Louise "Mamma" Harris

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Louise "Mamma" Harris was an American labor organizer and tobacco worker. Harris became involved with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in Richmond, Virginia. In 1938, she led a successful strike against the tobacco factory where she worked.

Biography

Harris was born in 1891 [1] in Richmond, Virginia. [2] Harris started working at the I.N. Vaughan Export tobacco stemmery around 1932. [3] Harris worked as a tobacco stemmer, which was a labor-intensive job with low and variable pay. [3] Harris became angry with the poor working conditions and low wages. [3] When the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) began to organize in Richmond, Virginia, Harris took sixty fellow workers, all black women, with her to the first organization meeting. [4]

Harris started walkouts and which later turned into strikes at the tobacco company in 1938. [5] During the strikes, Harris was the picket captain. [4] The Clothing and Textile Workers Union supported Harris and the others, and white women of the textile union were marching with the tobacco strikers. [6] Harris and the others stayed on strike for 17 days, culminating in the factory owner sitting down with strikers to bargain for better conditions. [3] Harris and the others secured increased wages, an 8-hour day and the right to unionize. [3]

The success of the strike led to the CIO creating the Tobacco Workers Organizing Committee, which Harris was involved in. [3] Due to her leadership in the union, she became known as "Missus CIO in Richmond." [7]

Ted Poston profiled Harris and the successful strike in The New Republic in 1940. [8]

References

  1. ↑ "African American National Biography". Harvard University. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  2. ↑ Eaton, Alice Knox (2013). "Harris, Louise "Mamma"". Oxford Index. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.36468. ISBN   9780195301731 . Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Black Women Raise Their Voices in the Tobacco Industry". American Postal Workers Union. 2019-05-28. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
  4. 1 2 Trotter, Joe William (2001). The African American Experience. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp.  469. ISBN   0-395-75654-5. OCLC   49611398 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ↑ Feldstein, Ruth (1993). "Labor Movement". In Hine, Darlene Clark (ed.). Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing Inc. pp.  686. ISBN   0926019619. OCLC   1028865717 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ↑ Janiewski, Dolores (1987). "Seeking 'a New Day and a New Way': Black Workers and Unions in the Southern Tobacco Industry". In Groneman, Carol; Norton, Mary Beth (eds.). "To Toil the Livelong Day": America's Women at Work, 1780-1980. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 173. ISBN   978-0-8014-9452-9.
  7. ↑ Giddings, Paula (1988). When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. Toronto: Bantam. pp.  233. ISBN   0553342258. OCLC   1036964016 – via Internet Archive.
  8. ↑ Foner, Philip S.; Lewis, Ronald L., eds. (1983). The Black Worker from the Founding of the CIO to the AFL-CIO Merger 1936-1955. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 124–126. ISBN   0-87722-136-7. OCLC   3730662.
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