The 1990s in Context: A History of Black Women in American Politics

As far as many Blacks were concerned, the emergence of the women’s movement couldn’t have been more untimely or irrelevant. Historians trace its roots to 1961, with the President’s Commission on the Status of Women chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. At a time when Black students were languishing in Southern jails, when Black full-time working women were earning 57% of what their white peers were earning, the Commission concentrated its attention on the growing number of middle-class women who were forced to enter the labor market in low-skill, low-paid jobs.