Dear John,

Today we celebrate movement ancestor Dorothy Bolden on what would have been her 98th birthday.

Dorothy Bolden was a household worker and a civil rights leader whose visionary leadership built powerful domestic worker organizations.

She once refused a request from her white employer to stay late and wash the dishes. Her boss responded by calling the police, then Dorothy was taken to a county jail for a psychiatric evaluation.

This was the reality for domestic workers — especially women of color — in the first half of the century. But Dorothy refused to bow down to this racist, brutal treatment. Instead, she decided to ORGANIZE.

She rode every bus line in Atlanta to speak with other domestic workers. She turned a trip home into a defacto union meeting where workers could share grievances, support each other and get organized.

She registered thousands of Black women to vote. And she got herself appointed to a presidential advisory committee on welfare and social services where she won workers' compensation and social security rights for all domestic workers across the country.

The group she started, the National Domestic Workers Union of America, is a HUGE inspiration to us at NDWA. That's why we, along with our chapters across the country, are honoring Dorothy in unique ways in the coming days:

• Philadelphia domestic workers, led by We Dream in Black PA Chapter members and with support from Councilmember Kendra Brooks and nine additional co-sponsors, have made history by winning a unanimous City Council vote to make October 13 the official Dorothy Bolden Day in Philadelphia.
• On Friday, October 15, from 8:00-9:30pm ET / 5:00-6:30pm PT, NDWA is hosting Making History, a virtual celebration of domestic worker organizing, past and present. The event will feature the premiere screening of the new short documentary film Demanding Justice: A History of Domestic Workers; launch of the first ever digital timeline of domestic worker history; and the unveiling of a series of original portraits of domestic worker “movement ancestors.” Join us and be inspired by the domestic worker movement of the past, and hear from domestic worker leaders who are making history and transforming this work today.
• On October 16th a four-part mural tour series honoring Dorothy will launch in Atlanta. The murals span four buildings — in a five-mile radius within or close to Vine City — that tell different parts of Dorothy’s story, and honor her contribution to the civil rights movement, her voter registration efforts and her leadership in the fight for domestic worker dignity and rights.
• Last but not least, we are doing what we know Dorothy would do in this moment: we are organizing and fighting to strengthen our care infrastructure so that care workers and the people that depend on them are able to live with dignity and respect. Channel Dorothy's organizing spirit and tell Congress that #CareCantWait.

We are proud to stand on Dorothy’s shoulders. We continue to build upon her legacy because domestic workers are STILL excluded from basic worker protections. Abuse, harassment, and exploitation are STILL too common.

We have a chance to change that, but we need YOUR continued support to build on her legacy. Together, we can fight the injustice domestic workers have faced since the time of slavery.

Thank you for standing with us, and for supporting the over 2 million nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers across the nation that deserve critical protections at work.

Dorothy would be proud.

 

Ai-jen Poo, Executive Director
National Domestic Workers Alliance