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Labor movement pioneer to be honored at dinner
Friday, March 17, 2000 By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Sitting in her Hill District home, Maida Springer-Kemp has a thousand stories to tell.
At 89 years old, she draws from nearly a century of memories that spill forth, sometimes in French, eloquently and endlessly.
"You must give me a signal when I get off track," she said, "or I'm afraid you'll get much more than you need."
Springer-Kemp's reminiscences are treasures, mined from having had a front seat to events that have shaped history for women and blacks in America.
In celebration of Women's History Month, Springer-Kemp will be honored for her ground-breaking work in the labor movement at a dinner Tuesday at the Westin William Penn Hotel, Downtown. The tribute is being sponsored by a coalition of labor, education and community groups.
Springer-Kemp came to the United States in 1917, the year her parents left Panama for New York City. Like thousands of other immigrants, the family's portal to the promised land was Ellis Island. Her parents settled in Harlem, then an ethnically mixed community of Italians, Irish and blacks.
By 1920, during the rumblings of the Harlem Renaissance, a blossoming of black arts, pride and civil rights, Springer-Kemp was 10 years old and beginning to witness the efforts of the people of Harlem to combat discrimination in America.
She watched her mother, Adina Stewart, work tirelessly to help other Panamanian immigrants adjust to life in America. Stewart took her daughter to meetings held by Marcus Garvey, the self-educated Jamaican who pushed for black economic empowerment and called for a "Back to Africa" movement.
These events, among others, would nourish Springer-Kemp's own activism and concept of social responsibility.
During the Depression, she went to work in a garment sweatshop after her husband, Owen Springer, a dental equipment mechanic, suffered a huge wage cut.
"Life was tight," she said, "I felt I needed to try to help. There was a lot of suffering."
In 1932, she met A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first nationwide black trade union.
Randolph became a mentor and friend, someone she affectionately called "Chief." His autographed picture is prominently displayed in her living room, testimony to the inspiration behind her belief that unionism could help achieve social and economic justice for black workers.
She put the belief into practice on her first job. Nonpayment for overtime, denial of lunch breaks and other exploitation of workers led her to join Local 22 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in 1933.
After making a name for herself in various assignments for that union, she rose through the ranks to become educational director and Local 22's first black business agent, where she handled regulations for contract negotiations and complaints on work conditions and wages.
Despite her advances, she remained aware of gender and racial discrimination in the unions.
"There were challenges because I had this paint job," she laughs, pointing to her cocoa-colored skin. Nevertheless, she fought for the inclusion of all workers, instituting education meetings and socials to help people overcome stereotypes.
In 1945, she had traveled to England as the first black woman to represent organized labor abroad. From there, her career gradually expanded to more international assignments.
By the time she officially joined the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department in 1960, her work already had aligned her with the struggle of fledgling African labor movements, which were battling hostile colonial governments.
Traveling through Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and other African nations on the eve of their independence from colonialism, Springer-Kemp learned of Pan-Africanism and quietly worked to get African women union support. She pushed the same cause across the globe.
"Negroes weren't easily accepted," she said, "but the manager of the union was concerned about broadening the base."
After divorcing her first husband, she married James Kemp and by the 1970s was living in Chicago and working for the A. Philip Randolph Institute to increase black voter registration and education.
A longtime member of the National Council of Negro Women, she became vice president of the organization in 1970.
Springer-Kemp admired and worked alongside the council's legendary president, Mary McLeod Bethune, who started a college for black women in Daytona Beach, Fla., by selling sweet potato pies to raise funds.
During a 1940 visit to Washington D.C., for a series of government meetings, Springer-Kemp recalls being frustrated and wanting to leave the meetings because, as a black woman, she couldn't get a cab, was refused service in a restaurant and couldn't stay in a hotel where other white participants in the conference were staying.
Instead, she was accommodated at the home of Bethune, who gave her tea and a stern "dressing down." The struggle for equality, Bethune told Springer-Kemp, "is much larger than your ego." Springer-Kemp went to the meetings and learned to never let anger upset her purpose and direction. It's a message she continues to live with.
She came to Pittsburgh 11 years ago, she said, after her son Eric Springer, a local attorney, and his wife, "plotted to have me closer."
Today, after years of helping to raise the standard of living for black women, Springer-Kemp continues to reach out. Though she walks gingerly with the aid of a cane, she volunteers as a mentor and helper at Warren United Methodist Church where she reads to children and helps with their snacks.
"As long as I can move these limbs," she said, "I will."
The dinner honoring Maida Springer-Kemp is at 5 p.m.Tuesday. For information, call 412-562-2511 today.
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