By illustrating that their politics played an important role in defining urban political agendas, her work sheds light on an unexplored aspect of community activism and illuminates the complexities of the overlapping civil rights and labor movements during the first half of the twentieth century. In this impressive study, Ervin presents a stunning account of the ways in which black working-class women creatively fused racial and economic justice. This made it possible for women to emerge as visible and influential leaders in both formal and informal capacities. As part of the Great Migration, black women migrated to the city at a higher rate than their male counterparts, and labor and black freedom movements relied less on a charismatic, male leadership model. Louis were uniquely conducive to the rise of this movement since the city's economy was based on light industries that employed women, such as textiles and food processing. Ervin explains that the conditions in twentieth-century St. Gateway to Equality investigates black working-class women's struggle for economic justice from the rise of New Deal liberalism in the 1930s to the social upheavals of the 1960s. To combat ingrained racism, crippling levels of poverty, and sub-standard living conditions, black women worked together to form a community-based culture of resistance-fighting for employment, a living wage, dignity, representation, and political leadership. Over these decades, many African American citizens in the region found themselves struggling financially and fighting for access to profitable jobs and suitable working conditions.
For the next thirty years, the "Gateway City" continued to experience significant urban decline as its population swelled and the area's industries stagnated. Louis, Missouri, was caught in the stifling grip of the Great Depression. Like most of the nation during the 1930s, St.
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