I grew up hearing stories about working-class and middle-class women in my family who left rural towns in south Georgia for larger cities. My paternal great-grandmother Gertrude Phillips was a spiritualist who migrated to Detroit, Michigan where her children and grandchildren became part of the working-class backbone of the Motor City.

 

The "Alford Sisters," who included my maternal great-grandmother and her sisters, migrated to Chattanooga, Tennessee where they became "club-like" women. One sister, Sally Crenshaw, started the first daycare center for Black and white working-class women in the city.

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My family stories and experiences growing up between Atlanta, Georgia and Detroit, Michigan shaped my interest in the racial, gender, and migration politics of women's labors and resistance across socioeconomic class.

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