Wyatt-Lucy Labor and Justice institute
Rev. Terrence Melvin, International President Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, Inc. (SDPC), established the Addie Wyatt-William “Bill” Lucy Labor and Justice Institute in 2005 in partnership with The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). The goal is to further the understanding and models for activism that support, identify and secure the rights of workers, the unemployed and low- and middle-income families in a changing global economy. The Institute embraces the principle that we must be global in our vision and local in our organizing.
Objectives of the Institute are to:
- Provide faith and labor communities with the facts and linkages between human rights, worker justice
- Provide leadership training and mentoring programs to foster dialogue and transfer of skills and knowledge to the next generational leadership in faith and labor communities
- Build congregation-based Worker Justice Ministries
- Seek collaboration with local union leaders in the fight for worker justice
- Provide, in partnership with the International Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, a social justice and globalization Scholarship and Fellowship Program honoring the late Rev. Dr. Addie Wyatt and CBTU President Emeritus, William “Bill” Lucy
Building on a Legacy
The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. (SDPC), a 501(c)3, 501(c)4 and United Nations Non- Governmental Organization, was founded in 2003. Our mission is to nurture, sustain and mobilize the African American faith community in collaboration with civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders to address critical needs of human and social justice within local, national and global communities. SDPC seeks to strengthen the individual and collective capacity of thought leaders and activists in the church, academy, and community through education, advocacy and activism.
SDPC Inc. has been on the front lines of building and engaging labor partnerships to further a sustained and strong capacity to defeat the many efforts to undercut working families, marginalized groups and communities of color. We have been a strong advocate for healthcare reform and the dismantling of mass incarceration. In addition to impacting clergy knowledge, our relationships with over 35 seminaries have influenced curricula of universities and seminaries, about labor issues and a number of interrelated justice issues.
l-r: Rev. Terrence Melvin, Intl. Pres., CBTU; Mary Fears Crayton, AFL-CIO Regional Director (retired); Petee Talley, Secretary-Treasurer, Ohio AFL-CIO; Doria Johnson, Wyatt-Lucy Fellow; Rev. Dr. Almella Starks Umoja, (daughter of Henry Starks, chief strategist of the 1968 Memphis Boycott during the Memphis Sanitation strike); and Dr. William “Bill” Lucy Intl Secretary- Treasurer, AFSCME, and Co-founder, CBTU (retired)
SDPC Trustee Robin P. Williams, Director, Civil and Human Rights Dept., UFCW; Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, Senior Pastor, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA, 50th Anniversary March on Washington Students and Activists, Legislative Days on Capitol Hill, SDPC C0-Chair Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III at “Good Jobs Nation!” event
Rev. Dr. Addie L. Wyatt (1924-2012)
The late Reverend Dr. Addie L. Wyatt was born on March 8, 1924 in Brookhaven, Mississippi. The oldest girl of eight children, at the age of three, she gave her first recitation in church. This began a career in public speaking and preaching, eclipsed only by a lifetime of work in which her actions spoke even louder than her powerful words. Her mission in life was to work for peace and justice.
Rev. Wyatt was one of the nation’s foremost labor leaders. She was the first female local union president of the United Packinghouse Food and Allied Workers. She began with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America in 1941 and became the organization’s first female international vice president. She and her husband, Dr. Claude Wyatt, Jr., founded the Wyatt Choral Ensemble in 1944. Rev. Wyatt was ordained in 1955, and the following year, the Wyatts began working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They helped found Operation Breadbasket and served on the board of Operation PUSH.
Rev. Wyatt served as the director of the Women’s Affairs and Human Rights departments of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters. Eleanor Roosevelt appointed her to serve on the Labor Legislation Committee of the Commission on the Status of Women, which presented its national report in 1963. In 1974, she helped found the Coalition of Labor Union Women. She was elected to the CBTU Executive Council and appointed the first chair of the CBTU Women’s committee. She was also a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and a leader in the struggle for an Equal Rights Amendment.
In 1976, She was named one of Time Magazine’s Women of the Year and received a similar honor from The Ladies Home Journal in 1977. Ebony Magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans from 1980 to 1984.
Rev. Wyatt retired as co-pastor of Vernon Park Church of God in Chicago, a church she and her husband co-founded in 1984. She passed away March 28, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. William “Bill” Lucy
For more than four decades, Dr. William “Bill” Lucy has been involved in worker justice and international affairs, leaving a legacy as one of the most influential African Americans in the Labor movement. Dr. Lucy retired as the International Secretary-Treasurer of the 1.4 million- member American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL- CIO. He was first elected AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer in May 1972. He is founder and the president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), an organization of union leaders and rank-and-file members dedicated to the unique needs of African Americans and minority group workers.
Dr. Lucy is a former President of Local 1675, Contra Costa County Employees Association of Contra Costa County, California, where he was employed for 13 years. He joined the AFSCME International Staff in 1966 as the Associate Director of the Legislation and Community Affairs departments. He served as Executive Assistant to AFSCME’s late president, Jerry Wurf.
Dr. Lucy is credited as creator of the “I Am A Man” mantra, the indelible and iconic message of the Memphis, Tennessee sanitation workers’ strike.
One of the founders of the Free South Africa Movement that launched the successful anti-apartheid campaign in the United States in the mid-1980s, he led an AFL-CIO delegation to South Africa to monitor the first democratic election.
He serves as vice president of Public Services International, the world’s largest union federation, and also serves on the boards of directors for the Africa- America Institute, Americans for Democratic Action and the Center for Policy Alternatives.
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Lucy is a civil engineer by trade and attended the University of California at Berkeley. A participating member of boards of many national organizations, recipient of innumerable awards and honors, he received an honorary doctorate of Humanities from Howard University.
Wyatt-Lucy Scholarship and Fellowship Program
The Wyatt-Lucy Scholarships and Fellowships are designated for seminary and university students interested in the intersection of ministry, justice, human/worker rights and faith and faith. The program supports students’ ongoing studies and career development. Recipients focus on a variety of national and global issues ranging from workers’ rights, labor policy, mass criminalization, status of women and children, educational equity, voter protection, poverty and hunger.
Since its inception, SDPC’s Wyatt-Lucy Labor and Justice Institute has awarded more than 25 scholarships and fellowships to students in a myriad of academic and career exploration areas. As emergent leaders, ministers and professionals, students have been engaged in the planning and implementation of justice campaigns, been mentored by national and international thought leaders, written and published articles and reports, traveled, studied and served abroad.
Recipient Benefits:
- a financial stipend
- earn course credit for their SDPC study and field experiences
- opportunity to enhance their experiences by engaging in national and international human and workers rights campaigns
- opportunity to serve as a liaison with the SDPC staff, its programs and campaigns as well as participate and present at the annual SDPC conference
- opportunity to collaborate and participate with peers in other states, national and international organizations including the United Nations
- opportunity to engage with local unions in the struggle for worker justice; such as the Fight for $15, living wage ordinances, protecting prevailing wages and worker’s compensation laws and defeating Right to Work measures.
Give Now to Support the Vision, the Hope and the Action