Gateway to Equality

"Gateway to Equality is an important work of historical research that not only explores black women's paid work and working-class black women's class experiences, but also importantly situates black women's struggles for justice and dignity – often unpaid and always fraught, whether led by working-class or middle-class black women – as 'labor.'"—Rhonda Y. Williams, author of Concrete Demands: The Search for Black Power in the 20th Century

"An interesting, well-reasoned case for the importance of black women in the local labor movement and beyond."—Gears of Biz

"Ervin impressively combines archival research and oral histories to update the understanding of economic struggles by domestics, housewives, professionals, housing activists, and food, garment, and defense plant workers. She does so by highlighting key organizers in terms of intersectionality that united civil rights, feminist, and labor struggles in creative ways that were essentially democratic and progressive. Accessible writing brings these stories alive while keeping them in historical context."—Choice

"In this well-researched and highly theorized history of African American women's role in claiming economic rights and justice in St. Louis from the 1930s through the 1960s, Keona Ervin presents struggle as a river of continuity and connectivity, with tributaries linking disparate events and movements. Ervin gives voice to these women and connects their experiences and struggles across four decades, documenting their agency and role in St. Louis history and the history of labor and civil rights more generally."

"[An] excellent monograph [that] shows the dynamic research currently being produced on black radical activism in the Ohio Valley. [It] challenges readers to reconceptualize what it meant to be a black activist, revealing the many ways previous understandings of radical activism have hidden the critical roles of understudied groups."—Ohio Valley History

"Gateway to Equality is a major contribution to African American labor historiography. Keona K. Ervin joins an impressive cohort of historians whose recent publications explore African Americans' multifaceted labor practices and the diverse ways in which black labor impacted urban labor markets, city landscapes, and the struggle toward race, gender, and class equality. Ervin brilliantly illuminates working-class black women's economic and political experiences, particularly their day-to-day survival strategies as well as the moments in which they engaged in political struggles to improve their lives and communities. Ervin offers an engaging study that challenges historians of the black female experience to reconceptualize ideas about race, gender, and labor. Moreover, this innovative work illuminates the voices, narratives, and experiences of a dynamic group of underrepresented urban black women mothers, workers, and political activists."—American Historical Review