LaShawn Harris, “Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy” (U. of Illinois Press, 2016)

New Books in African American Studies · Nov 3, 2016 · 54m

LaShawn Harris is an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University. Sex Workers, Psychics and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy, (University of Illinois Press, 2016) offers a colorful look at the lives of black urban women who worked and lived in the space between the legitimate and illegal economy. Her subjects are women not previously considered in histories of the working class: mothers, single ladies, churchwomen, hustlers, and partygoers who worked in the underground economy. Motivated by many factors, they sought economic autonomy, to…