Thank God for Black Women Voters in America. Otherwise we would have Roy Moore and a lot of other things. And they sure tried to save us from others.

And thank you for writing this inspiring reminder of how important these women’s lives were! We can all benefit to stop and consider the sacrifices, the tenacity, the courage, the patience that black women workers showed, and continued to show. Hopefully we redouble our commitment to achieving goals worthy of these…

Your story reminded me of my grandmother (my mother’s mother) who was a domestic worker, too. It was the only work she could find in Virginia in the early 20th century. She was the live-in nanny for a well-to-do white family, looking after three or four children. My mother saw my grandmother only twice a year while…

It’s total bullshit, and Google would have done the work you are, right this minute, asking black women to do for you.

I really wish a documentary was done on these women and the affect they had on the households they ran. Because that is what they did.

Even you admit—your one, subjective, personal anecdote doesn’t have any impact on the countless other stories that aren’t like yours. What you’ve written is of zero consequence. I’m glad your grandma liked be a servant, congratulations, we weren’t talking about her in the first damn place...

Black women provided an opportunity for lower-middle-class white women to have the splendor of a maid without the lavish price tag.

And on the other side of the continent we have undocumented workers from Central and South America doing the same thing. Also underpaid and exploited because of the unspoken (or spoken) understanding that ICE is just a phone call away. Exploitation is the economic game we play. We like to pretend we are above those…

My grandmothers were both domestic workers for white families. They had stories.

Why wonder when you can just get it straight from the horses mouth no chaser. I recommend all Toni Morrison starting with Beloved, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was amazing. Aside: Just finished The fith Season by NK Jemisin, I’ve never highlighted a novel so much on my reader there are so many gems.

This was a lot of missing the point and hurt feelings just to tell you #notallwhitepeople

I was waiting for you at the door.

My pleasure. Grandma was The Shit. Her Bid Whist game was FIRE.

Fun facts for y’all: Black women have the highest labor force participation rate among women (62.7% vs 57.2% of white women) and are the only group of women with a higher labor force participation rate than their male counterparts. Black women who worked full-time, year-round had median annual earnings that were 65…

Did she know that most First Ladies don’t hold formal jobs? I am trying to understand the landscape.

Wow, that’s powerful on so many levels. Thanks for sharing.

I highly recommend the book “Out of the House of Bondage” by Thavolia Glymph, on the subject of the economic transition from slavery to paid labor in the field of domestic work. It’s a straightforward history book, but I thought it was well written, spectacularly researched, and a great read. What I found most…

“If you’re a woman and you have a domestic worker in your home now think about how much she is doing for you and how much money you are saving by hiring her and pay her enough money so she can have a life too.”

A well meaning non-black friend was upset that Michelle Obama didn’t work when she became First Lady but focused on raising her children (and you know, actually being First Lady). I had to kindly explain to her that black women having been working outside of the home since the moment they stepped foot in this country…

Thanks for this. My grandmother was a domestic worker. Descended from house negros working in the kitchen. Family goes back to the Jefferson plantation in the 1790s.