Week 5: Labor Pains – The Legacy of Unseen Labor

My project, Labor Pains, explores the always present labor of Black women – labor that has historically, and continues to benefit society while remaining undervalued and often unseen. This isn’t just history; it’s a legacy profoundly shaping Black women’s experiences today.

In my reading this week, Angela Davis’s “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves” (in Words on Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall) highlighted the cruel contradiction of the “Black matriarch” myth. Enslaved women endured brutal exploitation yet were expected to be the backbone of their families and communities. They were always laboring – in fields and homes for their enslavers, and within their communities as caregivers, healers, and organizers.

Jacqueline Jones’s Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow further clarifies how this multifaceted labor, both direct and indirect, fueled the capitalist system.

This systemic exploitation was legally enshrined, as Christina Accomando’s The Regulations of Robbers: Legal Fictions of Slavery and Resistance reveals. The 3/5ths Compromise, often taught with softened language (like the “Compromise of 1850”), starkly demonstrates how deeply slavery was embedded in the legal framework.

The crucial point is that this historical dehumanization and devaluation didn’t vanish. It laid the groundwork for a society where Black women’s contributions are routinely underestimated and underpaid. This isn’t always overt discrimination; it’s often so deeply ingrained that it’s seen as the “natural order,” not the result of centuries of oppression. The expectation of strength and self-sacrifice, coupled with denial of equal opportunity, is a direct echo of the “Black matriarch” contradiction.

Labor Pains will not only uncover the stories of enslaved women’s labor but will also explicitly trace the connection between this historical exploitation and the contemporary challenges faced by Black women. It’s about making the invisible visible and understanding how the past continues to shape the present.