Join author Marcia Walker-McWilliams at the Frances Willard House Museum at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 24, for a virtual discussion of the life and activism of Reverend Addie Wyatt. Labor leader, civil rights activist, outspoken feminist, African American clergywoman, Wyatt stood at the confluence of many rivers of change in 20th century Chicago and the United States. She was the first female president of a local chapter of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt, and appeared as one of Time magazine’s Women of the Year in1975.
In her biography, Walker-McWilliams illuminates how Wyatt’s personal experiences with overcoming poverty and discrimination drove her lifelong commitment to social justice and the collective struggle against economic, racial, and gender inequalities. A parallel journey led Wyatt to develop an abiding spiritual faith that denied defeatism by refusing to accept such circumstances as immutable social forces. Drawing on oral histories, interviews, personal papers and extensive archival materials, Rev. Wyatt is the inspiring portrait of a woman who defied injustice in its many guises.
Marcia Walker-McWilliams is the Executive Director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium at the University of Chicago. She works with community members and BMRC institutions to facilitate the discovery, preservation and use of Black historical collections.
This program is part of the Views series at the Willard House, which highlights new
research and writing in women’s history. This season features conversations with scholars exploring the theme Women, Faith, and Activism. For generations of women, their faith was a key source of personal exploration and reform motivation. What does that mean today – and what understanding can we gain by examining this in the past?
To register for this free virtual event, click here. For more information on the Willard House Museum and Archives, visit www.franceswillardhouse.org.
Source: Frances Willard House Museum