O. Jennifer Dixon-McKnight, "We Paved the Way: Black Women and the Charleston Hospital Workers' Campaign" (UP of Mississippi, 2025)

Jan 20, 2026

In 1969, a pivotal strike by Black female workers at Charleston hospitals unfolded, ignited by the wrongful termination of five women. The discussion delves into the deep roots of this movement, linking it to prior protests and showcasing the powerful leadership of figures like Mary Moultrie. The podcast highlights the struggles faced under curfew and guard presence, as well as the emotional toll of returning to a hostile workplace. It underscores the unique activism of Black women and the need for their stories to be heard over institutional narratives.

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INSIGHT

Earlier Labor Battles Shaped 1969 Strike

The 1945 cigar factory strike and Local 15A supplied organizational models and personnel for the 1969 hospital campaign.
Leaders like Lily Doster and Isaiah Bennett bridged earlier union tradition to hospital worker organizing in Charleston.

ANECDOTE

Firing Of Five Women Sparked Movement

Five Black women were fired in 1967 after refusing to go to the floor without patient reports, and that firing ignited broader outrage.
Mary Moultrie learned of the firings and mobilized community leaders to demand jobs back and address systemic workplace racism.

INSIGHT

Reluctant Leader Driven By Duty

Mary Moultrie became a union leader driven by duty rather than desire for public recognition.
She sacrificed materially during the strike and focused on securing wages, promotions, and dignity for coworkers.

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In the spring of 1969, hundreds of workers, all Black and mostly female, went on strike at Medical College Hospital and Charleston County Hospital to protest racial discrimination, low wages, and the marginalization of their dignity. The movement began with an incident of wrongful termination in 1967 involving five Black women at Medical College Hospital that uncovered the pervasiveness of racial and economic discrimination at both hospitals. The termination sparked outrage among other hospital workers who, with support from local community leaders, organized a movement that galvanized the city, state, and nation.

We Paved the Way: Black Women and the Charleston Hospital Workers' Campaign (UP of Mississippi, 2025) explores this campaign in the context of a broader protest tradition, revealing it to be a full-scale movement that demonstrates the power and complexity of Black women's activism in the mid-twentieth century. O. Jennifer Dixon-McKnight argues that the experiences of the women at the center of this conflict offer a window into the plight of Southern Black working-class women and the ways in which they fought for equality, access, and well-being.

Though much of what has been written about the hospital workers' campaign focuses on the strike through an institutional lens, Dixon-McKnight uses extensive interviews and oral history to expand the scope of existing scholarship. Local leaders such as Septima Clark, Esau Jenkins, William Saunders, and Isaiah Bennett served as bridge builders for the Black community's involvement in protest, which helped shape and nurture the hospital workers' campaign. By discussing the grassroots organizing that sparked the strike and tracing the aftermath of the conflict, including what workers experienced in their return to work and their relationships with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Local 1199 Hospital and Nursing Home Employees Union, this volume situates the hospital workers' movement as a critical moment in the nation's long civil rights history.

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