March 26, 2004
Millie Jeffrey
Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, recently described trailblazing activist Mildred "Millie" McWilliams Jeffrey as "…absolutely fearless when it came to fighting for equality, fairness and human dignity. She was a first-rate organizer and coalition builder; she brought people together and served as role model for many of us."
Born in Alton, Iowa, Jeffrey was the oldest of seven children. Her mother, Bertha, was the state's first female registered pharmacist. Millie studied psychology at the University of Minnesota and joined the campus YWCA, which at the time was considered a controversial group for sponsoring interracial dances and attempting to integrate local restaurants.
Jeffrey's involvement with the Y and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom exposed her to the plight of women factory workers, who worked long hours for low wages. She took up their cause, organized the mill workers into the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and gained a reputation as a tough but compassionate labor leader.
Jeffrey earned a master's degree in social economy and social research from Bryn Mawr College then spent a year as an investigator for the National Recovery Administration. She married fellow union organizer Homer Newman Jeffrey and together, they traveled throughout the South and East organizing textile workers into powerful unions. During World War II, the pair moved to Washington D.C. to work as consultants to the War Labor Board.
In 1944, Jeffrey took a job as the director of the newly formed UAW Women's Bureau. She organized the first UAW women's conference to protest the massive postwar layoffs of women production workers, ran the union's radio station and its community relations department, and retired in 1976 as director of the UAW's consumer affairs department.
Jeffrey joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and helped organize Americans for Democratic Action. In the 1960s, she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and managed Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign in Michigan. She helped establish and chaired the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971, a group that lobbied for child care and the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Three years later, she was elected to the Wayne State University Board of Governors, an office she held until 1990.
For a lifetime of work on behalf of labor, women and minorities, President Bill Clinton gave Jeffrey the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000; it is the nation's highest civilian honor. She was also inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Jeffrey died on March 24 from natural causes. She was 93.
Posted on March 26, 2004 5:12 AM