"I Was a Part of the Bronx Slave Market" - Marvel Cooke - New York Compass

Part One in a five-part series in the New York Compass on Cooke's experiences posing as a domestic-for-hire at the Bronx "slave market" of 1950

Description:Marvel Cooke, the first black and only woman reporter at the New York Compass in 1950, reprised an earlier assignment she had taken on for The Crisis in 1935 with Ella Baker: posing as a day laborer for hire. The point was to highlight the larger economic realities that had reduced black women, once employed full time in white households, to working piecemeal for a pittance.

Rights: public domain

Additional Media

Heading of New York Compass article titled, "I Was a Part of the Bronx Slave Market." Written by Marvel Cooke.

Additional Media

Full version of New York Compass article titled, "I Was a Part of the Bronx Slave Market." Written by Marvel Cooke.