A leader to emerge from the United Packinghouse Workers of America was Addie Wyatt, who got her start through union activism and continued her fight for workers’ rights during the height of the American Feminist Movement.
She played an integral role in the civil rights movement, and joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in major civil rights marches, including the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the demonstration in Chicago. She was one of the founders of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the country’s only national organization for union women. She was also a founding member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and the National Organization of Women.
While Wyatt was working in the canning department at Armour and Company, she was replaced with a white worker who was paid more. The union, which had a non-discrimination clause in their contract, was able to fight the company’s unfair act of discrimination and get her her job back.
In honor of her contributions to the civil and labor rights movement, she was named one of Time magazine′s Women of the Year in 1975, and one of Ebony magazine′s 100 most influential black Americans from 1980 to 1984. She was inducted into the Department of Labor’s Hall of Honor in 2012.