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"The Servant in the House"
An essay on domestic service — its history as a byproduct of slavery, its status as the largest employer of Black women in 1920, and Du Bois's argument for its basic dignity — titled after Charles Rann Kennedy's 1908 Broadway play in which Christ appears disguised as a servant. Followed by 'Jesus Christ in Texas,' a short story imagining Christ arriving as a convict-leased Black prisoner in Waco.
Domestic service and the legacy of slaveryBlack women's labor in 1920The dignity of service work'Jesus Christ in Texas' (short story, convict leasing)