For Black History Month, The Department of African American Studies would like to honor Ruth Wilson, who is known as a "Black Rosie" off the "Rosie the Riveter" symbol, for being one of the 600,000 African American working women in war industries during World War II amidst fascism and discrimination.

Contrasting against the "Rosie the Riveter" war symbol, "Black Rosie the Riveters" or "Black Rosies" were unsung landmarks in the workforce during World War II. "Black Rosies," including Wilson, worked in factories, shipyards, and governmental offices and agencies against global fascism and domestic racism and sexism. Seeing World War II as a refuge against sharecropping down South, over a half-million African American women joined the Great Migration to seek economic prosperity. Wilson, 100, in her prime, built a USS Craft Carrier at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.