Johnnie Tillmon (1926-1995) was a warrior for welfare rights in the United States, who fought tirelessly to better the lives of impoverished mothers like herself.
Johnnie Tillmon (1926-1995) was a warrior for welfare rights in the United States, who fought tirelessly to better the lives of impoverished mothers like herself.
While motherhood can take many forms, to mother is to usher forth new generations through care, work and imagination. For the entire month of December, we’re celebrating mothers — including those who raised children who went on to lead the civil rights movement and school desegregation efforts, such as Alberta King and Louise Little, as well as mothers of movements like Lorena Borjas who started the Latinx trans movement. All of the women featured this month were dedicated to the survival of children in their work and to imagining better futures for the next generation.
History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, Sara Schleede, Abbey Delk, and Alex Jhamb Burns. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.
Original theme music composed by Miles Moran.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Anna Malaika Tubbs, the author of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK, Malcom X and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation. My work focuses on motherhood, through the lens of feminism, intersectionality, and inclusivity, and I’ll be your guest host for this month of Womanica.
This month, we’re talking about mothers: women — some who had their own children, some who didn’t — who ushered forth new generations and new futures through their care, work, and imagination.
Today, we’re talking about a warrior for welfare rights in the United States. She broadened the feminist movement to redefine poverty as a women’s issue and fought tirelessly for the rights of impoverished mothers like herself.
Let’s meet Johnnie Tillmon.
Johnnie Tillmon was born in Scott, Arkansas in 1926. Her mother died when she was five. Her father was a sharecropper, and Johnnie started working in the fields when she was seven years old — not because her family needed the money, but because she was feisty, and her father wanted to keep an eye on her.
In the late 1950s, Johnnie left a bad marriage and became the sole provider of her six children. She moved to California, where she got her start in community organizing. She was a union shop steward at a laundromat and worked with her housing project’s planning organization to improve living conditions.
In the early 60s, she fell ill from tonsilitis and was unable to work. She was advised to seek assistance from an early iteration of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a federal program that was established in 1935. Johnnie had heard some horror stories about welfare and was reluctant to sign up, but eventually she did.
When the AFDC initially passed during the New Deal, Black Americans were denied access to the benefits. This changed during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, but discrimination continued. Black women in particular faced harassment and limited access to benefits. Johnnie was now experiencing this discrimination firsthand.
It wasn’t until an incident involving a sprinkler and a church parking lot that Johnnie decided she’d had enough. At that time, residents of the housing project where Johnnie lived faced fees if their lawns weren’t watered and green. So her neighbor, Ms. Jackson, kept her sprinklers running all weekend, every weekend. One Sunday, her sprinkler sprayed onto the cars in the overflow lot for the church next door. When a woman left church and saw the water hitting the hood of her car, she was furious. Johnnie watched as the church-goer started to shout about the “type of people” who lived in the housing project: “all of [them] on welfare, sitting down lazy and so on and didn’t have any money.”
After that deeply insulting incident, Johnnie sent notes to every woman in the housing project who was on welfare. She asked them to come to the office to discuss their leases and benefits. 300 women showed up. Johnnie did this at other housing projects in the area, too. They named their coalition of women Aid to Needy Children Mothers Anonymous, or ANC. Led by Johnnie, the group organized to help welfare recipients navigate bureaucracy and get the benefits they needed. In 1967, the ANC joined forces with The National Welfare Rights Organization, or NWRO, and expanded their reach.
Even though the majority of AFDC recipients were white, the majority of The National Welfare Rights Organization activists were Black. Johnnie noticed a divide between the poor Black women advocating for welfare rights and the middle class white women of Women’s Liberation Movement, who were more focused on issues like birth control and abortion.
In 1972, Johnnie explained why poverty is a feminist issue in her now-famous article for Ms. Magazine, entitled “Welfare is a Women’s Issue.” She condemned the welfare system for unfairly placing blame on individuals — particularly women — for their circumstances.
Johnnie wrote: “Welfare is like a super-sexist marriage. You trade in a man for the man. But you can’t divorce him if he treats you bad. He can divorce you, of course, cut you off anytime he wants. But in that case, he keeps the kids, not you. The man runs everything.”
Women on welfare were subject to demeaning regulations. Such as the “man-in-the-house” rule, which suggested that if any man was present in the home, he was financially responsible for the family, not the government. As a result, women experienced random home inspections where even finding men’s clothing in the house could be grounds for denial of benefits. Additionally, a woman could be required to have her tubes tied to avoid being cut off welfare. The government could tell a woman how to spend her welfare checks, and even then, she might still not have enough money to pay rent or buy groceries for her children.
Johnnie and the NWRO’s proposed solution for the broken welfare system? A guaranteed adequate income that paid people according to need and family size, with no minimum eligibility. By not categorizing people by gender or marital status, a guaranteed adequate income would eliminate sexism from welfare.
The NWRO was only active for nine years. But in that short time it won millions of dollars for women previously denied welfare. It created a food voucher program, secured housing, clothing and furniture for families in need. Along with civil rights lawyers, it also succeeded in eradicating the “man-in-the-house” rule. Johnnie continued advocating for welfare rights at the local and state levels until her death in 1995. She was 69 years old.
All month, we’re talking about mothers. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan, for having me as a guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!