CHICAGO (AP) -- The walls of Addie Wyatt's home reflect decades of struggling for equality for blacks, women and the working class -- a personal note from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a photo with former first lady Rosalyn Carter from Wyatt's tenure on a federal commission for women.þþ``I've lived by the motto that life can be better and I've got to help make it so,'' Wyatt says.þþAnd that is what she's tried to do -- from organizing historic marches in the 1950s and 60s, to helping found Operation PUSH and the National Organization for Women, to leading reforms in some of the nation's largest unions.þþNow 80, Wyatt is leaving the marches to a younger crowd. But even though she uses a wheelchair, she still talks to civic groups, oversees a community center and attends labor conferences teaching new members about the union's history and culture.þþ``I may be hoppin', but I'm not stoppin','' says Wyatt, who has a quiet, yet firm nature that commands respect.þþ``Even now when Addie comes into a place to speak ... people stand up,'' said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who met her in 1964. ``She's been a pillar of strength for me and my family. She's like an authentic heroine -- it's a legacy of a strong woman of faith fighting for the working people.''þþWyatt got involved with unions as a teenager after she began working at a Chicago meatpacking plant. When a new employee received a better spot on the assembly line than Wyatt, she filed a grievance. And won.þþ``That inspired me,'' Wyatt recalls. ``When I went back on the line I felt the power of something -- it was the power of unity.''þþShe later climbed union ranks in one of the nation's toughest labor towns, ultimately retiring as the international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.þþWyatt's union work would spilled over into other movements. She and her husband, Claude, were among those who first welcomed King to Chicago in 1956 as he traveled the nation drumming up support for the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott.þþ``He made such a great impression upon us and something resonated in my heart that he was a special one,'' Wyatt said.þþShe recalled marching in Chicago with King and hundreds of others a decade later. An angry crowd began throwing stones, firecrackers and bottles at them. A brick hit Wyatt's calf, but she finished the march with the help of another demonstrator.þþ``The people were so cruel, they cursed us,'' she recalled, shaking her head. ``I can still hear it now.''þþWyatt also helped organize King's pivotal march on Washington in 1963.þþ``When Dr. King made that speech, it lit up our very hearts and minds,'' she said of King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech. ``The world was inspired.''þþHer last memory of the slain civil rights leader was in Miami; King was going home to Atlanta.þþ``He said 'I'll see you in just a few days' and he left us -- we never saw him again,'' Wyatt said. ``I still grieve for him.''þþAfter King's death, Wyatt was determined to keep fighting for equality and inspire others to do the same.þþPushing for women's rights as well, Wyatt was appointed by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1961 to serve on President John F. Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women. President Jimmy Carter also appointed her to the International Women's Commission in 1977.þþFor years she maintained a national profile, including being voted as one of Time magazine's women of the year in 1975. Through it all, Wyatt stayed grounded in her faith and ready to get to work.þþ``I'm called to do things more than I'm really able at this time, but I do everything that I can,'' she said.þþ
Source: NY Times
