Why did four Black servicewomen go on strike during WWII?

Timeline of women in labor history

In 1866, newly freed black women working as laundresses in Jackson, Mississippi, formed a union and went on strike for higher wages. But it wasn't until 1974, that the Coalition of Labor Union Women was founded as America's only national organization for union women. Want to find out more about the history of women in the labor movement? Click here for the full timeline.

Black women played a central but often overlooked role in the suffrage movement

Although the women's suffrage movement is often portrayed as a white story, Black women like Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell fought for voting rights—frequently facing racism within the movement itself.

Hundreds of women secretly joined the Union and Confederate armies during the war

Hear the story of women who disguised themselves as men to enlist in both Union and Confederate armies—serving as soldiers, medics, and spies.

Women in WWII used tattoos to avoid capture

During World War II, Japanese soldiers kidnapped women from Southeast Asian countries and forced them into sexual slavery. But they hesitated to capture married women, a fact that women from the island of Timor exploited, painstakingly poking tattoos onto their bodies that marked them as married women.

Eleanor Roosevelt's 1941 flight with a Black pilot helped legitimize the Tuskegee Airmen program

During a 1941 visit to the Tuskegee Institute, Roosevelt ignored protests from her Secret Service detail and flew for an hour over Alabama with chief instructor Charles Alfred Anderson. Photos of the flight were shared nationwide and helped advance the case for Black pilots in combat.

Disney animators went on strike in 1941, protesting unpaid overtime

Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was a notoriously messy production—exceeding the budget by 400 hours—though it was also a massive success, grossing $75M and establishing Disney as a major Hollywood player. Disney’s animators, though, alleged they weren’t compensated for their overtime.

See what it was like to live in the United States during World War II

In America, life was transformed by total war: sixteen million service members left civilian life, while massive industrial production demanded labor. Women, minorities, and teens filled factories, fueling boomtown growth and breaking social barriers. Simultaneously, rationing, recycling drives, Victory Gardens, ration stamps, blackout drills, and war bond campaigns permeated daily routines.

The Kent State massacre sparked a nationwide student strike

In 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on Kent State University students—peacefully protesting the Vietnam War—and killed four. The tragedy led to more widespread nationwide protests, shutting down more than 200 colleges and universities. The event led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a slain and grieving student.

Nine Black students were arrested in 1961 for refusing to stop reading at a segregated Mississippi library

Public libraries across the South were segregated by law, with Black residents directed to separate, underfunded facilities. When nine Tougaloo College students sat down to read at the whites-only Jackson Municipal Library, they were arrested. Their act helped the NAACP push for the desegregation of public spaces in Jackson.

Hughes reported on Black Americans volunteering in the Spanish Civil War

In 1937, the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper sent him to cover the Black soldiers who’d left the US to fight in the International Brigades cooperating with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Hughes’ dispatches mainly focused on the racially integrated military companies, something that was prohibited in the US.

Marie Curie developed and trained women to operate mobile X-ray units in World War I

The “petites Curies” allowed medical professionals to identify the severity of wounds without transporting soldiers to medical facilities, expediting treatment and saving lives. The efforts of Curie and other women led to expansions in their rights after the war.

The Harlem Hellfighters, WWI's longest-serving US regiment

The nickname was given to the 369th Infantry Regiment, an all-Black fighting force of Americans attached to the French Army during World War I. The group fought for 191 days, longer than any other regiment in the United States Army, and lost more men (1,500) than any other.

A Navy messman with no gunnery training defended his ship at Pearl Harbor

Doris “Dorie” Miller, a Black Navy messman assigned to steward duties rather than a combat role, seized a .50-caliber machine gun aboard USS West Virginia during the attack. Despite no formal weapons training, he fired until out of ammo—becoming the first African American to earn the Navy Cross.

The story of the 1945 Minnesota Starvation Experiment

Amid the severe conditions of World War II, researchers were eager to learn the effects of starvation in a controlled study. This podcast dives into a yearlong study of 36 men at a Minneapolis college who endured a six-month period of semi-starvation, where their caloric intake was halved. Results from the experiment became a landmark study in human starvation.

In 1968, two American Olympians raised their fists while the anthem played

Tommie Smith won the gold medal in the 200-meter event at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games, followed closely by his teammate John Carlos, who earned the bronze. When they stood on the winner's podium while the national anthem played, the athletes raised their fists, mirroring a popular Black Power gesture.

One of the earliest Memorial Day ceremonies was held by newly freed Black Americans in South Carolina

On May 1, 1865, roughly 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around a Charleston racetrack where Union prisoners had been buried, predating the first national commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery by three years.

Women were prohibited from the Boston Marathon, so Bobbi Gibb snuck in

Race directors assumed women could not handle the physical demands of the race. In 1966, Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes near the starting line, then hopped in the race after it began, and became the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, albeit unofficially.

Why Billie Holiday's label refused to release 'Strange Fruit'

Columbia Records declined to record the protest song, fearing negative reactions from southern retailers. She instead recorded it in 1939 for the Commodore label. The recording would eventually sell a million copies, be added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry, and be called the "Song of the Century" by Time magazine.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Germany’s surprise offensive in December 1944 failed to break Allied lines

In a bold counterattack from December 16, 1944, to January 28, 1945, Hitler committed over 400,000 troops in a surprise “Bulge” through the Ardennes forest in France. Although initially successful in creating a 50‑mile incursion, Allied defense halted the advance. German forces suffered irrecoverable losses (~100,000), while Allied casualties totaled ~75,000, marking the offensive as the last major German gamble and a decisive step toward Nazi defeat.

The Boswell Sisters were the precursors to the American girl group

The jazz trio, popular in the ‘20s and ‘30s, doesn’t share much in common with the sounds of the well-known pop-oriented girl groups, but the sisters’ prominence in a male-dominated industry provided an early example for later groups. Check out their appearance in the 1932 film “The Big Broadcast,” performing the song “Crazy People.”

The Williams sisters boycotted Indian Wells for 15 years

In 2001, Venus and Serena Williams were set to play each other in the semifinal of the Indian Wells tournament, when Venus pulled out just minutes before the match with a knee injury. Serena was booed at the final, with Venus also booed in the stands. This Players' Tribune article by Venus discusses the sisters' boycott of the event and why they returned in 2016.

The Supreme Court extended the ban on discriminatory jury strikes to include gender in 1994

In J.E.B. v. Alabama, the court ruled 6-3 that using peremptory challenges to exclude jurors based on sex violates the Equal Protection Clause, building on its 1986 Batson decision banning race-based strikes.

What is crossing a picket line?

A picket line refers to a boundary that workers on strike ask others not to cross. That boundary could be a physical place, like the entrance to a place of work, or something else, such as digital journalists asking people not to visit their news organization’s website while they strike. This video explains what happens when someone crosses a picket line, including some recent examples. Watch it here.

Indigenous women are murdered at 10 times the rate of all other ethnicities in the US

Murder is the third-leading cause of death among Indigenous women, who are also 2.5 times more likely to experience violence than any other group. More than 4 in 5 Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime.

The Third Amendment bars the forced housing of soldiers in private homes

The amendment was designed to address a specific grievance of the Colonies and remains the only Bill of Rights provision that has never been directly tested by a Supreme Court ruling on its merits.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.