This quote from Melnea Cass is featured in the exhibit "From Roses to Raises," section: "'To Be Recognized with Dignity': Rights for MA Domestic Workers."
Well, I don’t know what I could say the most important because I'd hate to draw a line with anything that I feel I have done but one of the achievements, I think, is at the Women’s Service Club, when we were able to get the programs through to help all these disadvantaged women. So many black women had done domestic work, and they hadn’t been able to been recognized with dignity, and we brought that about. We got legislation passed to raise the benefits for them, and to give them an equal wage with everybody. Even the federal government is passing laws now, that they are recognized under the workmen’s compensation, and all the benefits. We pushed for that on a national level. And on that I think that’s good, because I did that work myself, and I just lived to see the day that you’d be dignified in it, and that you also get the same wages that the working people get, the minimum wage. I think it’s the best achievement yet that I have taken part in, because it is helping so many people, and it will continue to help so many people as long as those kind of people are around. I think that’s the best achievement.”
Quote from: "Melnea Cass." Interview by Tahi L. Mottl. February 1, 1977. Black Women Oral History Project Interviews, 1976–1981. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.