Champion of Social Justice (1927-2018) 

By Amy Laiken 

 

 

 

While many people in their later years engage in activism, few take on the personal risks and sacrifices as Jean Gump did in her decades of involvement in the antinuclear and social justice movements.

 

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Jean attended Saint Xavier College (now University) for two years before marrying Joe Gump. They settled in Morton Grove, and enrolled as parishioners in St. Martha's Roman Catholic Church. When African American families were harassed after moving to Niles Township in the early 1960's, the Gumps helped found a human relations council to support them. After a racial slur was scrawled on the Gumps' garage, their parish priest spoke out against defacing property, but failed to address racism and discrimination, prompting Jean and Joe to become disillusioned with their church for a time. Jean challenged her community and priest to think about injustice and intolerance in an era when not many people, especially women, were exhorting others to take a stand against bigotry. In 1965, the year of birth of the last of her 12 children, one of her sons asked her what she planned to do about the mistreatment of African Americans in the South. His question prompted her to fly down to Alabama to join the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King on the march from Selma to Montgomery.

 

In the 1980's, while still living in the Chicago area, Jean participated in demonstrations against Motorola and a company then known as Morton-Thiokol in protest of their involvement in the manufacture of weapons parts.

 

On Good Friday in 1986, Jean and two other Roman Catholic activists cut through a fence at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, disabling a silo housing a Minuteman II nuclear missile, pouring their own blood on it. For this act of civil disobedience, she was arrested and sentenced to 8 years at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. Her sentence was eventually reduced, and Jean continued to fight for causes in which she believed. It was neither her first arrest, nor would it be her last. Her husband was also later arrested and convicted of conspiring to damage another Missouri missile site. After their release from prison, Jean and Joe moved to Bloomingdale, Michigan.

 

Years later, they went to Iraq to bring medical supplies to Iraqis who were harmed by U.S. sanctions under Saddam Hussein, and traveled to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Gumps helped to establish Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponents of War (KNOW), near their home in Michigan. In nearly a half century of taking on causes such as civil rights, gun control and nuclear disarmament, Jean never wavered from her commitment. Her last arrest happened at age 83 in 2010, following a protest at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. By then, she had firmly established herself as a champion of peace and nonviolence. Speaking in a telephone interview with The New York Times for an obituary of her mother, one of her daughters, Holly Gump, said, "My mother was living the American Dream and rejected it all in her fight for social justice."

Jean Gump died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 16th of this year.

 

 

Amy Laiken is secretary of Working Women's History Project and knew Jean Gump in the 1980's in the anti-nuclear movement.

 

 

Lula Grice was born and raised in small town named Turrell inside Arkansas. She married and became Lula Bronson. After being widowed, she left the south and moved to the west side of Chicago to raise her family. One ofher daughters, Sandra Bronson said she moved "for a better life." Lula, who's been described by anyone that shares their memories of her, would talk about how soft spoken she was and that she had a gentle heart. One of her daughters Sandra laughed as she remembers how some family members would imitate her sweet soft voice, and her laugh that would make her whole-body shake.  

 

Lula Bronson was well known in her west side community as a Christian whose neighbors always felt welcome to come into her houseand enjoy home cooked meals. She stood just under 5 feet and in her soft voice, she dared thousands of others to not just listen, but to do something to make change. Lula became a member of legacy SEIU local 880 in 1984. Later she became the vice president of the executive board that represented 2000 workers.  

 

According to Keith Kelleher, former president of SEIUHCIIMSK (Service Employees International Union Health Care Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas), and now senior advisor, "When Lula and Helen Miller, who was the president of the executive board, and their co-workers started to organize in 1984, we appealed to the new State Labor Relations Board to allow us to organize under the recently passed State Labor Relations Act and since Lula and her co-workers were paid by the state and hired by the state, and their hours were set by the state, we went to the State labor Board for an election". Kelleher went on to say, "The State Labor Board used a trick in the law and declared that our folks were not employees of the state or the consumer, but were co-employees, and had no rights to organize under either the state labor relations act or the national Labor Relations Act."

"Helen, Lula and their co-workers and staff had a decision to make, it was to accept the State's Labor Board's decision or fight back!"  

 

Lula had the tenacity that it took to win! Kelleher went on to say, "By 2003 there were 20,000 workers." These workers, who were mostly women provided care and services for about 25,000 people with disabilities. Lula Bronson stood strong and fought hard for years alongside others to get the state of Illinois to recognize collective bargaining rights for personal assistants. All her organizing took place in a time when no one thought that homecare workers would be able to win union rights.

 

Because personal assistants worked in homes to care their clients, organizing was a challenge. Her organizing was done in both private and public sectors. With great determination according to Kelleher, "Helen, Lula and many other leaders traveled across the state of Illinois and signed up members in every legislative district. At first, the private sector homecare, then public sector homecare, and eventually public-sector childcare workers as well." Lula Bronson would organize wherever she could find the workers in places such as, check pick- ups, meetings, conversations over the phone and house visits.  

 

Faith Arnold who was a home-based family childcare provider reflected upon her first encounter with Mrs. Bronson. Faith said that she was reluctant and wasn't interested in hearing about anything besides the issues in her community. According to Faith, Mrs. Bronson was "soft spoken but persistent and encouraged to her to attend the meeting." Faith remembered Lula organizingher and before she knew it,"Lula asked me to pick her and some other members up to attend the meeting." Lula's persistence worked. Faith Arnold is now the executive vice president of SEIUHCIIMSK representing over 90,000 members.

 

In 2003 Lula and the bargaining committee settled a contract with a 35 % wage increase for four years with other benefits for workers in the state of Illinois and secured bargaining rights for over 40,000 workers.    

 

After retiring in 2007, the Illinois House of Representatives honored her for her accomplishments for working on the Chicago living wage ordinance in 1997.  

 

Lula Bronson was a trail blazer in her own right. This truly left a mark in history for workers, mostly women, who are continuing to carry the torch to lead in their organization for equality and equity for working families and their communities.

 

Gwen Vaughn is a board member of Working Women's History Project, andhas been an employee of Service Employees International union for over eight years, currently organizing early childhood educators and caregivers.

   

I find that to be a very true song having been a worker for seventy-four years of my ninety years of existence and fifty-two in the Labor Movement. It's been so long now but it seems that it was only yesterday.

 

Being a single mom in those days with three little ones to care for, I faced many issues that were no-nos for women. I am reminded that those were the days pregnancy was a reason to be rejected in hiring or being fired for that matter.

 

Only married women could get credit cards, but husbands had to cosign.

 

Buying a home was just a thought because mortgages were not available. A woman couldn't afford it anyway with a salary of 59 cents for every dollar a man made in 1963.

 

No Ivy League education if you were female. We considered President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women a good thing, however he suggested they could be used to do a good job of providing a good life for people in addition to taking care of their primary home responsibilities: the husband's needs and having babies.

 

I am reminded of the female airline stewardesses, working for PAN AM Airline and the conditions they were forced to work under. They were required to maintain a certain weight, had to be a certain height, retire from the job at age 32, and resign if they got married. Those were some of the conditions women faced.  

 

Those were the days women were considered supplementary workers.

 

We have come a long way. We are not where we ought to be, but we are further than we used to be.

 

Today, serving as President of the Chicago Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and joining other progressive women's organizations that have supported issues pertaining to women and their families, I see we have been conquerors and gained many benefits we didn't have before the Civil Rights Movement.  

 

I've fought and I've seen many, many changes over the last five decades. Yes, women have come a long way and "we know where we are going, we will get there." WITH WOMEN POWER.

 

Katie Jordan is a board member of Working Women's History Project, and President  of the Chicago Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women.