A Matter of Moral Justice: Black Women Laundry Workers and the Fight for Justice.

On Monday May 16, at 7 p.m., at Gage Gallery, Roosevelt University, 425 S Wabash, in Chicago, the Illinois Labor History Society will host Jenny Carson, for a talk on her book A Matter of Moral Justice: Black Women Laundry Workers and the Fight For Justice.  

Recently published by the University of Illinois press, this book tells the history of how women working in New York’s power laundry industry in the 1930s, including Trinidadian-born Garveyite Charlotte Adelmond, fought back against substandard working conditions, racial and gender discrimination, and poor pay by forming a union.

This book highlights how race and gender shaped worker conditions, labor organizing, and union politics across the country in the twentieth century.

Jenny Carson is an Associate Professor of History in Toronto, Canada. 

Her book talk will also feature a guest appearance by Bea Lumpkin, ILHS Labor Hall of Honor member and long time Chicago labor activist, who was on the frontlines of the effort to organize laundry workers.

Copies of A Matter of Moral Justice will be available for purchase at the event, and light refreshments will be served.