Maida Springer: Pan-Africanist and International Labor Leader

ISBN-13: 9780822958512 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 384 str.

Yvette Richards

Opis

Maida Springer was an active participant in shaping a history that involved powerful movements for social, political and economic equality and justice for workers women, and African Americans. "Maida Springer" is the first full-length biography to document and analyze the central role played by Springer in international affairs, particularly in the formation of AFL-CIO s African policy during the Cold War and African independence movements.
Richards explores the ways in which pan-Africanism, racism, sexism and anti-Communism affected Springer s political development, her labor activism, and her relationship with labor leaders in the AFL-CIO, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and in African unions. Springer s life experiences and work reveal the complex nature of black struggles for equality and justice. A strong supporter of both the AFL-CIO and the ICFTU, Springer nonetheless recognized that both organizations were fraught with racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. She also understood that charges of Communism were often used as a way to thwart African American demands for social justice. As an African-American, she found herself in the unenviable position of promoting to Africans the ideals of American democracy from which she was excluded from fully enjoying.
Richards s biography of Maida Springer uniquely connects pan-Africanism, national and international labor relations, the Cold War, and African American, labor, women s, and civil rights histories. In addition to documenting Springer s role in international labor relations, the biography provides a larger view of a whole range of political leaders and social movements. "Maida Springer "is a stirring biography that spans the fields of women studies, African American studies, and labor history."