In Goldleana’s Hands: Black Women and Labor Choices in North Louisiana in 1950s

First Wednesdays

Jolivette Anderson-Douoning shares the lived experience of Mrs. Goldleana, whose story illuminates the role Black women played as laborers in the Louisiana cotton and timber industries—and in their own families—in the 1940s and 50s. She also highlights geographical differences in Black migration: some left the South while others remained.

Jolivette Anderson-Douoning is a PhD Candidate in American Studies and currently serves as the Inaugural Edmundite African American Fellow at Saint Michael’s College. Her research focuses on race, space, and place, and the lived experiences of Black women and Black families in segregated neighborhoods of Shreveport, Louisiana after World War II.