Alfreda Duster

Alfreda Barnett was born in 1904, the youngest daughter[3] of civil rights activists Ida B. Wells and Ferdinand L. Barnett.[1][2][4] She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1924 with a bachelor of philosophy degree.[1][2][4] She married Benjamin C. Duster Jr., who was a clerk in her father's law firm, and worked as a homemaker and mother to her five children until she was widowed at the age of 40 and went back to school for social work.[1][2]

Duster served as a juvenile delinquency prevention coordinator for the state of Illinois and the administrator of the girls' program for underprivileged city children at Camp Illini.[1][2] She was also secretary to Democrat Charles Jenkins, a black member of the Illinois legislature.[2] She was awarded "Mother of the Year" in 1950 and 1970; the Bootstrap Award from the Opportunity Centers of Chicago; Citation for Public Service from the University of Chicago Alumni Association; and honorary doctorate of humane letters from Chicago State University.[1][2][4]

Duster edited and in 1970 published Ida B. Wells' autobiography, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, which she worked on for 25 years after her mother's death.[1][3][5][6] For this book, Duster won the National Council of Negro Women Award for Literary Excellence and Outstanding Humanitarian Contributions.[2]

The Alfreda Barnett Duster Apartments, public housing in Chicago, Illinois, are named after Duster.[3]

Alfreda Duster died from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 78, on April 2, 1983.[2]

Schultz, Rima Lunin and Adele Hast, "Women Building Chicago 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary", Indiana University Press, 2001.

• Alfreda Duster Interview Transcript, 1976–1981, OH-31. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.