AFRO Business Writer
At 86 years old, Hazel Cropper is a mother, grandmother and world champion crab picker. The crustaceans are a staple in Maryland, her home state, and she learned to pick them from her grandmother when she was just nine years old. Over the years, Cropper, who’s affectionately known as “Hurricane Hazel,” learned how to crack and clear a crab of meat in record-breaking time.
Her family has a long history of crab picking. Some of her relatives were a part of the 1938 strike, in which 600 crab pickers— who were predominantly Black women— walked out of their jobs after packing houses in Crisfield, Md. announced wage cuts…