Margaret Prescod

Margaret Prescod is an activist, author, journalist and radio host. She was a founder of The Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders[1] and of Black Women for Wages for Housework.[2] Prescod is on the executive board of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health, at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health.

Margaret Prescod
Born
Barbados
Alma materLong Island University
Teachers College, Columbia University
RelativesChanda Prescod-Weinstein (daughter)

Early life and education

Prescod was born in Barbados and emigrated to the United States in 1962 as a teenager.[2][3] Within her first two weeks of moving to the United States she was on a picket line, protesting against a medical centre in Brooklyn that would not employ Black people.[3] Prescod attended Long Island University for her undergraduate studies. She started a course at the Teachers College, Columbia University, but left to work in remedial teaching for adults.[3] Prescod became increasingly active in the civil rights movement.[3]

Career

In the early 1970s Prescod started to focus her activism on initiatives that looked to improve the welfare of mothers. At the time she was working as a school teacher in New York City.[3] She became involved with the United Nations, and was part of the series of conferences that were part of the Decade for Women.[3] She launched the International Black Women for Wages for Housework programme with Wilmette Brown in 1975.[4] In 1980 she wrote Black women: bringing it all back home, the first book that explored the relationship between women, immigration and race.[5] In 1985 she moved to Los Angeles, where she became involved with the Utility Workers Union of America.[2] Prescod was involved with the Wages for Housework campaign, and delivered evidence at both the Democratic and Republican Party annual conventions.[6][4] In particular, Prescod looked to involve women's unwaged work in consideration of economic analyses.[4]

In 1986 Prescod founded the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders,[7] which was established in response to the murder of eleven women in South Los Angeles.[2][8] She was concerned with ensuring that the coalition looked to encourage the police and policy makers to investigate the murders and not to malign the victims.[9][10] The organisation wound down in the mid 1990s, but was restarted in 2008 when the serial killer returned.[11] In 2014 her efforts were turned into a film by HBO, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, which was nominated for an Academy Award.[12]

She is presently the host and executive producer of the Sojourner Truth radio show which is broadcast by KPFK and syndicated by radio stations WPFW (Washington DC) and WBAI in New York City,[13] named after the abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth.

Personal life

Her daughter, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, is a cosmologist, science writer and equality activist.[14][15]

Selected publications
  • Prescod-Roberts, Margaret. (1980). Black women : bringing it all back home. Steele, Norma. Bristol, England: Falling Wall Press. ISBN 0-905046-09-9. OCLC 6996554.

References
  1. "NPR". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  2. "Executive Board". Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  3. Hendrix, Kathleen (1985-07-28). "Campaign Catches On : L.A. Pair Seek Wages for Women's Unpaid Work". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  4. mantilla, karla; douglas, carol anne (1994). "NWSA: Getting a Global Perspective". Off Our Backs. 24 (8): 8–14. ISSN 0030-0071. JSTOR 20834891.
  5. "LA Sentinel". 6 December 2018.
  6. "National Convention Protests | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  7. Hendrix, Kathleen (1986-10-16). "Passionate Pursuer's Crusade Against the South Side Slayer : Margaret Prescod Trying to Raise Community Awareness on the Streets of South-Central L.A. . . . and Beverly Hills". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  8. "Margaret Prescod of Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders handing out flyers about the Southside Slayer on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., 1986". Calisphere. 16 October 1986. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  9. "Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders". Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  10. "'Grim Sleeper' Killer Was Convicted, But Black Women Are Still Vulnerable". NBC News. 2 June 2016. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  11. TheGrio (2009-10-20). "10 black women you should know". TheGrio. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  12. Zuppello, Suzanne (2016-08-18). "'Grim Sleeper' Serial Killer: Everything You Need to Know". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  13. "KPFK". 19 July 2023.
  14. Lucchetta, Carla (2019-07-11). "How this theoretical physicist is advocating for women of colour in STEM". TVO.org. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  15. "Margaret Prescod with husband Sam Weinstein and daughter, 1986". Calisphere. 16 October 1986. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
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