The Crusaders

The season premiere of The Crusaders features Bertha Bradley, affectionately known as "Mama Cookie"—a Durham community leader, mentor, labor organizer, and co-founder of the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW). Growing up in the same West End neighborhood as Pauli Murray, Mama Cookie reflects on her roots in labor organizing, the power of cross-racial worker solidarity, local Black history, and her dedication to passing the torch to younger generations.

Hosted and produced by Danielle Buckingham, Public Historian at the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice. Special thanks to the PMC's 2026 Public History and Storytelling intern Geethika Korrapati for research and the UNC-Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program for permission to use Pauli Murray's oral history interview.

Resources

• Character Studies: Mama Cookie, Champion for Labor Rights
• The South has a new union—and workers have Black women to thank
• Union of Southern Service Workers is building worker power.
• Interview with Pauli Murray by Genna Rae McNeil, February 14, 1976, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• Murray, Pauli. Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage. Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
• https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/about-the-center

Follow us on instagram and like, rate, and review The Crusaders on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!