The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #84647   Message #1563665
Posted By: Abby Sale
14-Sep-05 - 02:24 PM
Thread Name: happy? - Sept 14 (Wiggins murdered)
Subject: RE: happy? - Sept 14 (Wiggins murdered)
Yes.

Thank you for your contribution to the Happy File. The standard recompense is herewith dispatched.

This was a case for which I was unable to find the date of birth. She will be moved over to the Happy! side of the file for the future. Rule 32b is that it is better to celebrate the life of a person of valor than to memorialize the death.

I had a number of exchanges with the very knowledgeable Irwin Silber on the issue that women, in general, were excluded from the labor movement.   Men often went so far as to sabotage women's efforts - apparently concerned they were endangering men's jobs and income. The good piece you found goes further: unionists had shunned organizing African American workers. Women should be at home or, at most, support the men's union. (You might wish to read up on another extraordinary but very different woman, Rose Schneiderman- see All For One, 1967.)

Wiggins not only had to assert herself against the bosses and the government, but also against those one would have thought to be her natural allies. And had to raise her children, too.