1972
Johnnie Tillmon argues that welfare rights are women’s rights
United States; welfare recipients and the National Welfare Rights Organization
In her essay on welfare and women’s rights, Johnnie Tillmon challenged the treatment of recipients as dependent or undeserving. Speaking as a Black mother and welfare organizer, she argued that caregiving was work and that women should control their own lives. She described the movement’s demand for adequate income.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
This entry dates the essay, circulated by Liberation News Service and adapted in Ms. in 1972, rather than the founding of the welfare rights movement. Its income proposal was a political demand, not an enacted guarantee. Her surname is Tillmon.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 19, pp. 513–514; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Johnnie Tillmon: Welfare as a Women’s Issue, 1972, reproduced by the Fat Liberation Archive ↗