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
LHT Archives: Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
The 1913 Dublin Lock-out
Shootout in Matewan; General strike in KC
Passaic textile strike & LAWCHA preview
Sea Shanties and the Pleasure of Work
50 years of “Strike!”
Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living!
Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas
The U.S.-Canadian Labor History Collaborative
Canal workers, gays & miners, Gandhi’s labor quote
The Hardhat Riot
We Were There; Pins and Needles; Dust for Blood
Bootlegged Aliens; UPPER CASE WOMAN
Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America
Singing About Food Labor; Bill Lucy on the ’68 Memphis strike
The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly
The Valentine’s Day Strike of 1921
Remembering John Sweeney and Anne Feeney
What’s the matter with labor history?
The People, No
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