Strikes take many forms, from the hunger strikes of suffragists like Alice Paul to specific industry strikes, like the one of black cotton pickers led by Fannie Lou Hamer in 1965. In honor of International Women’s Day and the Women’s Strike, here are six quotes from women who knew a thing or two about striking:
“Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us.”
— Emma Goldman, who supported numerous strikes related to labor disputes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
“I always feel … the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.”
— Alice Paul, who went on hunger strike in 1917
“Struggle is a never ending process; freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.”
— Coretta Scott King, who participated in various Women Strike for Peace events in the 1960s
“Women will change the nature of power, rather than power changing the nature of women.”
— Bella Abzug, who helped organize the Women Strike for Peace in 1961
“There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.”
— Fannie Lou Hamer (as told to Arthur Kinoy), who helped organize a strike of black cotton pickers in 1965
“The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own. There is no other way.”
― Betty Friedan, who organized the Women’s Strike for Equality March in 1970
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