how they made
a way outta basically a noway.

328
00:20:30,135 --> 00:20:32,325
It was, it's powerful
when you think about it.

329
00:20:32,325 --> 00:20:33,495
It really is.

330
00:20:33,585 --> 00:20:37,395
My, my namesake is, is a woman named
Julia Blair, my great grandmother.

331
00:20:37,395 --> 00:20:37,485
Mm-hmm.

332
00:20:38,325 --> 00:20:39,735
And she was a washer woman.

333
00:20:40,365 --> 00:20:41,475
It, it, it.

334
00:20:41,865 --> 00:20:46,005
They made their own soap
exactly from my ashes.

335
00:20:46,005 --> 00:20:49,635
They, they found refuge
to use in their fires.

336
00:20:49,635 --> 00:20:51,735
They boiled their own board.

337
00:20:51,735 --> 00:20:53,655
They made bluing, they made starch.

338
00:20:53,865 --> 00:20:57,855
They, they, they knew how to
raise stain with concoctions that

339
00:20:57,855 --> 00:21:02,415
they of clay and different things
around the, their, their household.

340
00:21:02,745 --> 00:21:04,815
They were really skilled workers.

341
00:21:05,115 --> 00:21:06,585
We, we think of this as unskilled labor.

342
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:11,780
But boy, if you can take a piece of
iron, hot iron and put on some coals,

343
00:21:11,780 --> 00:21:17,570
and then get those clothes smooth and
clean and just pristine, no polyester in,

344
00:21:17,570 --> 00:21:20,120
in any, uh, fabric at that time, right?

345
00:21:20,180 --> 00:21:20,270
Mm-hmm.

346
00:21:20,510 --> 00:21:20,520
Mm-hmm.

347
00:21:20,530 --> 00:21:22,070
So everything had to be pressed.

348
00:21:22,264 --> 00:21:28,010
It, it was powerful knowledge and skill
and how that they brought to bear.

349
00:21:28,010 --> 00:21:31,129
They train, they train their
children, generation after

350
00:21:31,129 --> 00:21:32,659
generation to do this work.

351
00:21:33,260 --> 00:21:35,360
Um, it, it, it's a powerful cohort.

352
00:21:35,865 --> 00:21:39,405
And, um, really a, a, a wonderful
opportunity for us to really

353
00:21:39,405 --> 00:21:43,305
remember the labor that went
into everyday, household, past,

354
00:21:43,425 --> 00:21:47,505
exactly back to domestic workers.

355
00:21:47,775 --> 00:21:53,925
It's been in movies and ized that
when African American domestic

356
00:21:53,925 --> 00:21:55,905
workers worked in the home, uh.

357
00:21:56,790 --> 00:21:59,970
The people they were working for,
considered them part of the family.

358
00:21:59,970 --> 00:22:05,189
But, uh, the workers had a dis different
attitude and a different frame of,

359
00:22:05,189 --> 00:22:06,554
of mine talked to us about that.

360
00:22:07,515 --> 00:22:09,555
A part of the family who you
didn't know anything about.

361
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:09,880
Exactly.

362
00:22:09,885 --> 00:22:10,065
Exactly.

363
00:22:12,735 --> 00:22:15,585
I always, you know, people
love to tell me those stories.

364
00:22:15,705 --> 00:22:15,885
Mm-hmm.

365
00:22:16,125 --> 00:22:20,385
I heard one recently we're like, oh,
we just, you know, buried her and she

366
00:22:20,385 --> 00:22:22,485
was so wonder, she was like my sister.

367
00:22:22,845 --> 00:22:25,455
I was like, well, did you make
sure she had a retirement account?

368
00:22:25,545 --> 00:22:26,025
I gotcha.

369
00:22:26,115 --> 00:22:26,685
But anyway.

370
00:22:26,690 --> 00:22:27,040
Mm-hmm.

371
00:22:29,275 --> 00:22:34,075
The women who worked in household, my
grandmother did that work, um, for more

372
00:22:34,075 --> 00:22:38,725
than a decade, uh, in Philadelphia,
really suffered a unique burden.

373
00:22:39,055 --> 00:22:43,645
So many of them had to
worry about being assaulted.

374
00:22:44,070 --> 00:22:49,260
Uh, sexually in those homes, uh, they
were isolated as workers, you know, so

375
00:22:49,260 --> 00:22:53,340
when you're working in the home, there's
no, uh, cohesion with other women.

376
00:22:53,340 --> 00:22:58,710
Most, in most cases, you, you are
oftentimes, you know, away from your

377
00:22:58,710 --> 00:23:03,510
own household and your own children, uh,
for hours or sometimes days at a time.

378
00:23:03,915 --> 00:23:07,785
If you were a live in
domestic, um, it's hard work.

379
00:23:07,785 --> 00:23:11,775
It's kind of boundless and endless what
people could ask for and would demand

380
00:23:12,285 --> 00:23:17,625
of women just simply because they could
in times of, um, depression or, um.

381
00:23:18,450 --> 00:23:23,730
Um, the Great Depression women, you
know, oftentimes were ripped off and

382
00:23:23,730 --> 00:23:28,260
not paid, you know, suffering from
wage theft, um, giving clothing or

383
00:23:28,260 --> 00:23:31,950
food or, or nothing at all for the time
that they were working in households.

384
00:23:32,010 --> 00:23:34,470
It was really hard work,
and yet those women.

385
00:23:34,845 --> 00:23:36,315
Build with each other.

386
00:23:36,555 --> 00:23:38,205
Uh, they organize in unions.

387
00:23:38,775 --> 00:23:43,545
They, um, come together on their buses
or their street cars or their stoops when

388
00:23:43,545 --> 00:23:46,875
they do get back to their neighborhood
and they, they talk together and they

389
00:23:46,875 --> 00:23:52,185
strategize together, and they too are
the building blocks of, of how, um, black

390
00:23:52,185 --> 00:23:55,425
life came together in so many communities.

391
00:23:55,725 --> 00:23:57,735
That takes me to my next question.

392
00:23:58,620 --> 00:24:00,750
The Freeman's pension Bill.

393
00:24:00,750 --> 00:24:05,820
Talk to us about that, that particular
legislation that actually started

394
00:24:05,820 --> 00:24:09,600
out as, as something of, of, of
a fantasy, but actually grew into

395
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:11,010
something that was beneficial.

396
00:24:11,850 --> 00:24:12,570
Uh, yes.

397
00:24:13,230 --> 00:24:15,330
Uh, it, we get to talk about C House.

398
00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:15,899
Yes.

399
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,320
Uh, one of my favorite
figures in American history.

400
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:20,975
You know, so much of a conversation about.

401
00:24:21,855 --> 00:24:26,415
Reparations that we are having today,
uh, is forgetting Callie house.

402
00:24:26,565 --> 00:24:31,965
Uh, a black woman, uh, who was,
um, you know, a, a washer woman

403
00:24:31,965 --> 00:24:37,185
herself, a seamstress, the
daughter of, um, enslaved people.

404
00:24:37,335 --> 00:24:39,565
Um, and, and wanted to make sure that the.

405
00:24:40,530 --> 00:24:44,670
The aging people around her
who were ex-slaves had some,

406
00:24:45,030 --> 00:24:47,790
uh, um, support as they aged.

407
00:24:48,120 --> 00:24:50,310
And so she thought of a pension movement.

408
00:24:50,310 --> 00:24:57,155
It was a bit of a scam that a, a white
man, Mr. Vaughn, Mr. Vaughn at the

409
00:24:57,155 --> 00:24:59,730
time, but she turned that scam into.

410
00:24:59,910 --> 00:25:04,980
A mutual aid society and a and a
call, and a demand for recompense

411
00:25:04,980 --> 00:25:06,870
for what black people had suffered.

412
00:25:06,870 --> 00:25:11,700
And it was one of the largest
organizations in the 19th century of black

413
00:25:11,700 --> 00:25:14,100
folks who were organizing to say Yes.

414
00:25:14,100 --> 00:25:15,570
Did the former slaves deserve?

415
00:25:15,985 --> 00:25:21,985
Something and, and, uh, repayment for
what they suffered as in, in bondage.

416
00:25:22,645 --> 00:25:25,855
Um, she was arrested under federal
charges for church, trying to

417
00:25:25,855 --> 00:25:29,665
organize this and served time in,
in federal prison because of it.

418
00:25:30,145 --> 00:25:32,365
Um, but boy, what a vision.

419
00:25:32,515 --> 00:25:34,615
Uh, a vision that we
still have yet to fulfill.

420
00:25:34,945 --> 00:25:38,515
And as I stated earlier, my
uncle was a Pullman porter, but

421
00:25:38,755 --> 00:25:39,325
yes.

422
00:25:39,750 --> 00:25:44,670
I had a interview some years ago
on the rail of Pullman Porters.

423
00:25:44,940 --> 00:25:51,210
One would've thought that was a, it was
at the time, it was a dream job, but it

424
00:25:51,210 --> 00:25:58,140
was a job that took a whole lot of time
and dexterity, and it wasn't really that

425
00:25:58,140 --> 00:26:00,600
advantageous for African American men.

426
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,120
It was a better job than
working in the field, but.

427
00:26:03,675 --> 00:26:08,655
All you do is subs look like they
substituted one slavery type of,

428
00:26:08,715 --> 00:26:10,815
of, of, of function for another.

429
00:26:11,865 --> 00:26:13,125
I mean, it's really powerful.

430
00:26:13,125 --> 00:26:16,815
You know, I remember my mother wanting
me to understand that, like being

431
00:26:16,815 --> 00:26:20,535
a Pullman porter, being a postal
worker, being an elevator operator.

432
00:26:20,955 --> 00:26:25,095
These were jobs that black men, you
know, could excel in because, you

433
00:26:25,095 --> 00:26:27,975
know, there was so few opportunities.

434
00:26:27,975 --> 00:26:32,325
And so she said that the Pullman porters
were just so important in that, in

435
00:26:32,325 --> 00:26:34,035
the neighborhood and in the community.

436
00:26:34,035 --> 00:26:38,415
And they were, um, they were the most
well traveled black people in America.

437
00:26:39,050 --> 00:26:43,850
Uh, George Mor Pullman, who founded,
um, the, the Sleeping Cars on Trains had

438
00:26:43,850 --> 00:26:49,070
the, this vision of having the black male
man service who would be, uh, hearkening

439
00:26:49,070 --> 00:26:51,500
back to slavery on his train cars.

440
00:26:51,500 --> 00:26:52,460
Um, but they couldn't

441
00:26:52,460 --> 00:26:54,050
have a college education.

442
00:26:54,050 --> 00:26:55,760
High school was as far as they could go.

443
00:26:56,324 --> 00:26:58,155
High school was as far as
they were supposed to go.

444
00:26:58,155 --> 00:26:58,845
Exactly.

445
00:26:58,875 --> 00:26:59,715
Some of that cause Exactly.

446
00:26:59,715 --> 00:27:00,165
Anyway.

447
00:27:00,615 --> 00:27:02,655
No wages and that wisdom.

448
00:27:03,044 --> 00:27:09,044
Um, but boy, he ended up accidentally
putting together, uh, a profoundly

449
00:27:09,074 --> 00:27:15,764
powerful voice and vision, uh, for
black labor in America, the largest

450
00:27:15,764 --> 00:27:19,034
private employer of, of black
men and women in, in the country.

451
00:27:19,295 --> 00:27:23,465
Dr. Blair Kelly noted scholar of
Black History and the African-American

452
00:27:23,465 --> 00:27:27,275
Experience Director of the Center
for the Study of the American South

453
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Co-Director of the Southern Future
Initiative and author of Black Folk,

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00:27:31,715 --> 00:27:34,085
the Roots of the Black Working Class.

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00:27:34,860 --> 00:27:38,100
If you have questions, comments,
or suggestions as to future in

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00:27:38,100 --> 00:27:43,320
Black America programs, email
us at In Black america@kut.org.

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00:27:44,430 --> 00:27:47,460
Also, let us know what radio
station you heard us over.

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00:27:48,030 --> 00:27:53,130
Don't forget to subscribe to our
podcast and follow us on Facebook nx.

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00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:56,880
You're gonna previous
programs online@kut.org.

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00:27:58,159 --> 00:28:02,449
Also you can listen to a special
collection of In Black America programs at

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00:28:02,449 --> 00:28:04,760
American Archive of Public Broadcasting.

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00:28:05,179 --> 00:28:07,040
That's American archives.org.

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00:28:08,330 --> 00:28:12,050
The views and opinions expressed
on this program are not necessary

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00:28:12,050 --> 00:28:16,909
though of this station or of the
University of Texas at Austin In Black

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00:28:17,364 --> 00:28:21,949
is a listener supported production
of KUT and KUTX in Austin, Texas.

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00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:26,419
You can support our work by
donating@supportthispodcast.org.

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00:28:26,870 --> 00:28:31,040
Until we have the opportunity again
for technical producer David Alvarez.

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00:28:31,399 --> 00:28:34,889
I'm Johnny L. Hansen, Jr.
Thank you for joining us today.

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00:28:35,100 --> 00:28:37,200
Please join us again next week.

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00:28:37,290 --> 00:28:41,070
Cd copies of this program are
available and may be purchased

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00:28:41,070 --> 00:28:43,139
by writing in Black America.

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00:28:43,139 --> 00:28:50,970
CDs, KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton
Boulevard, Austin, Texas 7 8 7 1 2.

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00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:53,159
That's in Black America.

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00:28:53,159 --> 00:28:57,210
CDs, KUT Radio 300 West
Dean Keaton Boulevard.

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00:28:58,179 --> 00:29:00,879
Austin, Texas 7 8 7 1 2.

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00:29:02,740 --> 00:29:05,254
This has been a production of KUT radio.