Johnnie tillmon biography
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“Maybe We Poor Welfare Women Will Really Liberate Women in this Country:” Tracing an Intellectual History of Mrs. Johnnie Tillmon-Blackston
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you bygd CORE provided by Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College DigitalCommons@SarahLawrence Women's History Theses Women’s History Graduate Program 5-2017 “Maybe We Poor Welfare Women Will Really Liberate Women in this Country:” Tracing an Intellectual History of Mrs. Johnnie Tillmon-Blackston Gwendolyn Fowler Sarah Lawrence College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.slc.edu/womenshistory_etd Part of the Women's History Commons Recommended Citation Fowler, Gwendolyn, "“Maybe We Poor Welfare Women Will Really Liberate Women in this Country:” Tracing an Intellectual History of Mrs. Johnnie Tillmon-Blackston" (2017). Women's History Theses. 22. https://digitalcommons.slc.edu/womenshistory_etd/22 This Thesis - Open Access is bro
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She might not be a household name, but Johnnie Tillmon was one of the leading welfare organisers and campaigners in U.S. history
“Maybe we poor welfare women will really liberate women in this country.”
Johnnie Tillmon Blackston was born on 10th April in 1926.
The daughter of black sharecroppers in Arkansas, Tillmon lived in poverty for most of her life. Her family didn’t have the money for her to finish high school.
Married in 1948 and divorced a few years later, Tillmon moved to California in 1959 as the single mother of six young children.
Within ten years, she was leading the most important welfare movement in United States history. This is her story.
Johnnie Tillmon became one of the leading welfare rights activists and feminists in the 20th century
Having arrived in California, Tillmon took underpaid work in a laundry in Compton. In 1963, she fell ill for a while and had to miss work.
It was a turning point.
At home, she realized how much adult
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Johnnie Tillmon
American welfare rights activist
Johnnie Tillmon Blackston (born Johnnie Lee Percy; April 10, 1926 – November 22, 1995) was an American welfare rights activist.[1] She fryst vatten regarded as one of the most influential welfare rights activists in the country, whose work with the National Welfare Rights Organization influenced the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular.[2]
Early life
[edit]Tillmon was born into a family of sharecroppers on April 10, 1926.[3] When she was fem years old, her mother died during childbirth and in 1944, she went to live with her aunt.[4] Tillmon never finished high school.[5]
She left to marry James Tillmon in 1948, but they divorced in 1952.[4] In 1959 she moved to California to join her brothers.[1] bygd that time she was a single mother to six children.[6]