EMTs, nurses, bus drivers, and supermarket clerks; they're all what are now known as essential workers. But by about June of this year, a lot of people were starting to argue that barbers provided an essential service that they had lived too long without.
Quincy Mills, Professor of History at the University of Maryland in College Park, talks about black barbers, the evolution of their trade, and its political meaning as a skilled form of labor.
Plus: poet Martin Espada reads his poem "Castles for the Laborers and Ballgames on the Radio," written for his friend, historian Howard Zinn.
This week’s Labor History in 2: The Amistad.
Produced by Chris Garlock; edited by Patrick Dixon. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, more than 60 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
“Politics of the Pantry”; “We Just Come to Work Here”
“The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland”
“Strike for Your Life!”; labor history's lessons for the COVID-19 crisis
Jack Kelly’s "The Edge of Anarchy”; “Union Maids” director Julia Reichert (Part 2)
Virtual May Day rally builds on the militancy of the past to inspire workers today
Julia Reichert: ‘We Don’t Just Interview People Once’; Montgomery Ward busted; May Day and Mother Jones
Sacco & Vanzetti at 100; What happened to MLK’s dream?
Organizing during historic crises
Coronavirus essential workers’ rights
Socialists, suffragettes and fear at work
COVID-19: An injury to one is the concern of all
The Great Postal Strike, Watergate and “Casey Jones, the Union Scab”
Neutron Jack, Joker and Parasite
Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote
African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South
Striking Images: Labor on Screen and in the Streets
John Sayles on “Matewan,” “Yellow Earth” and more
Sisters, rebels and social justice in the Jim Crow South
Voices from the Lansing Auto Town Gallery
MLK: All Labor Has Dignity
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