Women Riot for Jobs

Abstract

During the 1930s, many black women who had been engaged in national campaigns turned toward the economic crisis that was unfolding in the nation’s capital. The crisis of the Great Depression inspired activists to amplify their demands for economic justice, to argue that black women deserved the opportunity to work in a job of their choice, earn a living wage, provide for their families, and enjoy full participation in government programs that regulated hours and wages and provided a safety net in old age. Black women critiqued New Deal programs for marginalizing domestic workers, whether through their exclusion from the National Recovery Administration’s industrial codes, limited access to government relief programs, or their ineligibility to receive benefits from the Social Security Act. In 1938, 10,000 black women rioted for charwomen jobs in the federal government, which illustrated their desire for economic justice in the nation’s capital.