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| Woodson Regional Library www.flickr.com/photos/zol87 |
The Chicago Public Library welcomes Marcia Walker-McWilliams, author of the acclaimed new book, Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender and Racial Equality at Woodson Regional Library, 9525 S. Halsted, on Saturday, October 29 at 1:00p.m. The program is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing by the author.
Just published by University of Illinois Press, the book traces the life of the late Rev. Addie Wyatt as labor leader, civil rights activist, militant feminist, and African American clergywoman.
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| Reverend Addie L. Wyatt Photo courtesy Chicago Public Library |
Rev. Addie Wyatt was the first woman president of a local of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, a civil rights activist who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King during and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and was featured as one of Time magazine’s Women of the Year in 1975.
Walker-McWilliams worked at the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature as a University of Chicago Ph.D. student. She spent two years processing the papers of Rev. Addie Wyatt, Rev. Claude Wyatt, and the archives of Vernon Park Church of God, still the largest single collection held at Harsh. She also conducted interviews with Rev. Addie Wyatt and with her family, friends, and colleagues in the labor, civil rights and women’s rights movements, and tracked down the story of the family in Mississippi. The result is an inspiring portrait of a woman who defied injustice in its many forms.
This program is co-sponsored by the Vivian G. Harsh Society, the Chicago Women’s History Center, the Chicago Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and the Chicago Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU).
