MAXINE LEE

1920 - 2009

One of the pioneering women in the Texas labor movement, Maxine Lee enjoyed a long career in every facet of labor leadership. The McAlester, OK native moved to Wichita Falls as a child and went to work for Southwestern Bell as an operator there in 1937. She was promoted to a position of progressively greater responsibility. 

Sister Lee was a charter member of Traffic Local 3054 of Southwestern Telephone Worker Union and was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the local in 1939. She became Chairperson (later President) as the union made the transition to CWA. She gradually assumed greater tasks within CWA. In 1974, she became administrative assistant to CWA Vice President Paul Gray, serving unions throughout Texas in many endeavors. 

She is the first woman president of a CWA Bell Industrial Local in Texas, the first woman and union member to serve on the Union Fund Executive Committee in Wichita Falls, the first and only woman elected to the Texas AFL-CIO Executive Board from 19– to 1974.

Sister Lee’s contributions to the labor movement in Texas paved the way for countless others.