English: Biography: Mae Massie Eberhardt has been a union activist for nearly 35 years. Born in Virginia, one of the eight children of Randolph and Ida Kenny Graves, she married and moved to New Jersey after completing high school. When she was divorced from her first husband, she went to work at Orange and Domestic Laundry where she became active in Local 284, AFL, and led the fight for better pay and improved working conditions. She was elected shop steward and held that position until the laundry went out of business 12 years later. Then employed as an electronics worker for Kuthe Laboratories in Newark, she took an active part in the successful organizing campaign for the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (CIO). Elected president of the local, she also served as chief negotiator, chairperson of the grievance committee, and member of the district executive board. Mrs. Eberhardt went to work for IUE in 1963 as civil rights director for District 3, which included the states of New Jersey and New York; in that position she was instrumental in persuading the IUE to sponsor a scholarship program--now nation-wide--for college students. Elected executive vice-president of the New Jersey Industrial Union Council, she was the first Black woman ever elected as an officer in a state labor organization. She is active in community affairs and oversaw the founding of North Jersey Community Union, which was designed to meet the health needs of the uninsured poor and which provides day care, work for senior citizens, and hot meals.

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick
Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Collection: Black Women Oral History Project
Research Guide: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

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