Black Women in New York’s Informal Economy

Black Women in New York’s Informal Economy
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Black Women in New York’s Informal Economy
LaShawn Harris’s Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy demonstrates how economic hardships of the 1920s forced many Black women to participate in the disreputable and dangerous informal economy of New York. However, Black Women did not participate in these illegal activities as victims but as self-determined actors seeking economic and social liberation from sexism and racism in the predominantly male and white-dominated society. Respectability and empowerment were rarely considered as a collective concept. Therefore most Black women found themselves engaging in illicit activities because it was a practical approach that emphasized individual autonomy, fiscal stability, as well as self-sufficiency (Harris, 2016). Participation in New York’s informal econom...