Jessie B. Ramey

Dissertation: "A Childcare Crisis: Poor Black and White Families and Orphanages in Pittsburgh, 1878-1929"

This biography of activist, coal miner, and educator Kipp Dawson (1945-) tackles some of the central issues of the current moment: How can ordinary Americans protect and strengthen their democracy? How do social movements advance the nation’s promise of justice and freedom for all? How do people keep going in the face of fierce backlash? Dawson built coalitions for over 60 years on the front lines of the civil rights movement, free speech movement, Vietnam anti-war movement, women’s movement, gay liberation movement, labor movement, and education justice movement. She participated in and helped to lead some of the largest and most well-known sit-ins, rallies, marches, and campaigns that led to crucial victories. Yet the movements sustained constant defeats and setbacks, and Dawson’s own marginalized identities—as a lesbian, Jewish, socialist, working-class woman, from a multi-racial family—frequently meant she confronted government surveillance, intra-movement bigotry, and even violent resistance. Drawing from two rich new archives, the project offers a theoretical framework of women’s radical collaboration to explore how Dawson and her collaborators persisted, strengthened by their work together, and buoyed by a sense of possibility and hope.