Portrait of Regina Polk

Portrait of Regina Polk

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In the ’70s and early ’80s, Regina Polk was a rising star in the Teamsters. At the time, the country was starting to turn against the labor movement. So attracting white-collar workers was key to the survival of the unions. In her short life, Regina Polk managed to do just that.

Before she was killed in a plane crash at the age of 33, she organized women clerical workers at Blue Cross/Blue Shield and the University of Chicago, among other places. Terry Spencer Hesser tells Polk’s story in the book, I Am a Teamster. Hesser told Eight Forty-Eight’s Ashley Gross that she met Regina Polk only once and briefly, but she could hardly believe her eyes.

Music Button: Six Parts Seven, “Night Behind the Stars”, from the CD Casually Smashed To Pieces, (Suicide Squeeze records)