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
Tragedy and Resistance at Port Chicago Naval Magazine
Black labor in Richmond
The Irish Immigrant Miners’ Memorial
City Workers Strike Song
“America Works” launches new season
The Bread Uprising
MLK at the AFL-CIO in 1961
Who was Zelda D’Aprano?
Women in the coal mines; Billionaires in Space
Labor’s Untold Stories
Striketober & The Great Resignation: Take this job and shove it!
The first pay equity strike; Massachusetts’ longest strike
Founding the American Federation of Labor
Long live Mother Jones!
Murder, Race and (In)Justice
Tom Morello holds the line
Communists and community in wartime Detroit
From the Necropolis Strike to Striketober
Voices of Guinness
“It Didn’t Start with Amazon: A Conversation About the History of Organized Labor in the South”
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Best Song Podcast
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
The Rest Is History
American Scandal