Margaret Prescod

Prescod was born in Barbados and emigrated to the United States in 1962 as a teenager.{{Cite web|last=Hendrix|first=Kathleen|date=1985-07-28|title=Campaign Catches On : L.A. Pair Seek Wages for Women's Unpaid Work|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-07-28-vw-5698-story.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-06-10|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}} Within her first two weeks of moving to the United States she was on a picket line, protesting against a medical centre in Brooklyn that would not employ Black people. Prescod attended Long Island University for her undergraduate studies. She started a course at the Teachers College, Columbia University, but left to work in remedial teaching for adults. Prescod became increasingly active in the civil rights movement.

In the early 1970s Prescod started to focus her activism on initiatives that looked to improve the welfare of mothers. At the time she was working as a school teacher in New York City. She became involved with the United Nations, and was part of the series of conferences that were part of the Decade for Women. She launched the International Black Women for Wages for Housework programme with Wilmette Brown in 1975.{{Cite journal|last1=mantilla|first1=karla|last2=douglas|first2=carol anne|date=1994|title=NWSA: Getting a Global Perspective|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20834891|journal=Off Our Backs|volume=24|issue=8|pages=8–14|jstor=20834891|issn=0030-0071}} In 1980, she wrote Black Women: Bringing it All Back Home, the first book that explored the relationship between women, immigration and race.{{Cite web|title=LA Sentinel|date=6 December 2018|url=https://lasentinel.net/a-new-way-of-life-reentry-project-honors-social-justice-champions.html|language=en-US}}{{Failed verification|date=February 2024}} In 1985, she moved to Los Angeles, where she became involved with the Utility Workers Union of America. Prescod was involved with the Wages for Housework campaign, and delivered evidence at both the Democratic and Republican Party annual conventions.{{Cite web|title=National Convention Protests {{!}} C-SPAN.org|url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?158093-1/national-convention-protests|access-date=2020-06-10|website=www.c-span.org|language=en-us}} In particular, Prescod looked to involve women's unwaged work in consideration of economic analyses.

In 1986, Prescod founded the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, which was established in response to the murder of eleven women in South Los Angeles.{{Cite web |last=Hendrix |first=Kathleen |date=1986-10-16 |title=Passionate Pursuer's Crusade Against the South Side Slayer : Margaret Prescod Trying to Raise Community Awareness on the Streets of South-Central L.A. . . . and Beverly Hills |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-16-vw-5852-story.html |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2020-06-10 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}} She was concerned with ensuring that the coalition looked to encourage the police and policy makers to investigate the murders and not to malign the victims.{{Cite web|title=Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders|url=http://www.blackcoalitionfightingbackserialmurders.net/|access-date=2020-06-10|website=Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|title='Grim Sleeper' Killer Was Convicted, But Black Women Are Still Vulnerable|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/grim-sleeper-killer-convicted-black-women-are-still-vulnerable-n584856|access-date=2020-06-10|website=NBC News|date=2 June 2016 |language=en}} The organisation wound down in the mid 1990s, but was restarted in 2008 when the serial killer returned.{{Cite web|last=TheGrio|date=2009-10-20|title=10 black women you should know|url=https://thegrio.com/2009/10/20/in-every-social-movement-in/|access-date=2020-06-10|website=TheGrio|language=en-US}} In 2014 her efforts were turned into a film by HBO, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, which was nominated for an Academy Award.{{Cite magazine|last=Zuppello|first=Suzanne|date=2016-08-18|title='Grim Sleeper' Serial Killer: Everything You Need to Know|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/grim-sleeper-serial-killer-everything-you-need-to-know-252246/|access-date=2020-06-10|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US}}

She is presently the host and executive producer of the Sojourner Truth radio show which is broadcast by KPFK and syndicated by radio stations WPFW (Washington DC) and WBAI in New York City,{{Cite web|title=KPFK|date=19 July 2023 |url=https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/margaret-prescod/|language=en-US}} named after the abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth.

Her daughter, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, is a cosmologist, science writer and equality activist.{{Cite web|title=How this theoretical physicist is advocating for women of colour in STEM|url=https://www.tvo.org/article/how-this-theoretical-physicist-is-advocating-for-women-of-colour-in-stem|first=Carla|last=Lucchetta|date=2019-07-11|access-date=2020-06-10|website=TVO.org|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Margaret Prescod with husband Sam Weinstein and daughter, 1986|url=https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/21198/zz0002n8mv/|access-date=2020-06-10|website=Calisphere|date=16 October 1986|language=en}}

• {{Cite book|last=Prescod, Margaret.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6996554|title=Black women : bringing it all back home|date=1980|publisher=Falling Wall Press|others=Steele, Norma.|isbn=0-905046-09-9|location=Bristol, England|oclc=6996554}}

{{Reflist}}

• http://sotrueradio.org
• [http://www.blackcoalitionfightingbackserialmurders.net "The Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders"]

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Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:21st-century African-American people

Category:African-American activists

Category:American civil rights activists

Category:Barbadian women activists

Category:Long Island University alumni

Category:Women civil rights activists

Category:Women non-fiction writers