Roots and Futures weekly content series — Black figures who built and are building the future.
Jenn Stowe is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, securing rights for the nannies and caregivers the law has historically ignored. She proves that care work is not charity — it is the economic backbone of everything else that functions.
Lucy Parsons was a labor organizer who spent 70 years organizing the workers every other movement ignored. When she died at 89, the Chicago police raided the ashes of her home and seized 3,000 books. They were still afraid of what she had built.
Chris Smalls led the first successful union vote against Amazon, building the Amazon Labor Union from a bus stop outside a Staten Island warehouse over 300 days of organizing. His victory proved that no algorithm—and no trillion-dollar company—can defeat a Village that knows its worth.
In 1925, the Pullman Company thought they bought the man. But A. Philip Randolph proved they only rented his time—never his mind. He didn't just start a union; he engineered a Brotherhood. By organizing the rail yards, he built the floor the Black middle class stands on today.
From A. Philip Randolph's Brotherhood to Chris Smalls' Amazon union — the modern work-life balance was not a gift. It was a victory. The Philosophers of Labor prove that our work is how we negotiate our power.
LaTosha Brown proves that power is a philanthropic asset. She has taken the baton from Madam C.J. Walker, moving from a "beauty culture" network to a "political culture" network. She reminds us that the greatest gift we can give is not a temporary safety net, but the permanent infrastructure of our own agency. She is the voice of the Future, telling us that "we are the rescue we’ve been waiting for."
Born and raised in the South, Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon began her career as an educator, but her "turning point" came when she witnessed the vast "wealth gap" in how Black entrepreneurs were supported—or ignored—by traditional philanthropy. She realized that for Black businesses to thrive, they didn't need "charity"; they needed a Village. She moved from the classroom to the economic front lines, founding The Village Market in Atlanta to prove that community-led commerce is the highest form of mutual aid.
Born in 1908 in Mississippi, Oseola McCarty’s life was defined by labor and quiet resilience. A significant turning point occurred in the sixth grade: when her aunt fell ill and required constant care, Oseola left school to help at home and never returned. She spent the next 75 years earning a living as a washerwoman, scrubbing clothes by hand on a washboard for $1.50 a load. While others might have seen this as a life of lack, Oseola saw it as a life of discipline. She lived a radically simple existence—never owning a car, walking everywhere, and saving every penny she didn't need for basic survival—slowly amassing a fortune in $1 and $5 bills.
Jessica Byrd’s path was forged in the intersection of local community care and systemic gaps in Columbus, Ohio. Growing up in a working-class environment, she witnessed how traditional political structures often extracted votes from Black communities without reinvesting in their actual well-being. The turning point came during her early years in formal politics, where she realized that the "consulting industrial complex" was fundamentally broken for organizers of color. Rather than waiting for a seat at a table that didn't value her expertise, she pivoted to build a new infrastructure that treated political organizing not as a seasonal hobby, but as a year-round, life-saving necessity.
Founded in Philadelphia by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, the Free African Society (FAS) emerged from a moment of profound exclusion. Both men had purchased their freedom but found that even "free" spaces—like the St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church—were segregated. The turning point occurred when Allen and Jones were pulled off their knees during prayer for sitting in a "white" section. Realizing that true freedom required independent institutions, they formed the FAS to provide the social safety net the government denied them.
