Sojourner Truth Radio

Today on Sojourner Truth, we celebrate International Women's Day and Women's History Month 2021 with an in depth discussion with two grassroots women's movement leaders: Marian Kramer of the National Welfare Rights Union and Selma James, founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign. The NWRO led the way for access to welfare benefits for thousands of single mothers who were previously denied. In 1965, Johnnie Tillmon of Watts, California, and President of the NWRO said: "If I were President, I'd start paying women a living wage for doing the work we are already doing child raising and housekeeping. And the welfare crisis will be over. Just like that. Housewives would be getting wages, too." The NWRO led a women's movement that pressed for the right to welfare and for increased money for impoverished caregivers, who were referred to as welfare mothers. They protested across the nation including against the Vietnam war. The NWRO was central in the organizing and success of the first Poor People's