Video: The Legacy and Lessons of Working-Class Feminism: Brooklyn’s NCNW

Tamar W. Carroll, author of Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism, helped produce a video featuring women from the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, chapter of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women in the 1970s. The NCNW is the subject of two chapters of Mobilizing New York.

Carroll writes about the video:

The National Congress of Neighborhood Women was founded by Jan Peterson in 1974–75 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to provide a voice for working class white women within the feminist and neighborhood movements. This video features black-and-white footage filmed by Christine Noschese in the mid to late 1970s of NCNW speak-outs and programs related to the group’s college program, which provided an opportunity for women to earn an associate’s degree in their neighborhood. Many of the multiracial group’s members were displaced homemakers and had not previously graduated high school.

For more information about the conversations in this video, see “The Legacy and Lessons of Working Class Feminism: Brooklyn’s NCNW” on YouTube. (running time 16:35)

Tamar W. Carroll is assistant professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her book Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism is now available.