Race, Gender, and Anticommunism in the International Labor Movement: The Pan-African Connections of Maida Springer

[Michael Pugliese]

http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/jowh/11.2richards.html
Abstract: Maida Springer's reminiscence and the documentation concerning her
activism provide insight into communist and anticommunist struggles within
the United States and international labor movements. Her presence at the
center of struggles of African labor movements during the 1950s and 1960s
calls for a more complex view of the activism of the American Federation of
Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in Africa and of the
federation's conflicts with the European labor centers belonging to the
noncommunist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). This
article traces the little-known story of Springer's influence on African
labor and AFL-CIO policy, and explores the ways in which her race, gender,
class, and nationality mediated her activism.