Race, Gender, and Anticommunism in the International Labor Movement: The Pan-African Connections of Maida Springer

Abstract

Maida Springer's reminiscence and the documentation concerning her activism provide insight into communist and anticommunist struggles within the United States and international labor movements. Her presence at the center of struggles of African labor movements during the 1950s and 1960s calls for a more complex view of the activism of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in Africa and of the federation's conflicts with the European labor centers belonging to the noncommunist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). This article traces the little-known story of Springer's influence on African labor and AFL-CIO policy, and explores the ways in which her race, gender, class, and nationality mediated her activism.