1935

Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke expose the exploitation of Black domestic workers

Bronx, New York City

Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke reported on Black women waiting on street corners to be hired for domestic work. Their account described employers using economic desperation to impose low pay and humiliating conditions.

Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.

Context / qualification

Zinn cites their report using the term Bronx slave market. That phrase exposes coercion and racial exploitation in wage labor; it does not mean these workers were legally owned as chattel. The original article remains a source-verification lead.

Sources

• Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 15, pp. 404; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified

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