About – National Black Worker Center

Our story

“We must not accept the myth that some people are less than us, to do so diminishes their humanity and ours!” –Tanya Wallace-Gobern, Executive Director

NBWC is a Black worker power building and worker’s rights advocacy organization that leads with militant joyfulness and Black movement culture. We reject white supremacy culture in movement-building work and lift up the reality that for Blacks, seriousness and joy are not mutually exclusive. Black workers are more than ready to lead, and everyone benefits when they follow the sound of our call.

Black workers are building a leader-full movement with the understanding that Black people have long been ready to be leaders of their own liberation. Our focus on leadership development capitalizes on a truth that researchers and social strategists are only now beginning to recognize. In a study of Black and Latinx girls and women implemented by Girls Leadership, they found that Black girls are more likely to identify as leaders than girls of any other race. The study states, “Overall, girls of color were more likely to report that they seek out leadership opportunities compared to white girls.” Studies of Black workers have also seen similar results. The Building Movement Project surveyed nonprofit leaders and found that Blacks were often overqualified for leadership positions but were routinely undermined and discouraged by their colleagues. The work of NBWC is to provide fertile ground for Black workers men and women, unemployed and under-employed to express the leadership skills and ambition that we already have. Our national labor movement is strengthened and emboldened by every Black worker leader that enters the struggle for fair working conditions. Strong Black leader-full activism destroys the systems that keep all workers in chains.

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Our Work

The National Black Worker Center (NBWC) is the go-to source for insight into the discrimination that Black workers – employed, underemployed and unemployed – face and the solutions they seek to end anti-Blackness in the workplace. We are seeking to mobilize Black workers and provide them with the resources necessary to take on systems of worker oppression, including industries and policies that have benefitted from our exploitation for generations.

We provide an analysis of how racial capitalism operates and maintains the systemic exploitation of Black workers.
We shift the narrative for Black workers by creating, disseminating and maintaining authentic stories of our oppression, uplifting visions of our future, and clear, compelling strategies to achieve them.
Continuously grow and strengthen our NBWC network.
Train and develop Black worker activists to lead and organize in their workplace and communities.
Launch regional and national campaigns that build power for Black workers.