Judicial interviews: Brooklyn administrative judge interviews Barnard professor about her book

African American domestics workers’ struggle for dignity

February 14, 2025 Hon. Genine D. Edwards, Administrative Judge, Kings County Supreme Court, Civil Term

Members of the Kings County Courts Black History Months Committee hold up copies of Professor Premilla Nadasen’s (center) “Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement.” Photo courtesy of Judge Edwards

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On behalf of the Kings County Courts Black History Month Committee, I had the pleasure of speaking with Premilla Nadasen, the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History at Barnard College and author of “Household Workers Unite, The Untold Story of African American Women Who Build a Movement.” This book informs this year’s theme, “African Americans and Labor.” Professor Nadasen recounts a labor movement led by fearless women in pursuit of respect and dignity.

According to Professor Nadasen, “Prior to World War II, domestic work was one of the few occupations open to African American women and was weighted with a long history of slavery, servitude, and racial oppression. Black women labored in homes of white southerners, serving a cultural as well as economic function in that their subordination reinforced white racial power. Black women’s work in white homes was characterized by economic and sexual exploitation, as well as the denial of Black women’s humanity and motherhood.

“Predatory white male employers wielded their power to sexually abuse or harass Black women employed in their homes. White female employers maintained nearly complete control over the outward behavior and actions of domestics, determining what they wore, what they ate, where they ate, which bathrooms they used, and the specific ways they carried out their responsibilities.

“Both live-in and day workers put in extremely long hours, thus inhibiting their ability to effectively parent their own children. Moreover, the low pay, lack of benefits, and master-servant character of the relationship degraded the economic value of African American women’s labor.”

Justice Genine Edwards, left, smiles as Professor Premilla Nadasen signs a copy of her book. Photo courtesy of Judge Edwards

As a historian, Professor Nadasen chose to explore this topic because she was interested in questions of labor and how we think of justice and equality.

Scholars declared that the labor union movement was dead, yet she witnessed firsthand domestic workers rallying in Brooklyn — hundreds of women of all ages, races, and languages — protesting low wages. On a more personal note, her mother and grandmother were domestic workers under apartheid in South Africa, which gave her a lifelong understanding of the value and importance of household labor.

One of the key organizations that emerged in this movement was Domestic Workers United, founded in New York City in 2000. However, Professor Nadasen’s book traces the movement back to the 1960s, with the birth of the term “Household Technicians”. This title was significant because it recognized that domestic work required skill and expertise, from understanding which cleaning products to use to knowing the most efficient order of cleaning tasks.

Justice Genine Edwards and Professor Premilla Nadasen discuss the issues raised in the book, with a map of Africa in the background. Photo courtesy of Judge Edwards

Storytelling and myths

Unlike factory workers, traditionally associated with unionization, domestic workers were isolated in private homes, making traditional organizing difficult. Instead, these women had to build solidarity in public spaces — bus stops, laundromats, and parks — through storytelling, where they shared their experiences and found strength in one another.

One particularly unifying shared experience was white women looking for workers with the most scarred knees, believing that this indicated they were willing to scrub floors on their hands and knees. Through organizing and collective action, household technicians set standards, refusing to be degraded on all fours.

Racism and racial stereotypes heavily shaped perceptions of domestic work. The “Black Mammy” racist stereotype, which emerged after the Civil War, depicted Black women as loyal servants to White families. This myth, reinforced by popular culture (notably “Gone with the Wind” and the Aunt Jemima brand), sought to reassert white supremacy by positioning Black women as content in servitude. What this narrative ignored, however, was the domestic workers’ commitment to their families and communities.

In some cases, the White family would describe the domestic worker as “one of the family,” but this often served as a justification for exploitation. One worker famously spoke on this empty pretense, saying she was expected to work from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, yet when it was time to distribute grandma’s china, she received nothing.

The illusion of inclusion reframed the relationship from transactional to familial, so workers would be expected to put forth extra effort without monetary compensation but were ultimately denied any privileges, benefits or respect of a familial relationship. At its core, this reflected the dehumanization of household laborers. White employers simply did not regard them as equals.

Efforts in labor protections

At the time of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Georgia Gilmore founded The Club From Nowhere, a deliberately vague name to protect workers from retaliation. The household workers cooked meals to sell door to door on a weekly basis and donated the proceeds to the Boycott leadership.

Justice Genine Edwards, next to Professor Premilla Nadasen, holds a copy of Nadasen’s book, “Household Workers Unite.” Photo courtesy of Judge Edwards

These women were leaders in their own right, and their support was crucial to the Boycott’s success. Another well-known leader of the movement in Atlanta, Dorothy Bolden, mobilized workers by riding the city’s bus routes, organizing a citywide movement that fought for basic labor protections, including a minimum wage and transportation benefits.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of the 1930s granted basic labor protections to most workers in this country, including minimum wage, overtime pay, breaks, time off, and the right to organize and bargain collectively. However, domestic and agricultural workers — jobs predominantly held by Black Americans — were deliberately excluded.

For decades, domestic workers fought for inclusion in these protections. With the help of Congress Member Shirley Chisholm, they eventually secured minimum wage rights, though it took forty years of relentless advocacy. Male legislators did not support domestic workers’ rights because they typically were women. Although they benefitted from outsourcing housework, they wanted to preserve traditional gender roles, where women were more dependent on men.

By the 1970s, some predicted domestic workers would become obsolete due to technological advancements — dishwashers, frozen dinners, and the proliferation of fast-food restaurants. In reality, more White women entered the workforce, leaving a care crisis for children and in the home.

However, the movement gave African American women a voice and rights, which they asserted to the vexation of their White employers, who began to vilify African American women for demanding fair treatment, calling them lazy and suggesting that Caribbean women were better at caring for their children and Mexican women cleaned better. This shifting of racial stereotypes was a deliberate strategy to suppress labor activism.

Despite the ongoing exploitation and underpayment of household workers, Professor Nadasen notes that the success of this movement is measured by the ability of these African American women to come together and organize on the city, state, and national levels. They wrote speeches, testified before Congress, and even assisted in drafting labor laws. What they accomplished in terms of mobilizing people and affecting change was a certain success. The domestic workers met their mark.