Unions Pave Way for African American Progress
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Union membership has been a pathway to the middle class and leadership for generations of African American workers. Unions have done more to provide jobs, physical safety, education, adequate housing and medical care for African Americans than any other institution, according to labor educator Edgar Moore.
In “African Americans Win With Unions,” a guest column at the AFL-CIO website, Moore, a faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s William Brennan Institute for Labor Studies, writes:
Unions serve the African American community well. It is true that unions, like the rest of American society, delayed opening their doors to African Americans for too long, but enormous progress has been made since it happened.
In turn, the union movement benefits from African American membership, Moore points out. He cites a study that shows more African Americans hold leadership positions in labor unions than in any other social institution in America, except the black church.
