Abstract
In north Philadelphia in the summer of 1995, a multiracial group of welfare mothers, members of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, set up a tent city on the lot of a Quaker Lace factory that had recently been the victim of arson. This event was the culmination of a series of events that can be seen as part of the U.S. context of the consequences of economic globalization. As journalist David Zucchino put it:
In many ways, the arrival of welfare mothers at Quaker Lace was a fitting coda for the old factory and everything it represented about North Philadelphia’s ongoing industrial decline. The collapse of manufacturing and the evaporation of blue-collar jobs had helped give rise to the illegal drug trade. Those who sold drugs had torched the Quaker Lace ruins, which in turn had provided a new home for another unfortunate byproduct of the area’s economic collapse—welfare recipients. It was like a forest fire that cleared out old growth and made way for new vegetation. (Zucchino 1997, 59)
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—Elie Wiesel
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© 2005 Janie Leatherman and Julie Webber
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Zoelle, D., Josephson, J.J. (2005). Making Democratic Space for Poor People: The Kensington Welfare Rights Union. In: Leatherman, J., Webber, J. (eds) Charting Transnational Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981080_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981080_3
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