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Thyra Johnson Edwards (December 25, 1897 – July 9, 1953) was an American educator, journalist, labor activist, and social worker.

Thyra J. Edwards was from Wharton, Texas, the daughter of Horace Ferdinand Edwards and Anna Bell Johnson Edwards. Her parents were teachers in Wharton; her father was later a postal clerk in Houston. She graduated from Houston Colored High School in 1915. She trained as a social worker at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. She also studied labor politics at Brookwood Labor College,[1] and pursued further studies at the International People's College in Elsinore, Denmark, in 1933.[2]

Early life:

Thyra Johnson Edwards was born on December 25th, 1897 in Wharton, Texas. Edwards was the second-born daughter of Horace Ferdinand Edwards and Anna Bell Johnson Edwards. Edwards' grandparents were fugitive slaves. Her parents were educators in Wharton; her father was later a postal clerk in Houston. Edwards encountered her first encounter with discrimination growing up in Wharton County, a predominantly white, classist, and racist county. Despite race struggles, Edwards parents were engaged in community work and civil reform within their county.

The Edwards' family relocated to Houston in the early 1900s. As opposed to their preceding home, in Wharton County, the Edwards family was now residing in a predominantly black neighborhood with an influx of opportunities due to the lack of segregation.

education/career:

Thyra Edwards graduated from Houston Colored High School in 1915. She trained as a social worker at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. She also studied labor politics at Brookwood Labor College,[1] and pursued further studies at the International People's College in Elsinore, Denmark, in 1933.[2]

Edwards started as a teacher in Texas, right after high school. She became a charter member of the Houston chapter of the NAACP when it formed in 1918. In 1919, she began working for the Houston Social Service Bureau as a family visitor, where she began her work in social work. The next year moved to Gary, Indiana with her sister, Thelma.

She was based in Indiana former the next twelve years, working as a teacher, social worker, and juvenile probation officer, interracial activist, while lecturing and becoming more active in labor and civil rights work. In 1925 she became a child placement specialist with the Lake County Board of Guardians. In 1927 she helped to open the Lake County Children's Home, and she served as its director for three years. She was one of the founders of Gary's Interracial Commission in 1924, and served on the board of the John Stewart Social Settlement Center, a settlement house serving African-Americans in Gary. She organized the Business and Professional Women's Club in Gary. She spoke at the National Negro Business League conference in St. Louis, Missouri in 1927. She was vice-president of the Gary Council of Social Agencies, and active in the city's YWCA.[2]

Edwards traveled in Europe in 1929, and moved to Chicago in 1931, to be a social worker with the Joint Emergency Relief Commission, while living at the Abraham Lincoln Centre, a settlement house. She soon became active with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a black union based in Chicago, and with the Progressive Miners of America in southern Illinois. In 1933 she was part of forming the Chicago Scottsboro Action Committee. She was awarded a scholarship from this committee to study at Brookwood Labor College.

Edwards acquired a job as a caseworker for the Joint Emergency Relief Commision. In mid-1930s, she traveled in England, Scandinavia, Austria, Germany, and the Soviet Union,[3] then on the Spain to work with child refugees of the Spanish Civil War.[4] As head of the women's committee of the National Negro Congress during World War II, she taught about the Soviet Union at the Carver School.[5]

Radicalization:

Thyra Edwards grew up going through struggles that inevitably radicalized her. During her adolescence, while Edwards was in high school, she recalls being associates with white adolescents her age. At the time, it was noticeable to Edward’s how their different skin colors influenced their everyday experiences.

As a kid, Edwards was warned by her father to avoid wandering through wealthy white suburbs. Edwards disobeyed her fathers authority and through her disobedience she was able to observe first-hand the economic imbalances between white and black households. These experiences revealed to Edward that white people have access to luxuries black communities do not. These discoveries of economic prejudices that black families collectively experience, racial conflicts within her classmates have Edward’s first-hand familiarity of radical politics at a youthful age.

In 1931, Edwards began her labor activism. In the early 1930s, Edwards traveled to the Soviet Union to “explore “for the soviet promise of a better society”. Edward’s trip to the Soviet Union was a significant adventure for her and supported her views, like the value of communism to civil rights and sexual liberation. Edward’s trip to the Soviet Union particularly strengthened her fascination in radicalization and the usefulness of it.