Maida Springer Kemp papers addendum

Maida Springer Kemp was born on May 12, 1910 in Panama to Harold Stewart and Adina Stewart. Harold Stewart was a Black migrant from Barbados who arrived as one of many migrant workers from the Caribbean to work on the Panama Canal. Adina Stewart self-identified as a Spanish-speaking Panamanian. The family immigrated to New York in August 1917, where Harold and Adina Stewart divorced soon afterward. Adina Stewart raised Maida in Harlem as a struggling single parent working in low-paying jobs.

Maida Stewart graduated from a vocational high school in Bordentown, New Jersey in 1926. During her school years, she often held summer jobs in the garment industry, one of the limited jobs available to Black women. Her marriage to Owen Springer, an immigrant from Barbados, temporarily ended her participation in the workforce, but she soon returned to the garment industry in 1932 due to increased financial burdens incurred during the Great Depression. In May 1933 she joined Local 22 of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU.)

After a successful strike in August 1933, Maida Springer began to take on more assignments from the union. Her increased devotion led to a rise in her status within the ILGWU, resulting in her serving on the executive board by 1938 and becoming the chair of its education committee in 1940.

After the war, Maida Springer’s activism turned toward the international arena, particularly in the new labor unions found in Africa. In 1945, Springer became the first Black woman to represent American labor abroad. In 1957, she assisted the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in its African projects, where she helped coordinate a scholarship program for union activists. Her activities continued after the end of the project, often as a consultant for the AFL-CIO assisting fledgling unions in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia and other African nations.

In 1965 Maida Springer married James Kemp, a fellow labor activist. After retiring from the AFL-CIO, Maida Springer Kemp later joined the African-American Labor Center (AALC) and began assisting in their projects, including a proposed African Labor History Center. When the Sahel Drought struck in 1970, she began coordinating relief programs for the AALC. She traveled to the Sahel, and later served as a consultant for AALC projects in the region. She continued to serve as a labor consultant, attending conferences and seminars in Kenya, Indonesia and Turkey, as well as organizing a local seminar for African women in 1990. She founded the Maida Springer Kemp Scholarship in 1991 to assist Tanzanian students in their studies.

Maida Springer Kemp passed away on March 29, 2005.