Ms. Wyatt was a labor leader and civil rights activist. She was the first Black woman elected international vice president of a major union. In 1975, she and Barbara Jordan became the first Black women named Person of the Year by Time Magazine. Ms. Wyatt applied for a job as a typist for Armour, only to discover that Armour did not hire Black women as typists. She was sent to the canning department instead. In the 1950s, Wyatt joined the United Packinghouse Workers of America, and began her fight for gender and racial equality at work and in daily life. She worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, was labor adviser to the Southern Christian Leadership Council, served on the Action Committee of the Chicago Freedom Movement, and helped feed the poor through Operation Breadbasket. She was a founding member of the National Organization for Women, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women. She became international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers in 1976.
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