Reverend Addie Wyatt

Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality

Author: Marcia Walker-McWilliams Series: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History

An extraordinary woman's struggle for the idea of equality as a universal, God-given right

Labor leader, civil rights activist, outspoken feminist, African American clergywoman--Reverend Addie Wyatt stood at the confluence of many rivers of change in twentieth century America. The first female president of a local chapter of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, Wyatt worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt and appeared as one of Time magazine's Women of the Year in 1975. Marcia Walker-McWilliams tells the incredible story of Addie Wyatt and her times. What began for Wyatt as a journey to overcome poverty became a lifetime commitment to social justice and the collective struggle against economic, racial, and gender inequalities. Walker-McWilliams illuminates how Wyatt's own experiences with hardship and many forms of discrimination drove her work as an activist and leader. A parallel journey led her to develop an abiding spiritual faith, one that denied defeatism by refusing to accept such circumstances as immutable social forces.

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Summary

An extraordinary woman's struggle for the idea of equality as a universal, God-given right

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Critic Reviews

“"Walker-McWilliams skillfully captures through a wide array of primary and secondary sources another view of a working-class black women activist in the life and times of Reverent Addie Wyatt as well as often underresearched aspects of labor history, black women's history, and civil rights activism." -- Journal of African American History”

"Walker-McWilliam's book is very well researched, clearly written, and extremely well organized. . . . Reverend Addie Wyatt is an important piece of scholarship that will appeal to both scholars and nonscholars interested in social movements in history."--The Journal of Southern History
"Walker-McWilliams masterfully weaves the influences of the Great Migration from Mississippi to segregated Chicago, the vibrant religious culture of the Church of God, Chicago's meatpacking industry and labor movements, the emergence of the Civil Rights and women's movements, and her enduring marriage to Rev. Claude Wyatt to create a fascinating portrait of a historical activist icon."--Chicago Review of Books
"[A] compelling, well-written, definitive biography. . . . This biography of Addie Wyatt is a valuable treatment of an activist who should be better known and whose life provides an important window into the organized labor, feminist, and civil rights movements."--Indiana Magazine of History
"This highly readable biography by historian Marcia Walker-McWilliams gives this influential figure the attention she deserves."--Newcity

"Marcia Walker-McWilliams' Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality engages readers in an enlightening examination of Addie Wyatt's professional trials and personal tribulations. . . . Another must read in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in American History series."--Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

"Richly detailed and well-researched. . . . Wyatt's work speaks directly to the ways the social movements of which she was a part unquestionably advanced America's still unfinished struggles for democracy."--Labour/Le Travail