Labor Day Through a Different Lens: Honoring the Labor, Sacrifice, and Resilience of People of Color
Labor Day is more than the unofficial end of summer. Explore the often-overlooked history of Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian American, immigrant, and other workers of color whose labor helped build America—and why honoring labor must also include conversations about dignity, equity, mental health, caregiving, and rest.
COMMUNITY & CULTURE
Every September, Labor Day signals the unofficial end of summer. For many families, it means one last barbecue, a long weekend, back-to-school preparation, or simply an extra day away from work.
But Labor Day was never intended to be simply a day off.
It is a day rooted in workers.
It is a day rooted in struggle.
And when we look closely at the history of labor in the United States, we must also acknowledge something that is too often left out of the story: the labor of Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian American, immigrant, and other workers of color has been essential to building this country - while those same workers have frequently been denied equal access to its prosperity.
For communities of color, Labor Day offers an opportunity not only to celebrate work, but also to remember the people whose hands built, harvested, cleaned, carried, cooked, cared, taught, transported, organized, and served - often without receiving the recognition, protection, wages, or dignity they deserved.
How Labor Day Began
Labor Day emerged from the American labor movement of the late 19th century, during an era when industrialization was rapidly transforming the country. Workers organized to challenge long hours, dangerous workplaces, low wages, and limited protections.
The first Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on September 5, 1882. Workers marched through the city in a public demonstration of the strength and solidarity of organized labor. Over the following years, states began formally recognizing the holiday. In 1887, Oregon became the first state to enact a Labor Day law; New Jersey was among the states that followed that same year. In 1894, Labor Day became a federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September.
The traditional story of Labor Day, however, can become incomplete when we talk about “American workers” as though every worker experienced American labor in the same way.
They did not.
Race, immigration status, gender, and class profoundly shaped who was permitted to work, what jobs people could hold, how much they were paid, whether they could join unions, and whether their labor was treated with dignity.
Before There Was Labor Day, There Was Unfree Labor
Any honest discussion of American labor history must recognize that generations of Black Americans did not enter this nation's workforce as free laborers.
Enslaved Africans and their descendants performed forced labor that generated enormous economic value. Their labor supported agriculture, commerce, infrastructure, households, and industries while they themselves were legally treated as property.
Emancipation ended legal chattel slavery, but it did not create immediate economic equality.
Black Americans continued to confront systems that restricted their access to land, education, occupations, fair wages, labor organizations, and economic advancement. Even as organized labor grew, racial discrimination existed within parts of the labor movement itself.
Some railroad labor organizations, for example, excluded nonwhite workers, leaving Black railroad workers disproportionately concentrated in service positions.
That history matters because Labor Day cannot simply be a celebration of employment.
It must also invite us to ask:
Who was allowed to benefit from their labor?
Whose labor was exploited?
Whose work was considered skilled or valuable?
And whose contributions disappeared from the history books?
The Pullman Porters: Black Labor Becomes a Force for Civil Rights
One of the most powerful intersections between Black history, labor history, and the Civil Rights Movement can be found in the story of the Pullman porters.
The Pullman Company employed large numbers of Black men as sleeping-car porters. The work provided an important source of employment at a time when racism severely restricted occupational opportunities for African Americans. Yet porters endured long hours, low wages, dependence on passenger tips, and degrading racial treatment.
In 1925, workers organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, led by A. Philip Randolph.
Their struggle was not easy.
Workers risked retaliation and job loss for organizing. Yet they persisted. In 1937, the Brotherhood secured a collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company that brought improvements including higher wages, greater job security, and mechanisms for workers to challenge unfair treatment. The agreement represented a landmark victory for Black organized labor.
But the story did not end with better working conditions.
The Brotherhood became part of a much larger movement for racial equality.
Randolph would become one of America's most influential labor and civil-rights leaders, helping push the federal government toward nondiscrimination in defense employment and desegregation of the armed forces. Decades later, he helped conceive and lead the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Notice the full name:
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Jobs and freedom.
The words belong together because civil rights and economic justice have always been connected.
Latino and Filipino Farmworkers: The Food on America's Tables
Labor history also lives in America's fields.
For generations, agricultural workers—many of them Latino, Mexican American, Filipino, immigrant, and migrant workers—performed physically demanding work while confronting low wages and poor working conditions.
In the 1960s, another major labor movement emerged from California's agricultural fields.
The Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, whose membership included Filipino farmworkers, and the National Farm Workers Association became central forces in the struggle for farmworker rights. The National Farm Workers Association had been established by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in 1962. The organizations ultimately joined forces during the movement that became associated with the United Farm Workers.
The movement reminds us of something easily forgotten when we walk through a grocery store:
There are human hands behind our food.
Someone planted it.
Someone tended it.
Someone harvested it.
Someone packed it.
Someone transported it.
And historically, many of those hands have belonged to people whose labor was necessary but whose humanity was too easily overlooked.
Chinese Workers and the Railroads
The same contradiction appears in the history of Chinese immigrant labor.
During America's rapid railroad expansion in the 19th century, Chinese immigrants became an important source of labor in the West. Railroad construction was brutally difficult and dangerous work, with low wages and high rates of injury and death.
These workers helped construct infrastructure that transformed the nation's economy and connected communities across enormous distances.
Yet Chinese workers and immigrants simultaneously confronted discrimination, hostility, and exclusion.
Their story reflects a recurring pattern in American history:
A country can depend upon a group's labor while simultaneously denying that group full belonging.
That contradiction deserves a place in our Labor Day reflections.
The Labor We Don't Always Call “Labor”
There is another form of work worth honoring this Labor Day: caregiving labor.
Who gets children ready for school?
Who remembers the doctor's appointments?
Who notices that the groceries are running low?
Who takes care of an aging parent?
Who comforts the child having a difficult night?
Who coordinates transportation?
Who cooks?
Who cleans?
Who manages the household calendar?
Who remembers what everyone else needs?
Some of this work is paid.
Much of it is not.
And historically, women - and particularly women of color - have carried enormous amounts of caregiving, domestic, and emotional labor.
This work may never appear on a paystub.
There may be no promotion.
No pension.
No employee-of-the-month certificate.
Yet families and communities could not function without it.
Unpaid labor is still labor.
When Work Comes Home With Us
At Sankofa Healing Haven, we also recognize another dimension of labor that deserves attention: the psychological cost of work.
Work does not always stay at work.
Sometimes we bring it home in our bodies.
We bring home the exhaustion.
The frustration.
The anxiety.
The disrespect we could not safely challenge.
The pressure to perform.
The fear of losing employment.
The experience of being overlooked.
The expectation that we must work twice as hard to receive half the recognition.
For some people of color, the workplace can also require another form of labor: constantly evaluating how one's voice, hair, name, clothing, emotions, communication style, or cultural identity will be perceived.
There can be pressure to code-switch.
Pressure not to appear “angry.”
Pressure to prove competence repeatedly.
Pressure to tolerate inappropriate comments to avoid being labeled difficult.
Pressure to remain composed while experiencing discrimination.
That is labor too.
It is emotional labor.
And emotional labor has a cost.
Rest Should Not Have to Be Earned Through Exhaustion
Labor Day also raises an important mental-health question:
Why are so many of us uncomfortable resting?
Many people have internalized the idea that productivity determines worth.
We praise people for being “always busy.”
We glorify exhaustion.
We answer, “How are you?” with “Busy.”
We feel guilty when we sit down.
And for some families and communities, these beliefs have historical roots. Survival sometimes required extraordinary work, sacrifice, and perseverance.
Those lessons helped generations survive.
But survival lessons can become burdens when we never give ourselves permission to put them down.
Our ancestors worked hard so that future generations could have opportunities they were denied.
Honoring their sacrifices does not require us to remain permanently exhausted.
Sometimes progress looks like achievement.
Sometimes progress looks like education.
Sometimes progress looks like entrepreneurship.
Sometimes progress looks like breaking generational cycles.
And sometimes progress looks like finally being able to say:
I have done enough for today. I am going to rest.
The Workers We See Every Day
This Labor Day, consider the people whose labor surrounds us.
The teacher preparing a classroom before students arrive.
The behavioral-health clinician traveling from family to family.
The social worker carrying stories that cannot simply be forgotten when the workday ends.
The nurse working overnight.
The home health aide caring for someone's parent.
The sanitation worker beginning a shift before many of us wake up.
The delivery driver bringing packages to our doors.
The childcare worker caring for our children.
The restaurant employee preparing food while others celebrate the holiday.
The construction worker building our communities.
The farmworker harvesting our food.
The small-business owner working after everyone else has gone home.
The immigrant worker building a future while navigating a new country.
The parent beginning a second shift after completing the first one at work.
And the generations of workers whose names we will never know.
They are part of Labor Day too.
Sankofa: Looking Back So We Can Move Forward
The principle of Sankofa teaches us the importance of looking back, retrieving what is valuable from our history, and carrying that knowledge forward.
Labor Day gives us an opportunity to practice Sankofa.
We look back and honor the workers who came before us.
We remember those who organized when organizing could cost them their livelihood.
We remember workers who labored without fair compensation.
We remember Black workers who challenged segregation inside and outside the workplace.
We remember immigrant workers who built infrastructure while facing exclusion.
We remember farmworkers who demanded dignity in the fields.
We remember domestic workers and caregivers whose labor sustained generations of families.
And then we ask:
What should we carry forward?
Perhaps we carry forward courage.
Solidarity.
Fairness.
Collective responsibility.
Respect for every form of honest work.
And the belief that human beings deserve dignity regardless of the job title printed beside their names.
But there are things we can choose not to carry forward.
Exploitation.
Racism.
Silence.
The glorification of exhaustion.
The belief that our value depends upon productivity.
The expectation that people must sacrifice their physical and emotional health simply to prove that they work hard.
This Labor Day, Let Us Expand What We Celebrate
Labor Day should absolutely be a celebration.
Enjoy the barbecue.
Spend time with family.
Take the trip.
Sleep late.
Laugh.
Play.
Do absolutely nothing for a few hours if that is what your mind and body need.
But somewhere within the long weekend, remember why the holiday exists.
Remember that many of the workplace protections we now consider ordinary were once demands considered unreasonable.
Remember that people organized, marched, sacrificed, and sometimes risked their livelihoods so future generations could experience better working conditions.
And remember that workers of color were part of that struggle—even when they were excluded from the organizations, protections, opportunities, and historical narratives that were supposed to represent American workers.
This Labor Day, we honor the factory workers and farmworkers.
The Pullman porters and railroad workers.
The domestic workers and caregivers.
The organizers and advocates.
The immigrants and entrepreneurs.
The clinicians, teachers, nurses, laborers, drivers, service workers, parents, and professionals.
We honor those whose names became history.
And we honor the millions whose names never did.
Most importantly, we recognize that the dignity of labor begins with the dignity of the person performing it.
A worker is more than their productivity.
A person is more than their profession.
And rest is not a reward reserved for people who have exhausted themselves enough to deserve it.
This Labor Day, may we honor the work.
May we remember the workers.
May we tell the whole history.
And may we continue building a future in which dignity, opportunity, rest, safety, and economic justice are not privileges reserved for a few, but realities available to all.
Happy Labor Day from Sankofa Healing Haven.
Looking back. Healing forward. Honoring those whose labor made the journey possible.