THE AFL-CIO AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE
THE AFL-CIO AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE
AGREEMENT FOR THE MERGER OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS
Signed February 9, 1955
1. Agreement to Merge
The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations agree to create a single trade union center in America, through the process of merger which will preserve the integrity of each affiliated national and international union. They further agree upon the following principles and the procedures to accomplish this end.
2. Principles of Merger
(a) It is recognized, as a fundamental basis for the merger of the AFL and CIO, that each national and international union, federal labor union, local industrial union and organizing committee (hereafter referred to as affiliated union) holding a charter or certificate of affiliation granted by either federation shall retain its charter or certificate and become, by virtue of the merger, an affiliate of the merged federation.
(b) It is further recognized and agreed that the integrity of each affiliated union in the merged federation shall be maintained and preserved. In order to effectuate this principle, the Constitution of the merged federation shall contain a constitutional declaration for respect by each affiliate of the established bargaining relationship of every other affiliate and against raiding by any affiliate of the established collective bargaining relationship of any other affiliate. The merged federation shall provide appropriate machinery to implement this constitutional declaration.
(c) The parties further agree that, subject to the foregoing, each affiliated union shall have the same organizing jurisdiction in the merged federation as it had in its respective prior organization.
(d) The parties recognize that the above provisions may result in conflicting and duplicating organizations and jurisdictions. Where such is the case, affiliates of the merged federation will be encouraged to eliminate conflicts and duplications through the process of agreement, merger, or other means, by voluntary agreement in consultation with the appropriate officials of the merged federation.
(e) The merged federation shall be based upon a constitutional recognition that both craft and industrial unions are appropriate, equal and necessary as methods of trade union organization.
(f) The merged federation shall constitutionally recognize the right of all workers, without regard to race, creed, color or national origin to share in the full benefits of trade union organization in the merged federation. The merged federation shall establish appropriate internal machinery to bring about, at the earliest possible date, the effective implementation of this principle of non-discrimination. . . .
Then we must think sobriety of our position as a nation and of the things we like to feel are really in the tradition of America. We speak of our freedom, we speak of the Founding Fathers, we speak of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I think we have some right to be proud of those things, to be proud of our tradition and our heritage; but I think we have no right to complacently sit by as long as those rights are denied to any portion of the population of this great country.
We have had striking evidence in the last few days, if we needed any such evidence, that the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights and the civil liberties that we all like to boast of do not prevail in certain parts of our country for people whose skin is a little different in color than that of ourselves. We have men who call themselves statesmen, who are public servants elected by the people, and still who, in the interest of white supremacy, defy a decision of the United States Supreme Court in regard to desegregation. Yes, they are amending the Constitution to suit themselves insofar as its application is concerned, and what they are saying in effect is that this Constitution does not prevail in the Southland.
Proceedings of the First Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, New York, December 5–8, 1955, pp. liv, 26.
2. CORRESPONDENCE TO THE MERGER CONVENTION
December 5, 1955
New York, N.Y.
President George Meany and President Walter Reuther, AFL-CIO Merger Convention, 71st Regiment Armory, Park Ave., 34th St.
The Negro Labor Committee sends you fraternal greetings and best wishes for a most successful merger convention. For twenty years the Negro Labor Committee has been the advocate of unity and has diligently practiced it. From our birth we have served all sections of labor regardless of affiliation or race or craft or creed except communism. We have survived every attempt to capture or destroy us. Your final merger will be appreciated around the world by all workers and progressives who have faith in the survival of democracy and those who brought unity about will live forever in the memory of man. Again success. Fraternally.
FRANK R. CROSSWAITH, Chairman,24
The Negro Labor Committee
December 5, 1955
New York, N.Y.
George Meany, President, AFL-CIO
71st Regiment Armory, N.Y.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hails the birth of the AFL-CIO as a propitious step toward industrial democracy. As the free world’s largest and most powerful trade union movement, the AFL-CIO now has the opportunity to demonstrate to all the peoples of the world that American labor is united in support of our nation’s democratic ideals of equality, freedom and justice for all, irrespective of race, color, religion or national origin. We in the NAACP are confident that you will insist upon and adhere to these principles within your ranks and invite you to join with us in the struggle to secure for all Americans the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution. As you enter this new era we congratulate you and assure you of our cooperation in our common cause of making our country a happy and prosperous land in which no man is favored or rejected by reason of such irrelevant considerations as race or religion or nationality.
ROY WILKINS,25
Executive Secretary
3. REPORT OF THE RESOLUTIONS COMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1955
The AFL and the CIO have always believed in the principle and practice of equal rights for all, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin. Each federation has separately played a distinguished role in the continuing struggle to realize for all Americans the democratic rights promised to all by the Constitution of the United States.
The AFL-CIO is similarly pledged and dedicated to promote and defend the civil rights of all Americans. Its Constitution declares that one of its objects and principles is:
“To encourage all workers without regard to race, creed, color or national origin to share in the full benefits of union organization.”
Another such object and principle of the new Federation is:
“To protect and strengthen our democratic institutions, to secure full recognition and enjoyment of the rights and liberties to which we are justly entitled, and to preserve and perpetuate the cherished traditions of our democracy.”
Our Constitution likewise provides for a “Committee on Civil Rights” which:
“Shall be vested with the duty and responsibility to assist the Executive Council to bring about at the earliest possible date the effective implementation of the principle stated in this constitution of non-discrimination in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.”
Thus the AFL-CIO stands dedicated no less than its predecessors to bring about full and equal rights for all Americans in every field of life.
Discrimination in Employment
Both the AFL and the CIO have been pre-eminent in the campaign to secure equality in the campaign to secure equality of employment opportunity to all workers. This campaign has several different facets.
Both federations have in the past repeatedly supported and urged the enactment of Federal fair employment practices legislation, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color or national origin.
During the past year several states and municipalities have enacted fair employment practice laws or ordinances, but year after year the threat of filibuster by Dixiecrat Senators has prevented fair employment practices legislation from receiving any real consideration by the Congress. This determined minority has been able to impose its will upon the Congress because Senate Rule 22 invites filibuster by making cloture virtually impossible. The authority vested in the Rules Committee in the House of Representatives has likewise sometimes enabled that Committee to act as a roadblock to progressive legislation.
In 1953, President Eisenhower established the President’s Committee on Government Contracts, a revival of a similar committee which had functioned under President Truman. The Committee’s function is to coordinate and assist the federal departments and agencies in the enforcement of the clauses prohibiting discrimination in employment which all government contracts are required to contain. Representatives of the AFL and the CIO were appointed and are serving as members of this Committee.26
This Committee has developed a strengthened non-discrimination clause, which specifically prohibits discrimination by government contractors in all phases of the employment relationship, including hiring, placement, training, promotion, tenure of employment and compensation. Since a large percentage of business firms have contracts with government agencies, this clause, if vigorously enforced, can do much to eliminate discrimination in employment. Already, on the initiative of the labor members of the Committee and with the cooperation of the International unions involved, the Committee has made limited progress toward eliminating discrimination in a number of industries and areas where heretofore discriminatory practices had prevailed.
Discrimination in employment, promotions or lay-offs because of race, color, religion, or national origin violates both the legal and moral rights of those who are discriminated against. Already substantial progress in ending discrimination in employment has been made by the negotiation and diligent policing of non-discrimination clauses in collective bargaining agreements. By giving full support to these clauses our affiliates can make a notable contribution toward the elimination of discrimination in a large sector of American industry. By creating appropriate internal machinery, our affiliates can assist in realizing these objectives.
Removal of Segregation in Public Facilities
One of the most notable triumphs for democracy in recent years is the progress which has been made toward ending segregation in public schools.
In 1954 the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously, and in clear and unequivocal language, declared that segregation in the public schools violates the United States Constitution. A year later it reiterated this decision, and ordered that those localities where segregation in the public schools still exists proceed with “all deliberate speed” toward its elimination. In response to these decisions of the nation’s highest tribunal, a number of states and localities have already ended segregation in their public schools. The experience of these areas, and particularly of the District of Columbia with its large Negro population, has shown that there is no insurmountable obstacles anywhere to complying with the requirements of the nation’s Constitution.
Unfortunately, however, some states and localities have sought to delay the end of segregation, and even to perpetuate it indefinitely, by a variety of flimsy and discreditable subterfuges and devices. We are confident that the courts will rebuke these tactics as rapidly as the cases come before them. Still worse, in one or two states the forces of racism and reaction are using the segregation issue as a rallying point for the creation of Ku Klux Klan-type organizations, such as the White Citizens Councils which seek by the vilest and most brutal methods to deny all political and civil rights to America’s Negro citizens.27
There is every reason to expect that the Supreme Court will apply the doctrine of non-segregation to other types of public facilities, including all those which are supported or aided by federal or local taxes. It has already taken such action in the case of public parks. There have already been several lower court decisions to this effect, and even in the absence of such decisions, progress has been made in many communities in the elimination of racial barriers in trains and buses, public housing, public parks, and theatres and restaurants. The ICC has recently prohibited segregation on the nation’s railroads and their facilities. In only a few years all branches of the Armed Forces have shifted from almost complete segregation to almost complete integration. Despite dire prodictions of disaster, this change has been accomplished smoothly and without incident; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, 1. The AFL-CIO declares its strong support for an effective and enforceable fair employment practices act. We urge the enactment of similar legislation by all states and cities that do not now have such laws on their books.
2. As an essential preliminary to the enactment of civil rights legislation, and particularly of a fair employment practices act, we urge that the rules be so amended that the will of the Congress may not be stultified by a recalcitrant minority. Rule 22 should be changed to permit a majority of Senators present and voting to limit and close debate.
3. Our affiliates should see to it that employers with whom they deal who hold federal contracts adhere to the letter and spirit of the non-discrimination clause required in government contracts. In addition, our affiliates should seek to have non-discrimination clauses included in every collective bargaining agreement they negotiate.
4. The AFL-CIO wholeheartedly supports the decisions of the Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools. We urge all of our affiliated state and local bodies to work with other liberal forces in their communities to facilitate a peaceful and effective transition to an unsegregated American educational system. We urge the Administration to utilize the full powers of the federal government to frustrate and punish unlawful attempts to block implementation of the Supreme Court’s decision.
5. We urge the Congress to enact legislation making lynching a federal crime, and to invalidate state laws requiring the payment of a poll tax as a prerequisite to voting.
COMMITTEE CO-SECRETARY CURRAN: I move the adoption of the resolution.28
PRESIDENT MEANY: You have heard the resolution on Civil Rights. The motion is to adopt. The Chair recognizes Vice President Carey.
VICE PRESIDENT CAREY: Mr. President and delegates, I rise in support of the resolution. All of us, I am sure, are exceedingly grateful for this inspiring address by Brother Marshall. In one sense, however, Vice President Willard Townsend, Vice President A. Philip Randolph and I can feel that we were the victims of discrimination, because doubtless everything that we were going to say in addressing ourselves to this question of civil rights was splendidly covered by Thurgood Marshall’s remarks.29
Therefore, I ask permission of President Meany and the Convention to place in the record the statement I have prepared to give.
I hope everyone will subscribe to this resolution so ably presented by the Resolutions Committee and co-Secretary Joseph Curran.
PRESIDENT MEANY: You have heard the motion and the request that Vice President Carey be permitted to put his full intended remarks in the record. Is there objection to that? Hearing none, we will vote on the motion with that understanding.
. . . The motion to adopt the resolution on Civil Rights was seconded and carried unanimously.
. . . Vice President Carey’s complete remarks are as follows:
VICE PRESIDENT CAREY: Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Resolution before this Convention.
The issue of Civil Rights was high on the agenda of the basic principles that concerned the AFL-CIO Unity Committee during its negotiations leading to this historic convention. This issue has been high on the agenda of public discussion and political controversy for the last decade,—a decade marked by substantial progress, undreamed of a few years ago. Also, this progress has produced the paradoxical situation that finds many persons’ civil rights being violated daily.
We, as a labor movement, have moved forward to carry out the principles enunciated in this Constitution. The majority of the organizations comprising the AFL-CIO have always believed in the principle of equal rights for all. The labor movement has always played a distinguished role in the continuing struggle to realize for all Americans the democratic rights promised by the Constitution of the United States.
The AFL-CIO is similarly pledged and dedicated. We are constitutionally bound to encourage all workers without regard to race, creed, color or national origin to share equally in the full benefits of union organization. However, being practical men, we also recognize that worthy ideals and principles are inadequate, unless we create machinery to implement and translate these ideals into reality. Therefore, we established constitutional machinery which we sincerely believe provides the necessary tools. In view of our experiences and traditions, we believe the most practical kind of machinery for the implementation of this non-discrimination policy is a constitutional committee carefully drawn from a cross section of the new Federation.
This kind of machinery proved effective in the CIO. In 1942, we created the CIO Committee to Abolish Racial Discrimination which was succeeded by the CIO Committee on Civil Rights. We discovered shortly after the creation of CIO that enunciating a principle in a constitution was not enough. To put that principle into effect required machinery and concentrated effort. Without machinery, this principle would have remained a pious hope instead of becoming one of our finest traditions.
We found our next task was the creation of similar machinery in our affiliated international organizations and state and city bodies. Today, many of the former CIO unions have developed functioning machinery within their own organizations, constantly working to extend these principles to the local plant and community level. The next step was to recommend that our affiliated unions include anti-discrimination clauses in their contracts with management. This is where discriminatory patterns generally begin,—at the hiring gate, which in most instances, is management’s sole responsibility.
Looking back, important milestones can be identified. One of the early milestones was the end of wage differentials based on race. This issue was fought out by a CIO union, aided by the CIO Committee to Abolish Discrimination, to a successful conclusion before the old War Labor Board.
We joined the AFL at the end of the war in lending our experience and resources to President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights. Boris Shishkin and I, working as a team, were successful in having many of the concepts that guide the labor movement accepted by this group of good citizens. The results of our efforts are reflected in the final report accepted by the American people entitled, “To Secure These Rights.” Following publication of this report, the Supreme Court began to translate the Federal Government’s responsibility to preserve the civil rights of each individual into decisions that are changing the patterns of American life. The Supreme Court in 1948 declared that racially restrictive covenants were no longer enforceable in the Federal Courts. The Supreme Court banned discrimination in eating places in the District of Columbia. In a series of decisions in the field of education the framework of segregation was narrowed. These decisions eloquently reaffirmed that our Constitution can and should be color blind.30
In retrospect, we can now see that these decisions were just a prelude to the important one. On May 17, 1954, and again in May, 1955, the Supreme Court unanimously and in clear unequivocal language, declared that in the field of public education, segregation has no place, that it is a denial of the equal protection of laws. This historic declaration promises our children a greater and more equal share in our democracy than we experienced. Moreover, the Court lost no time in applying the doctrine of non-segregation to other Federal and local tax-supported institutions and facilities. We have associated ourselves with this point of view and have implemented it with every means at our command. In this struggle, although the NAACP has taken the leadership in forging the law into an instrument of social precision to accomplish these objectives, the labor movement has always been closely associated and identified with the NAACP and other like-minded groups in this struggle. We supported amicus curiae briefs before the Supreme Court in this series of cases. But more important, we began utilizing our resources to implement these decisions through our machinery on the local level.
At the same time, we were working to put our own house in order. Our General Counsel and also a member of the Committee on Civil Rights, recommended we issue a directive that has proved to be prophetic and historic. We directed all state and city bodies to abolish segregated facilities in rest rooms, drinking fountains and other facilities. We banned separate meetings and functions on our property. This directive preceded the latest series of Supreme Court decisions declaring segregation in public facilities unconstitutional.
We next initiated a campaign to take the race tag off jobs. Working with one of our major unions, we began to develop a program designed to permit any worker, regardless of his color, to be promoted to any job which his seniority and skill entitled him to occupy. As this campaign has succeeded, we have developed tools and techniques available to other unions. This campaign marked the first time that the problems of discrimination in an entire industry had been attacked simultaneously.
We are confident that with the added strength and enthusiasm our new Federation will bring to this struggle, the advances of the last decades can be accelerated. We believe we can bring greater vitality to the task of completing democracy’s unfinished business. We know in so doing we will immeasurably strengthen the American labor movement.
In view of the nature of its task, the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee must be regarded as the agency in the new Federation responsible for the formulation of policy in this vital area. Broadly speaking, the committee should recommend policies and programs for our new Federation. It should develop procedures and programs for the consideration and acceptance of our International Unions and state and city bodies. The committee should be the spokesman with governmental agencies, for our new Federation. It should have the responsibility of maintaining appropriate relationships with approved private organizations working in this field.
The resources and skills of the committee will always be available to our International Unions in working out the practical day-to-day problems that constantly arise as they seek to breathe life into our ideals. We must have faith—faith enough to dedicate ourselves to the realization of these values.
Also, we must clearly recognize that this task cannot be accomplished in a vacuum—it cannot be accomplished within the confines of the labor movement without, at the same time, fighting for the extension of these principles in the local communities in which we live and work.
We must constantly seek to strengthen those civic and community forces whose ideals and convictions and programs of action are consistent with ours. We must continue to support, plan and work with the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Jewish Labor Committee, and the many other organizations with which we share common ideological convictions.
The recent wave of terror and denial of constitutional rights in Mississippi and other Southern states must enlist our grave concern. They not only do violence to the rights and dignity of the victims, but they do violence to you and me. Our constitutional rights are also attacked. The emergence of the “White Citizens Councils” in Mississippi, the “States Rights in North Carolina,” the “Tennessee Society to Maintain Segregation” and other similar organizations represent a new type of Ku Klux Klan.
We must realize that a more terrible, a new and more powerful type of Klan is attempting to rise in the South today than the Ku Klux Klan which followed the first World War. This time it is more dangerous, because it is ultra-respectable and does not hide behind sheets. This time it is openly led by prominent citizens, many of whom are elected local and state officials. This time it counts among its members and supporters: bankers, lawyers, powerful industrialists and plantation owners. It counts among its supporters state Governors, United States Senators and Congressmen.
Remember its birth! The White Citizens Councils came into being shortly after the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court outlawing segregation in public schools. Its organization was inspired by a speech made by Senator Eastland.
While this movement was organized on the surface to mobilize public opinion to delay and prevent the enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions outlawing segregation in the schools, the real purpose behind this movement is to use the desegregation issue to stop economic and social progress in the South.
There is substantial evidence that the movement is directed at trade unions. This fear stems from the AFL-CIO announcement that we will launch an effective organizing campaign among the working people of the South. This can be demonstrated by the fact that among the leaders of this new subversive movement are a number of individuals active in the anti-labor organizations who succeeded in securing enactment of “right-to-work” laws in our Southern states.
On October 23, 1955, they merged into a Southern Confederation of Pro-segregationists, under the name of the “Federation for Constitutional Government,” directed by John U. Barr, who has been a spokesman for the manufacturers’ associations in the South, a leader in the Dixiecrat Party of 1948, and a leader in all of the anti-labor organizations created in recent years.
In Charleston, South Carolina, a successful organizing campaign, conducted in a rubber fabric plant by the United Rubber Workers, came to an end when the local unit of the White Citizens Councils applied economic and social pressure on the white members to withdraw from the union, because it included both white and Negro workers on an equal basis. Other examples can be cited.
Every area of the South, where these councils have been organized, and have become a political and economic power, the normal process of justice has been diminished. At the same time, this campaign of terror and intimidation is showing its effect among prominent Southern liberals who are silent and lonely and have not spoken out against this menace. Many of the large Protestant church denominations have gone on record as approving the abolition of racial segregation as a public policy. However, when the local ministers attempt to put their religious beliefs into practice, they are immediately threatened and intimidated by these White Citizens Councils.
Organized labor constitutes the only other group which has economic and political influence in these major industrial centers of the South. Unless we of the trade union movement and like-minded community groups develop a program to expose this type of subversion, our liberties and future union organizing campaigns will be jeopardized. Equally important, unless we act promptly and decisively, our local unions risk being infiltrated by these organizations with their totalitarian philosophy. Such a situation could well sound the death knell to our efforts to bring the benefits of trade union organization to Southern workers.
This development has underscored the need for Federal legislation which will arm the Department of Justice to protect the civil rights of each citizen. More than one hundred civil rights bills were introduced during the last session of Congress. Not one was debated or voted upon,—a negative record consistent with that of previous Congressional sessions. The Administration continued to exercise no leadership in bringing any of these bills out of committee. Moreover, this negative performance of Congress is a total repudiation of the platforms of both parties, which have repeatedly pledged support of civil rights legislation.
The reign of terror in Mississippi, where three Negroes have already been killed under lynch law conditions, has dramatized the helplessness of the Federal government in protecting the civil rights of all Americans. Thus the United States, which has protested brutality and violence throughout the world, now stands mute and helpless when brutality and violence are used against United States citizens. This condition is the more tragic for these citizens were only seeking to exercise their right to vote and to enjoy other rights guaranteed under the Constitution. This cynical disregard of pledges by both major political parties will continue to leave our Government helpless, until we convince our elected representatives that there is a widespread demand and need for Congressional action on civil rights in the coming sessions of Congress. As President Meany has said, we must answer this challenge by increased political action.
Probably the most important event in the long history of the American labor movement is occurring in this historic convention. I am completely convinced that a united, democratic labor movement of 16 million Americans can be the greatest single force in our society for the swift expansion of civil rights and liberties in every sphere of our national life.
For the same reason our new merged labor movement should be more effective in organizing the unorganized, in legislative activity and politics because of its greater dedication and numerical strength. Our new movement must be more effective in both the quantity and quality of its efforts in the fields of civil rights and anti-discrimination.
Merger can be the threshold of a new future . . . a new future for the nation’s working men and women, for the underprivileged and for minorities. Basically a unified labor movement inspires this hope!
Proceedings of the First Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, New York, December 5–8, 1955, pp. 109-13.
As the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, totaling fifteen million workers in 145 international unions, formalize their merger next week in New York, the question of whether or not a Negro unionist becomes a member of the AFL-CIO executive council is a most pressing one.
This governing body will consist of twenty-seven vice presidents, but although Negro unionists number over 1,500,000, there seems at this writing no likelihood that any Negro will be a council member.
Alarmingly, the CIO executive committee has just voted against promoting Willard S. Townsend, president of the United Transport Service Employes and an outstanding Negro trade unionist, to a vice presidency, which would have automatically made him an AFL-CIO executive council member.
Considering that Mr. Townsend’s union is a CIO pioneer and that the CIO has always boasted, with justice, of its championship of Negro labor and its vigorous opposition to racial job discrimination and exclusion, his rejection is ominous.
However, it is being rumored that Townsend was rejected because he is seeking Congressional nomination as a Republican in Chicago, while from the beginning the CIO has been the labor arm of the Democrats, through the political operations of CIO-PAC, which its members have been annually pressured into financially supporting.
The AFL, which will have seventeen of the twenty-seven vice presidents on the AFL-CIO executive council, has not named a Negro vice president either, although A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, joined the federation a quarter-century ago and is one of its most capable and honest executives.
Despite the fact that President George Meany (AFL) and Walter Reuther (CIO) expressed the desire that at least one Negro be on the executive council, nothing has been done—and the deadline is close.
This failure has understandably agitated Negro unionists who fear the new organization will be less forthright and determined in pressing for fair employment practices as a monopoly than the two groups did as competitors.
Reportedly immediate attention will be focused on organizing the millions of unorganized workers but there seems little likelihood that there will be any “Operation Dixie” approach for fear of antagonizing Southern white workers by too rapid organization and integration of Negroes.31
CIO unions have pledged themselves to contribute $1 per member to “organizing the unorganized” and the AFL hopes to do the same (which presages a $10–15 million fund); but that’s far in the future, because the merger agreement requires that all present union officers be “frozen” into their jobs, which unduly burdens the combined treasury.
Most unions have done no big organizing since 1940, and now with the necessity for administrative economy, there will be a temptation to take the line of least resistance racially and to seek increasingly to win favor by identification with “community interests” (which in Dixie means following the racial pattern).
Nor is it reassuring that the AFL, the dominant partner in the new setup, has a far worse record than the CIO, the junior partner, in fighting labor jim crowism.
Under these circumstances, it is imperative that at least one Negro sit on the new executive council to help keep it in line with progress; and failure to elect one will intensify pessimistic speculations.
Pittsburgh Courier, December 3, 1955.
5. NEW DAY DAWNS FOR NEGRO LABOR IN AFL-CIO MERGER HERE
By Ethel L. Payne
A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Willard S. Townsend, president of the United Transport Service Employees, were among 27 vice-presidents named to the newly merged AFL-CIO labor union last week.
The 27, together with George Meany, head of the unified body and William F. Schnitzler, secretary-treasurer, will comprise the Executive Council which will be the governing arm of the organization. And 11-member executive committee will handle the administrative details and carry out the policy.
Randolph’s nomination was no surprise as a movement to get him on the council has been quietly booming for months, but it was unlikely until the eve of the ratification convention that a second Negro would be named. Townsend’s appointment was virtually assured after CIO leaders emerged from an agreement caucus sparked by the news that Randolph was already in.
History Made
Thus, history was made and the significance of the rising prestige of Negroes in the American labor movement was duly paid tribute to when for the first time, two will have key policy making spots in running the affairs of an organization numbering 15 million workers, the largest in the world.
The gloom of pessimism shown by many union rank and file members that a moderate conversatism would nullify any attempts to vigorously attack discrimination within and without trade unionism was lifted somewhat when both the AFL and CIO moved decisively to assure strong action on this.
Some Grumbling
In separate conventions before the joint ratification meeting, both unions adopted resolutions against racial discrimination in all its forms. A center of interest was around the newly set up civil rights department of the unified organization. Critics of the clause in the constitution, providing for its establishment protested that it lacked authority to invoke sanctions against unions which practiced discrimination, and there was strong feeling that it would be just another token gesture. . . .
Named as chairman was James B. Carey, and selected to direct the department was Boris Shiskin, former research director of the AFL. George L. P. Weaver, assistant to Carey got the post of executive secretary under Shiskin.32
Following the conference between Meany and Randolph, it was learned that the committee which will direct the operation of the civil rights unit will be composed of seven AFL representatives and four CIO. Two of the AFL members it was learned are Milton P. Webster, first vice-president of the Sleeping Car Porters and Frank Evans, head of the Cleveland division of the UAW, AFL.33
In an exclusive interview for the Defender Publications, Randolph had this to say: “I believe the civil rights department of the unified labor movement can be made effective, despite its lack of sanction to be applied to unions that still maintain color bars.
This can be accomplished if Negro trade unionists will be ever vigilant and intelligently aggressive in fighting against discrimination on account of race or creed. The fight to completely eliminate color bars in trade unionism will never be abandoned by the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.”
New York Age Defender, December 10, 1955.
6. ABOUT RANDOLPH AND TOWNSEND
For the first time in the history of the American labor movement, Negroes will be included in the top echelon which will govern a huge force of more than 15 million people. Here are some thumbnail sketches of the two named last week at the ratification convention of the AFL-CIO.
A. PHILIP RANDOLPH—Now 66 years old, but handsome and erect, Randolph is a philosopher with many qualities of mysticism about him. To millions of American Negroes, he symbolizes the best in honest leadership and integrity. A life long Socialist and militant fighter, he has been crying out discrimination and injustice for more than 40 years.
Born in Crescent City, Fla., he came to New York as a young man and has made it his home ever since. With Chandler Owen, he edited and published a number of Socialist pamphlets and periodicals and lectured at the Rand School of Social Sciences. He was a struggling young visionary writer when he was approached in 1925 by a group of Pullman Porters and asked to lead them in their fight for better working conditions.34
Long Battle
The story of that long hard battle is a success saga, but it was literally achieved through blood, sweat, tears and harrassment. Now 18,000 strong with jurisdiction over Canada and U.S. it has over a million dollar reserve and is strong and solvent.
Randolph has used the power of his union to wage a fight on a broad front. Called the “Father of FEPC,” he organized the March on Washington Movement in 1942.35
It grew out of the desperate need for action to break down color bars in employment and the war industry. When Randolph threatened to lead a march of a hundred thousand Negroes on Washington, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt arranged the historic meeting at the White House with he and other Negro leaders.36
WILLARD S. TOWNSEND: President of the United Transport Service Employees since its founding 20 years ago, Townsend is 60 years old. He was born in Cincinnati but has made Chicago his home for over 30 years.
His union of about 4,000 members includes railroad, bus and airline redcaps, Pullman, laundry and repair-shop workers, dining car employees and tobacco workers. He attended school at the Royal College of Science in Toronto, Canada, and worked to support himself as a dining car waiter.
New York Age Defender, December 10, 1955.
Tears flowed freely at the CIO convention during the pageant of its 20 years of existence and the thought that now it was ending.
CIO staffers—in fact, nobody was sure what was going to happen because the machinery for running the new organization had not even started up its motors.
President George Meany brought some relief to worried members when he emphasized that the small unions must be allowed to keep their independence and not to be swallowed up by the bigger ones.
The clasped hand became the symbol of unity, and there were truce meetings all over the New Yorker and Statler hotels between AFL and CIO leaders.
The lions and the lambs were lying down together and the quip was going the rounds that the shotgun wedding had finally come to pass.
Disappointed office seeker was William Hartung of the CIO woodworkers, a union of a 100,000 membership.
Reports were that he was sacrificed as a vice-president of the merged union after word went down that a place must be made for a Negro.
Immediately after being approved as a vice-president, Philip Randolph was named to the all-important resolutions committee by Meany.
New York Age Defender, December 17, 1955.
8. AFL-CIO RESOLUTION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1957
In the course of its first two years, the AFL-CIO has carried forward with diligence and vigor its policy of equal rights and of equal opportunities for all, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin. Our Federation has taken firm steps to give practical application to its non-discrimination policy and to win for it widest acceptance both within the ranks of labor and in the community at large.
Dedicated to bring about the full and equal rights for all Americans in every field of life, the AFL-CIO has provided leadership in the American community in taking timely actions to affirm and to secure these rights.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council, assisted by the Committee on Civil Rights, initiated a number of practical programs to implement the principle of non-discrimination proclaimed in the AFL-CIO Constitution.
In this work, prior consideration was given to the removal of discrimination within the ranks of the AFL-CIO itself. For the enduring goal of our Federation is to assure to all workers without regard to race, creed, color or national origin their share in the full benefits of union organization.
To this end, machinery has been established to effect compliance with the AFL-CIO civil rights policy throughout the ranks of the labor movement. Complaints, charging existence of discrimination by an affiliate, after staff investigation, are handled by a specially constituted Compliance Subcommittee of the Civil Rights Committee. If, after diligent efforts to enlist the cooperation of the affiliate concerned and, after due notice and hearing, it is found that discrimination complained of still exists, the Committee on Civil Rights may certify the case to the Executive Council for appropriate action to effect full compliance with the AFL-CIO civil rights policy.
Gratifying and responsive cooperation has been extended by our affiliates in the effectuation of this vital program. A growing number of our affiliates, including national and international unions, as well as state and city central bodies, have established machinery of their own to administer and further their civil rights programs.
An important contribution to labor’s progress in the civil rights field was the calling of the First National Trade Union Civil Rights Conference by the AFL-CIO in Washington last May. To exchange experiences, share the know-how and to hold common counsel on the best ways and means to win broad acceptance and support of labor’s non-discrimination policy is to lay groundwork for future progress, whether at the local union or the national level.
Of foremost concern to us also has been the assurance of equal employment opportunity to all workers. The use of non-discrimination clauses in collective bargaining contracts has been extended and now effectively bars discrimination in hire, tenure, and conditions of employment as well as in advancement to a better job, in a major portion of unionized establishments. Progress has also been made, on union initiative, to assure equal opportunity in vocational training and apprenticeship training programs.
We have participated in the work of the President’s Committee on Government Contracts which coordinates and assists Federal agencies in the enforcement of non-discrimination clauses in government contracts and have pressed for effective administration of this important program.
We have continued to back the enactment of enforceable state and local fair employment laws and the vigorous application of such laws.
On the national scene, the last two years have seen both progress and reverses in civil rights. The courts of the land have continued to insist that discrimination and segregation in schools, in public transportation and in other public facilities are repugnant to basic constitutional guarantees of equality. Hundreds of communities have successfully implemented these decisions. But there has also been willful defiance of the law of the land, culminating in the disgraceful incident at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Labor’s reaction to Little Rock was made unmistakably clear on September 24, 1957, when the AFL-CIO Executive Council unanimously declared “that the defiance of law and order in Little Rock by a mob of demonstrators against school integration is completely intolerable.” The Council voiced its support of Federal troops to enforce compliance with court orders, for failure to have used full power of the Federal Government would have meant defiance of the law of the land, threatening national sovereignty and bringing lawlessness in its wake.
While supporting the action of President Eisenhower’s action in the “Little Rock” situation, we nevertheless feel morally obligated to express our keen disappointment, shared by millions of other Americans, at the failure of President Eisenhower and his administration to provide vigorous and positive leadership and initiative essential for the implementation of the historic Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954. This failure created the tragic political and moral vacuum which encouraged the attitudes manifested in the “Little Rock” incident.
The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, won after bitter struggle, with strong support from the AFL-CIO, is a significant forward step in the ever-continuing struggle for human rights. The bill, as finally enacted, was weakened by the elimination of Title III. President Eisenhower’s failure to give backing to the inclusion of Title III in the bill, led to this setback. Despite this and other weaknesses, the new law establishes new and far-reaching safeguards of civil rights proclaimed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The President has appointed the members of the Civil Rights Commission established by the Civil Rights Act of 1957. We look to the Commission and the Department of Justice to act vigorously to carry out the objectives of the law. It will be their responsibility to assure the enforcement of the right to vote guaranteed to every American citizen. It will be their joint responsibility to expose the areas where civil rights are still being violated and to study and interpret the effects of these violations. It will be the Commission’s responsibility to bring forward meaningful and practical suggestions for further action to assure inviolate exercise of civil rights by every American.
The role of government, national, state and local, is vital to the maintenance of freedom and democracy in our land. In the final count, however, the triumph of human rights will be best assured by the understanding, dedication and action of the people themselves.
Labor with other liberal groups will carry on its historic struggle for human justice in the spirit of brotherhood. As unionists, we hold affirm and secure equal rights for all Americans in every field of life.
The AFL-CIO continue to assure to all workers without regard that intolerance of race, creed, or color in our ranks or in our communities is incompatible with the principles embodied in our constitution.
RESOLVED: That the AFL-CIO carry forward its historic drive to affirm and secure equal rights for all Americans in every field of life, and that the AFL-CIO continue to assure to all workers without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, the full benefits of union organization.
We recommend that our affiliates set up internal Civil Rights Committees and machinery for effective administration of a meaningful civil rights program within their ranks, working in close cooperation with the Civil Rights Committee and the Civil Rights Department of the AFL-CIO.
We recommend that our affiliates insist on non-discrimination by employers in hire, tenure and conditions of employment, and in advancement of their employees. We urge our unions to include a non-discrimination clause in every collective bargaining agreement they negotiate and to provide for effective administration for such a clause.
We recommend that our affiliates take the initiative in assuring equal opportunity in all apprenticeship training and vocational training programs.
We recommend that the President’s Committee on Government Contracts withdraw government contracts from those companies consistently guilty of violating the Federal Government’s policy of non-discrimination. We pledge our continued cooperation with the President’s Committee on Government Contracts and ask our affiliates to make sure that employers with whom they deal holding Federal contracts, adhere to the letter and spirit of the non-discrimination clause required in each government contract.
We renew our support for the passage of an enforceable Federal fair employment practices act. We also call for enactment of enforceable fair employment practice laws by all states and cities not having such laws and for strengthening of such existing laws where necessary to ensure their effectiveness.
We again urge that, in order to assure full and fair consideration by Congress of proper civil rights and fair employment practice legislation, Senate Rule 22 be changed to permit a majority of Senators present and voting to limit and close debate.
We renew our support of the decisions of the Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools, in public transportation and in places of public accommodation. These decisions represent a heartwarming reaffirmation of the democratic American principles that are embodied in the Constitution of the United States. We call upon President Eisenhower to recommend and the Congress to enact legislation that will endorse and support, by implementing, constitutional guarantees of Civil Rights, including those affirmed by the Supreme Court decisions. We call upon the Executive Branch to make use of its full authority to effect implementation of these decisions.
We urge the National Labor Relations Board to adopt the policy that the use of race-hate propaganda during union organization campaigns is deemed to be interference with, and coercion of, employees and constitutes an unfair labor practice; and, further, that the use of such propaganda will be sufficient ground for setting aside an election upon request of the union.
We call upon President Eisenhower and the Department of Justice to launch an immediate and full-scale investigation into the activities of the so-called citizens councils now operating in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida, or anywhere else they may be operating, to determine if their activities and methods violate any Federal statute or the Constitution.
COMMITTEE SECRETARY McDONALD: Mr. Chairman, in behalf of the Committee,37 I move adoption of Resolution No. 83.
. . . The motion was seconded.
VICE PRESIDENT RANDOLPH: Brother Chairman and delegates of this Convention: I rise, of course, to support the resolution and to say that since Labor itself is not yet fully free, it is an act of enlightened self-interest that Labor should support the principle of civil rights.
Civil rights represents democracy and democracy represents civil rights. No individual in a state is a full citizen of that state unless he has the attributes of citizenship, and the attributes of citizenship are involved in civil rights and civil liberties.
The foundation of civil rights is the Judeo-Christian ethic—the Christian tradition that the personality of every human being is sacred, that the personality of every human being is entitled to recognition, respect and reverence. This principle was enunciated by Jesus Christ for the first time in human history upon his advent upon the earth. Mankind prior to that had no concept of the dignity of the personality of an individual. The individual had no worth as such. He had no value as such because prior to that the whole world was under the concept of slavery, and the concept of slavery recognized an individual as an inanimate thing, subject to use and exchange.
Therefore, the labor movement, representing great masses of workers, has the moral responsibility for its commitment to the principle of civil rights.
I am glad to say that the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations has set a high standard on this principle; not only have standards been set but machinery has been put into operation for the implementation of the principles.
In this connection I want to commend the Director of the Civil Rights Department, Boris Shishkin, for his ability and resourcefulness in carrying out the principles of this doctrine of civil rights.
I want to also commend the Civil Rights Committee, under the splendid leadership of Charles Zimmerman, who succeeded the distinguished leader of the International Electrical Union, Brother Carey, as the chairman.38
I think this Committee is doing a splendid job. It has a small but competent staff. Therefore, it may be looked forward to that progress will be made in the implementation of the program of the AFL-CIO on this question.
However, it is well to say that we have just begun. While we have only a few unions here that still have color clause in their constitutions, there are still unions in the AFL-CIO that practice discrimination, and it shall be the obligation and the responsibility of the Civil Rights Committee, the Civil Rights Department, to work toward the complete elimination of all forms of discrimination.
It is to the great credit of our movement that its head, the President, Brother Meany, has been a consistent inspiration to the whole cause of civil rights. He has never retreated from the position set forth in the Constitution.
It is my hope that this Committee will give consideration to the whole field of apprenticeship training. Here we have a wide scope of discrimination based upon color and race. The Government is also partially responsible for discriminatory practices in this field.
May I say, fellow delegates, that there are other facets to this question. Ordinarily we think of civil rights in connection with individuals, but today organizations also have civil rights. The right of individuals to associate themselves together for the achievement of certain objectives, the right to achieve certain objectives by organization, is being denied to certain groups.
I have in mind the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It has been barred from Texas, Alabama and Louisiana, and there are a number of other States that are now beginning to develop a program to bar this organization, because it is committed to the principle of civil rights and is responsible for the Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954. Now, this is a tremendous crisis to this organization. If it does not have the right to exist in a State, then the people for whom it is struggling to abolish evil discriminatory practices will be the victims of discrimination. As a result of barring the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, it has lost tremendous resources and is now compelled to look for support from various groups in order that it might be able to carry on its program. . . .
So, I am glad to add my voice to the support of this resolution and to commend the work of the Civil Rights Committee and the Civil Rights Department of the AFL-CIO.
Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Is there further discussion on Resolution No. 83?
May I just re-emphasize the importance of one of the points referred to by Vice President Randolph, that there is a definite indication in the South that more and more of the white people of the South are coming to the conclusion that it is not good business to discriminate against the Negro. . . .
Are there any further remarks on the motion to adopt Resolution No. 83, which covers the broad field of civil rights?
. . . The motion to adopt the resolution was carried.
Proceedings of the Second Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Atlantic City, N.J., December 5–12, 1957, Vol. I, pp. 259–65.
9. AFL-CIO RESOLUTION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1961
RESOLUTION NO. 84—By Delegate Walter P. Reuther, Industrial Union Department.39
WHEREAS, The AFL-CIO constitution and the resolution on civil rights adopted at its Third Constitutional Convention in San Francisco set forth clear and unmistakable principles. It remains for us to now translate these principles into firm action; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That this Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO reaffirms the dedication reflected in its constitution to the achievement of a labor movement wholly free of racial discrimination and segregation of any kind; and be it further
RESOLVED, We call for the creation of a Fair Union Practices Board within the AFL-CIO that shall be armed with authority and jurisdiction over all matters of racial discrimination and segregation involving affiliates of the Federation; and be it further
RESOLVED, We urge that the President of the AFL-CIO appoint to this Board only those leaders of the labor movement who have evidenced devotion to the principles of this resolution and who are connected with trade unions which have likewise evidenced devotion to the principles of this resolution; and be it further
RESOLVED, That this Fair Union Practices Board be given the power to investigate and discover discriminatory practices or threats of such practices, with or without prior complaints, and that it be authorized to direct international and local unions to make investigations and to furnish the Board with reports thereon; and that the Board be further authorized to hold hearings and to take any other steps necessary to carry out the mandate of this resolution; and be it further
RESOLVED, We authorize the Fair Union Practices Board to enforce the mandate of the AFL-CIO Third Constitutional Convention calling upon all affiliates “to set up without delay internal Civil Rights Committees” and empower the Board to work with such committees; and be it further
RESOLVED, We further authorize the Fair Union Practices Board to certify any findings of racial discrimination to the AFL-CIO Executive Council to recommend to the Council such remedial action as may be required; and be it further
RESOLVED, Where the findings of the Board disclose practices of racial discrimination in any form on the part of an employer, and where there has not been an earnest collective bargaining effort to correct the siutation, we call upon the Board promptly to present its findings and recommendations to the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.
DELEGATE LOUIS MANNING, Transport Workers Union of America: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Point of order.
PRESIDENT MEANY: State your point of order.
DELEGATE MANNING: I would like that the entire resolution be read and that we discuss the resolution.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The resolution is in the hands of every delegate and the practice of the committee to comment on the various paragraphs rather than reading it over is to conserve time of the convention. Unless the convention disagrees, we will follow that practice. You have the resolution in front of you and you can read it along with the Secretary of the Committee as he describes the various paragraphs.
DELEGATE MANNING: And we will get a chance to discuss it?
PRESIDENT MEANY: Of course you will get a chance to discuss it. That’s why the Committee is reporting on it.
DELEGATE MANNING: Thank you.
. . . Committee Secretary McDonald then summarized the balance of the resolution on Civil Rights.
COMMITTEE SECRETARY McDONALD: Mr. Chairman, in behalf of the Committee I move adoption of the Civil Rights resolution.
PRESIDENT MEANY: You heard the reading and the presentation of the report of the Committee on Resolutions on the Civil Rights resolution. The motion is to adopt the report. The Chair recognizes Delegate Randolph.
DELEGATE PHILIP RANDOLPH: This resolution on civil rights was debated in the Resolutions Committee for quite a long time. As a matter of fact, I presented several amendments for the change of the sanctions in the interest of strengthening the sanctions of the resolution against unions that practice race bias. One of the amendments I presented involved a requirement that each international and national union advise the Executive Council of the Civil Rights Committee on the specific time it planned to initiate action for the desegregation of its racially segregated unions, but this amendment was rejected.
Now, we went over this resolution in detail and I, of course, wanted that the sanctions be stronger inasmuch as the idea of expelling the union on account of race bias was turned down. However I agree that the structured machinery of compliance with a view to the solution of cases of race bias is set up with some care and some elaborateness; and I rather think that if a strong Civil Rights Committee is appointed by President Meany that that committee can make this resolution work.
As I was commenting on this matter with Walter Reuther, Walter Reuther said, “Well, the words of the resolution are not as significant as is the strength of the committee that may be appointed to work in the interest of implementing the resolutions.”
The resolution is not wholly satisfactory to me but I prodded the Chairman so continuously about the matter that he finally told me, “Well, Phil, this is the best that you are going to get.” So, although, as I have said, the sanctions are not strong enough for me, I think it is the best resolution on civil rights that the AFL-CIO has yet adopted. And I am determined, in connection with the Civil Rights Committee which may be appointed by the President, and with the Civil Rights Department, with adequate personnel, to make the resolution work. And I hope that it will.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes Brother Carey.
VICE PRESIDENT JAMES B. CAREY: Mr. President and delegates: I consider it highly appropriate that this matter of civil rights comes before this convention during Human Rights Week as proclaimed by President John K. Kennedy. It will be 170 years ago this Friday that our nation had the wisdom to adopt the Bill of Rights. It was 80 years ago that a labor leader, starting with Sam Gompers and others, set up the predecessor organization to the AFL. That was Jeremiah Grandison, an American Negro, who pleaded eloquently for racial democracy in the AFL’s founding convention in 1881.40
This resolution that we are considering is extremely important in terms of the relationship of the American labor movement, not only to the Negro community, but also to the entire community of our nation and to this nation’s relations with the world.
Mr. Chairman, I propose that the Committee’s report be amended as follows: That on page 15, under the first Resolve, the first paragraph, that we add the words,
“. . . as guaranteed in the AFL-CIO Constitution.”
Mr. Chairman, I propose that on page 16 the resolution be amended to include the following paragarph, following the paragraph starting with the words: “In order to strengthen the procedure for compliance . . .” and ending with the words “being practiced”:—
“The President of the Federation shall appoint to the Civil Rights Committee only leaders of the labor movement who have evidenced devotion to the principles of this resolution and who are connected with trade unions which have likewise evidenced devotion to the principles of this resolution. The Civil Rights Committee shall have power to investigate and discover discriminatory practices or threats of such practices, with or without prior complaints, to direct international and local unions to make investigations and to furnish the Civil Rights Committee with reports thereon; to hold hearings, and to take any other steps necessary to carry out the mandate of this resolution.”
I propose the resolution should be amended to include the following paragraph:
“We commend the non-violent demonstrators for their passionate devotion to racial equality. We proudly identify ourselves with these dedicated groups of Americans and we propose to make common cause with them wherever possible, for they have provided the nation with a true example of courage and of honor. We ask our government to exhibit the same devotion to racial equality by adopting the necessary executive orders and legislation to bring true equality to every corner of the land.”
The resolution should be amended to substitute for the existing language concerning the NLRB and employer use of race-hate, the following language:
“For more than four years the AFL-CIO has been on record urging the National Labor Relations Board to find that when an employer uses race hate to frustrate organization, he violates the federal law and such conduct should be enjoined and any election results affected by this tactic should be set aside at the request of the victimized union. We note that the National Labor Relations Board has announced that it is considering establishment of such a policy for representation election cases. We urge that this policy be enunciated and put into effect in this area and, further, that the policy be extended to unfair labor practice cases.”
Mr. Chairman, the first three proposals made are on matters to be considered by the Resolutions Committee in strengthening the machinery to comply with the Constitution of the AFL-CIO. But I do urge consideration for the last proposal made, namely, that we repeat the action that we took at our convention in 1957, and again in 1959, when we unanimously called upon the National Labor Relations Board to declare the use of race hate campaigns by employers to be an unfair labor practice, and at the request of the union, the results of an election could be set aside.
Mr. Chairman, I would appreciate the acceptance of especially that last proposal by the Committee on Resolutions.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes Delegate Reuther.
VICE PRESIDENT REUTHER: Brother Chairman and fellow delegates, I rise to support the resolution and the specific amendment that Brother Carey submitted as it relates to declaring the use of materials of an anti-civil rights or hate race basis as a basis for declaring an unfair labor charge.
Now the matter before us is a very serious one, and, like Brother Webster, I don’t think the Negroes are looking for sympathy, they are looking for understanding. This is the deep human problem that the labor movement must deal with, not just by adopting a resolution, but by demonstrating the will to translate that resolution into affirmative action, not only in the ranks of labor, but in the whole of our society wherever the ugly and immoral forms of discrimination exist.
We have heard during this convention, and there are resolution after resolution that we have already adopted or will be adopting talking about the struggle between freedom and tyranny, how democracy faces its greatest challenge in the face of the Communist thrust. I say that American democracy will be unworthy of leading the forces of freedom in the world unless we begin to bridge that ugly and immoral gap that separates American democracy’s noble promises and its ugly practices in the field of civil rights because there are hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who are looking at America, and they find it very difficult to square Little Rock and Montgomery and New Orleans and the other areas of American life on the job front where Negroes are denied their rightful opportunities. They can’t figure how we square that with a society that professes to believe in the worth and dignity of every human being. Therefore, we in the labor movement have a lot of unfinished work inside the movement and outside the movement.
I support the resolution because the resolution says that we shall intensify our efforts. This means that we are going to pursue more vigorously for affirmative action in trying to deal with providing equal opportunities in the labor movement and equal opportunities in the balance of our society.
As one human being, I believe in civil rights, in the right of every person to equal opportunity as a matter of simple human decency, and as a matter of simple moral justice. But I believe in civil rights and equal opportunity, because freedom and equality rate, like peace, very indivisible. You can’t have them unto yourself. You can only have them, and be secure in having them, as you share them with your fellow man and as you make them universal so all men may share them.
George Meany and I both are serving on the President’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee. We served together on the committee set up by President Eisenhower, the Government Contract Compliance Committee. And it was with a sense of deep shame that we found unions in the AFL-CIO were denying people the opportunity to work on federal contracts because of race discrimination.
The old Nixon committee didn’t do very much except issue pious proclamations. But I can assure you that the committee is going to do differently now. Arthur Goldberg is working on the President’s committee. Vice President Johnson, too. That committee now has an executive order with teeth in it, and we intend to implement that executive order, and we intend to fight racial discrimination on the job front in every federal contract. I want everyone to know that that executive order has the kind of provisions that if there is non-compliance on the part of the union or the employer or both, the committee has the right to recommend the cancellation of those contracts. And we intend to press for cancellation where we can’t get compliance.41
I know something about the practical fight for equality on the job front because the union that I have the privilege of being associated with has been engaged in this struggle for a long time. We have not achieved perfection. We still have work to do, but we are working at it. We learned a long time ago in the early picket lines and when we faced the company goons and the Pinkertons that if the employer can divide you, he will divide you.
The labor movement has to unite all people. General Motors in the early days tried to pit the skilled worker against the production worker. They tried to pit the American-born against the foreign-born. They tried to pit white against black. We learned we all had the same problems and we all shared the same hopes and aspirations in a dream about a better tomorrow, and none of us made progress until we all stood together, skilled and unskilled, American and foreign-born, white and black. That’s how we built the labor movement.
We have had discrimination on the job front. We have wiped it out inside pretty much where we have contractual control. But at the hiring gate, we couldn’t make any progress. In our last negotiations we made some. In some cases we made a great deal. In other cases we made a first step towards beginning to fight against discrimination at the hiring gate. The companies took the position “we decide who we hire, and after they punch the time clock the first day and are working under the contract, then you have something to say about it.” But we have been fighting for a model fair employment clause to eliminate discrimination at the hiring gate. We have made some progress. The whole labor movement has got to work on this. We have made progress, no one can deny that. No one can deny that no other organization in American life has worked as hard on the question as has the labor movement.
But progress is a relative thing. We aren’t moving fast enough. We have to do a more effective job of getting our own house in order so that we can make a greater contribution to the whole of our society in the struggle for equal opportunities for all of our people.
I happen to believe, and I feel this way very deeply, as one dues-paying member of the UAW and of the AFL-CIO. We took the Communists out of leadership because they betrayed the principles of the labor movement and because they would rob us of our freedom. We opposed the crooks and the racketeers for the same reason because they betrayed the principles for which the labor movement stands and they would rob us of our money. And those people in the leadership who knowingly and willingly pursue racial policies that discriminate and violate the Constitution also betray the principles of the labor movement, and they would rob us of our dignity. One is as bad as the other in my book of values. We have to deal with all of them with equal firmness.
Dr. King says that the people in the Negro communities expect the labor movement to behave differently and more responsibly and to do more than they expect other people to do. There are people in the labor movement who haven’t understood that. But we need to understand it because the Negroes of this country have a right to look to the American labor movement to join them in this struggle to wipe out the last ugly vestige of racial discrimination, because the labor movement is about people. It is about the struggle for dignity and security and human values.42
The NAM is not interested in these values. We have got to lead that struggle. We cannot be the symbol in America until we first take care of our own housekeeping. It is hard to conceive even if you do your best to try to understand the deep inner feelings of the Negro brother or a Negro sister, but you will never understand it.43
I worked in the German underground movement fighting fascism. I have been beat up by gangsters, shot at and thrown in jail, but I can’t remotely begin to understand what a black human being feels deeply in his heart. He is filled with impatience because justice is too long in coming, and he is not going to wait.
And you and I who the good Lord gave a lighter skin to need to comprehend and share that impatience of our Negro brothers and sisters. Out of that deeper understanding as humans, we have to find a deeper sense of dedication because the value standards that we believe in in the world are in jeopardy because millions of people look to America and they think we don’t believe in the things that we profess to believe in.
Therefore, my plea is to adopt this resolution, but then go back home and let’s do something about it.
I was not at the council meeting when the report was considered. I was at the bargaining table and missed that council meeting. I have respect for my fellow council members, but I think that this document is not helpful to the labor movement, and I hope that we can reconsider it because I think that we cannot afford to divide ourselves on these issues when we need to be together. We need to be together to fight the White Citizens Council, the hate mongers. That is what we are talking about here today.
I hope this resolution can be the first step in a whole series of vigorous steps to give meaning and purpose and substance to these noble words in the resolution so we can go back home together and begin to fight the practical fight to give every American equal rights and equal opportunities and equal dignity in the labor movement and all over America.
Thank you.
DELEGATE CHARLES HAYES, United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers: Mr. Chairman, I couldn’t sit here and live with my own conscience and not get up and at least voice an opinion on an issue so vital as this, not only to me as an American Negro, but to the trade union movement as a whole.44
Yesterday we heard what amounted, in my opinion, to one of the greatest and deepest addresses that I ever had an opportunity to hear at a labor convention by Rev. Martin Luther King, one who in the eyes of many people of my race in this country and in the world as a whole, is looked upon as “Mr. Civil Rights.” I feel this question quite deeply because I think that there is not enough recognition in the minds of labor given to the full depth of this problem.
It is easy enough in convention after convention to pass resolutions. But somewhere along the line we have to close the gap between the adoption of resolutions and the performance of unions after adopting those resolutions.
I happen to feel this quite keenly because I come from an area—that is Chicago, Illinois—where over the past six years I have seen approximately 10,000 jobs disappear from my industry where some 8,000 people who used to work on those jobs were members of my race. Here six years later some of those people have not been able to find employment anywhere else; too young to retire, yet too old, by employer standards today, to be hired anywhere else. This I think is one of the tragedies that we don’t quite recognize and certainly the situation is not looking too bright for the future. Where there are jobs, people are denied the right to those jobs, regardless of their skill, because of the color of their skin.
I heard Rev. Martin Luther King mention yesterday—I say again I think he did a beautiful job—pointing out that inescapable ally that organized labor has in the Negro people.
I don’t think anyone can deny that the Negro votes in this country played a real role in electing the current administration. And I think some credence and some credit has to be given to that contribution in the form of trying to help them remain at least in the unions and in a position where they can make a living for themselves and their families. It is a tragic situation when a person is denied a job because of the color of his skin. Many people who I knew as butchers in our industry, if they have found employment today, are found at the airports as a skycap and in downtown Chicago parking cars.
A great number of those 10,000 that I mentioned can be found on the public relief rolls in the city of Chicago. They are not looking for handouts, but merely looking for an opportunity to work to provide for themselves and their families.
I say to you people here who represent leaders of the highest body of organized labor and who are leaders of different international unions, if I could do nothing more in my remarks than to arouse your consciences to the depth of this problem because technological changes which we say are fine for American society, are not only going to affect the Negro worker but they are going to affect to some extent every industry and are already doing it. And it seems to me we as organized labor have to come up with some kind of program, like we have been talking about here, designed to place some responsibility of the governmental bodies of our country and our states and our cities to come up with some kind of program that will provide a way of life for people who are thrown out of a job as a result of technological changes.
Yes, I say to you unequivocally that Negroes by and large are the hardest hit. In Chicago alone I guess the unemployment figure runs somewhere near 5 percent. When you put it on the basis of how many Negroes, it is at least 10 percent, according to statistics put out by the Chicago Urban League, and I have no reason to doubt it.
But I say to you people in closing, let’s not just talk about this resolution or its content as I have heard it. A great responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Executive Council to implement the procedures outlined therein, and I would hope that it be approached with some sincerity as to the depth of the problem so that two years from today when another convention comes around for this great body that we will not have to come back here talking about what we didn’t do or what we should do; we can spend our time talking about some of our accomplishments.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair now recognizes Committee Secretary McDonald.
COMMITTEE SECRETARY McDONALD: Mr. President, at this juncture I speak as President of the United Steelworkers of America. I have a very short statement. It is not emotional, but I just want to try to tell the delegates something which has been done by our union, and something which I think can be done by other unions on this subject of civil rights. In order to keep it short, I am going to read just a few paragraphs.
In May of this year, I and other officials of our union met with the President’s Committee for Equal Employment Opportunity and pledged the full support of our union in the implementation of the President’s Executive Order No. 10925, which was created for the purpose of dealing with the problem of discrimination in employment.
Following this meeting I informed all of our local unions, staff representatives and district directors, of our action and requested that copies of the Executive Order and our own statement of policy on civil rights be posted in all union facilities and plant bulletins and that immediate steps be taken to implement both documents with the greatest possible speed.
On November 27, 1961 we took what we consider to be the most significant step yet taken by a trade union to unite the forces of labor and industry in support of a positive program for using their joint resources and influence to eradicate whatever aspects of discrimination in employment exist.
The United Steelworkers of America sent letters to every company with which we have collective bargaining agreements stating our desire to work with the several companies to implement the President’s Executive Order and requesting them to join with us in signing a statement which would clearly and without question state our mutual intentions.
I would like to quote just a couple of paragraphs from the letter we sent to about 2,800 companies with which we have labor agreements:
“November 24, 1961
“As you know, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order No. 10925 on March 6, 1961, which created the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity for the specific purpose of ending the many discriminatory employment practices which have prevailed for so long at certain companies against members of minority groups in our country.
“At the time the order was issued the President called for the full cooperation of all representatives of labor and management in implementing the principles of the directive. His appeal, of course, was not limited to those companies and unions where discriminatory practices may exist. He sought also the continued cooperation of companies and unions whose practices are nondiscriminatory and consistent with the principles of the directive.
“On May 3, 1961, I and other officials of the United Steelworkers of America met with President Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg and members of the committee staff and pledged the union’s full support of the President’s program to end discrimination in employment.
“On June 27, 1961, we took the first step to implement this support within the union by formally acquainting all our officers, staff representatives, office personnel, local union officers and members regarding their individual and collective responsibility in helping to fulfill our pledge. As part of this action, copies of the Executive Order and a Statement of Principles, defining the Union’s policy on civil rights, were ordered posted in all union facilities.
“We now feel that a second step should be taken to insure a realization of the full intent of the President’s program.
“Accordingly, we are taking this opportunity to invite the chief executive officer of each company with which we have collective bargaining agreements to join us in signing the attached statement which forthrightly declares our mutual determination to work together to implement the principles of the President’s program within the areas of industry under our jurisdiction.
“I hope that you will accept this invitation to sign this important statement and that you will further agree to have your representatives meet with the union’s representatives to review the situation at your company and determine what steps, if any, may be required to realize our expressed intentions.
“I know that you and all of the officers of your company are aware of the gravity of this problem we face in our country, particularly so in view of present conditions and the position we must maintain among the free and uncommitted nations of the world.
“It is because of this that I look forward hopefully to an early and unfavorable reply from you signifying that you will join us in what should prove to be an outstanding example of the best in democracy at work.
This is the statement which we sent to the 2,800 companies:
“The _________________________ Corporation/Company and the United Steelworkers of America hereby pledge their individual support and joint cooperation to the President of the United States in his request to all management and labor for assistance in implementing the principles of Executive Order No. 10925 which aims to stamp out the evils of discrimination in employment wherever it may exist.
“We take this opportunity to publicly declare our intention to aid the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity in every way possible to attain the objectives for which it was created. In addition, we will have our representatives meet to review the situation at the plant level and determine what steps, if any may be necessary to implement the principles of the President’s program.
“/s/__________________________
Corporation
“/s/__________________________
United Steelworkers of America”
We sent that statement out to the 2,800 companies, and I am very happy to say that several of the most important steel companies in America have returned these signed statements to us, and others have signified their willingness to sit down with us and review their employment policies with an aim to correcting any abuses which may exist.
On the afternoon of the 14th of December—this week—we will be meeting with a number of representatives of the greatest corporations in America in order to discuss this problem. Right now I want to say that I hope that the affiliated unions of the AFL-CIO will consider doing something similar to what we have done, and that we will find additional ways for working together where the occasion permits to bring the all too-widespread discrimination in employment which still exists under control once and for all.
Mr. President, perhaps you will be happy to note that the secretary and several members of the United Steelworkers Civil Rights Committee have already met with the leaders of seven unions of the AFL-CIO. They had a meeting this morning and they intend to work out something along this line, something affirmatively for the employers, to get them to agree with us to get rid of this terrible problem of discrimination. I think that this is an affirmative way to approach this problem, not by emotion, but by positive action.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes Delegate Curran of the NMU.
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH CURRAN: Mr. President, I rise in support of the resolution. I represent a union that learned in its early life how difficult a situation can be where there is discrimination in industry. Going to sea, we had ships that were divided—some black, some white, some Chinese, and some Spanish. When the whites would strike for better wages, hours and conditions, the employes would use the blacks and the Chinese and the Spanish against them on the basis that they were not acceptable to the whites and, as a result, the strike was broken. This occurred for many years, and conditions were very bad in our industry. When we formed our organization in 1937, one of the first steps that we undertook was to write into our Constitution a “no discrimination” clause, and it has been in our Constitution ever since 1937. We sail, we live together, and we work together—black, white, yellow and green—on these ships, and there are no colors in our union. They are all members of our organization.
The first collective bargaining agreement that we made in 1938 contained a clause stating, “There shall be no discrimination on a job because of race, color and creed.” I think it is a step in the right direction, if you please. But at this late date, it seems to me that what we are talking about as being progress is really something that we should not discuss with any pride. The labor movement, insofar as I am concerned, consists of workers. It does not consist of any colors. It consists of all Americans, and it consists of all members of unions. There should be no discrimination.
The passage of this resolution will not in effect, as the brother from the Butchers’ Union pointed out here, stamp out the evil that has infested our country and made the image of America something for the Communists and others to use in their drive around the world to build communism. After we leave this convention and adopt this resolution, what will count is what we do when we go back home.
It is not enough to get on this floor and engage in fine platitudes or engage even in real sincere declarations unless we go out of here, as the brother said, and come back in two years with this situation licked, so the anti-labor elements in our country, the Communists and, yes, the Fascists, too, and the right wingers cannot use this problem against us.
It seems to me that a resolution of this type does not need any real discussion insofar as I can see. What it needs is the unanimous agreement of all of us to recognize one fact: Whether you like it or not, what happens to your black brother will happen to you. A worker is a worker. There is no difference between the skin. If the employer is able to defeat a white worker, he will then defeat the black worker; and if he defeats the black worker, he will defeat the white worker. It is that simple.
We have always said that an injury to one is an injury to all. That is a good trade union symbol. There should be no regard for color. It should be a situation in which every worker is considered as a worker and is recognized on the basis of his ability and his character, and not on the color of his skin or who he knows.
Our organization fully supports the resolution. However, we are puzzled. We have here a complete resolution on the question of civil liberties. As I read it, it takes care of almost every problem that has been raised in the report made by President Randolph of the Sleeping Car Porters. It takes care of almost every problem. Yet we have the subcommittee report referred back to the Resolutions Committee. I do not understand how we can adopt the resolution on the one hand and have referred to the special subcommittee the questions that President Randolph raised on this floor. I think they are one and the same. They deal with civil liberties. They deal with rights. And I say that we not only should adopt this resolution unanimously, but we ought to say to President Randolph that not only is he not censored for bringing problems to our attention, but that we agree with him wholeheartedly that civil rights and the rights of all workers must be considered as our paramount problem if we are going to have a labor movement.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee, Brother Harrison.45
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN HARRISON: Mr. President—
DELEGATE MILTON WEIHRAUCH, IUE: Do I have the floor?
PRESIDENT MEANY: Brother Harrison, the Chairman of the committee, has the floor; you will have the floor next.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN HARRISON: All I want to say is that the report of the Committee on Resolution No. 143 represents the combined best thoughts of all of the members of the Resolutions Committee, and the resolution emerged as a report to this convention after a series of compromises, give and take in many respects, in the words of many of the members of the Resolutions Committee.
You heard here today the endorsement of the resolution by Phil Randolph, although he made it plain it does not go as far as he would like the resolution to go. But it is the opinion of your Resolutions Committee that the machinery we have provided in the resolution for the implementation of the civil rights that we set forth in our Constitution is good machinery that will bring good progress.
I am confident that President Meany will appoint a good Chairman to the Civil Rights Committee of the AFL-CIO and he will appoint good members to that committee who will in good faith try to implement the policy of the Federation and use the machinery.
I hope that we can approve the resolution as it has been presented by the Resolutions Committee, and for that reason I now direct my remarks to the three or four suggestions offered by Brother Carey. Brother Carey offered one suggestion, to insert in the beginning of the first “Resolve” the following language: “as guaranteed in the AFL-CIO Constitution.”
I would not subscribe to approval of this suggestion, because it seems to offer something that may create serious difficulties for all of these affiliates if it is not carried forward.
I think the Constitution of this Federation has been accepted by all of our affiliates, and I think every one of our affiliates is bound to observe the Constitution in good faith and practice.
I don’t think we need to say that anybody is guaranteed what rights we have set forth in the Constitution.
We also have responsibilities set forth in the Constitution, and I would urge that you not approve that proposal.
The second suggestion offered by President Carey was to put shackles on the President about the kind of people he can put on the Civil Rights Committee. And to be plain about it, Carey wants a packed jury. I want an impartial, dedicated Civil Rights Committee that will enforce the Constitution of the Federation.
The next suggestion that Brother Carey proposes has to do with the second to last paragraph, and the paragraph in the committee’s resolution of particular significance reads, as follows:
“We deplore and denounce the use of reprehensible and venomous race hate propaganda by unscrupulous anti-labor employers. We urge that the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity establish procedures whereby it can bar from government contracts any employer who engages in this contemptible practice.
“We further urge that the National Labor Relations Board carefully review every anti-labor practice case, and representation proceedings where false assertions and epithets are so used to arouse race hatred and coerce employees in their choice of a bargaining representative, or preclude the holding of a fair election.”
That says everything that intelligence would warn us to say. In other words, if an employer uses false hatred propaganda that ought to be an unfair labor practice. But our Committee was advised by competent counsel that if they told the truth in their propaganda that there is nothing we can do to stop them because that is their right under the Constitution, to speak the truth.
Carey in his suggestion wants to knock out the word “false propaganda” because he makes no exceptions.
I’m not going to quarrel with Brother Carey about his language, but I don’t think his language is as good or as comprehensive or as all-inclusive as the language we use in our report. If he wants to weaken our report with his language; I’m not going to quarrel with him, but I think he is making a mistake.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes Brother Weihrauch of the IUE.
DELEGATE MILTON WEIHRAUCH, IUE: Thank you, Mr. President. I am under the impression that those amendments that were offered by Brother Carey were going to be referred back to the Committee and not be discussed, I thought that that was what was going to take place. However, I think we ought to recognize that this great country of ours from history on has been made up of minorities, and I think we ought to recognize that bias and discrimination and hate all go hand in hand.
I have had the experience of seeing our people call each other slanderous names. I have seen Swedish people come to the plants, and they have been slandered as “Squareheads.” I saw the advent of the Irish people into the plants and they were called “Micks.” Then I saw these people get a little place in the sun; and I saw the Italian people come into the plants and, boy, what names they were called.
During the war our Negro brothers came into the plants, and what trouble we had getting the white and the Negro people work side by side. I think we made our greatest step toward civil rights in that particular period, because it was our local union’s position that people willing to die for this country could work together in the factory for the same country.
Now a question. What is going to happen to the advent of the new minority, the Puerto Rican? There are almost one million Puerto Ricans in the New York-New Jersey area. Believe me, are they being discriminated against! They are exploited, they are condemned to ghettos and miserable apartments with outrageously high rents.
We have to do something about this, because the whole world watches this country. They watch us, the Kremlin and the satellites watch us. They watch Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and if we don’t bring our house in order we give the Communists a great deal of room for exploitation of the miseries that we don’t take care of.
The question is, are we to fail the minorities in 1962 and drive them away from the AFL-CIO? If we do that, we must put these minorities on the meat chopper. They will be ripe and ready for the exploitation of the Communists, and they will be ripe and ready for the exploitation of the racketeers.
Oh, yes, the racketeers—I have seen contracts between unions and companies that have enslaved the workers. The racketeer is the twin to the Communist. What protection did the people get in these sweetheart agreements? None. They get the lousiest wages possible, and with the collusive arrangements and the contract for these low wages, dues must come out.
I will tell you, Puerto Rico is ready for organization. But they think that the AFL-CIO is trying to exploit the workers in Puerto Rico. Of course, that is not true. But the people commute back and forth, and they see the ghettos and the slums that their brothers work in the New York-New Jersey area.
Our union has done some substantial organizing in Puerto Rico. Just last year we invested about $200,000. Our income is probably ten percent of that. But it is our fight in the field of civil rights.
I am for this resolution, provided that we all talk the same language, whether it be in the north and the east, where it is a bit more popular to talk that way, in the south and in the west.
I say that the job of eliminating discrimination primarily belongs to us. The other organizations that are involved in this field, they are our allied organizations, but primarily this job is ours.
If this resolution is to be meaningful, we must have real integrated Civil Rights or Human Relations Committees in every single local that we have. These Civil Rights Committees shouldn’t just be all one color, they must be integrated. We must see to it that the white and the black mix together and discuss the problems of human relations, and that is the way they get along, and understand each other. It shouldn’t be one color just talking to itself.
It has been recognized that we are in a nuclear age, that that resolution, to mean something, is to mean we have to have action, we have to have job training programs on the jobs of the day and the jobs of tomorrow. It means that we have to have apprenticeships thrown open, vocational schools thrown open to train the minorities to do the work of tomorrow. It means that our organizations must invest some of their treasuries in housing to take these people, these minorities out of the ghettos. And above all, this resolution that I have confidence in, if it is going to be meaningful, . . . and we have to look all around this room and particularly behind the dais where we see a symbol of the AFL and the CIO workers together shaking each other’s hand, . . . that is what this is all about. That is what civil rights is all about, that we all work together in human relations and understanding so that we bring a better tomorrow for all of us.
DELEGATE LOUIS MANNING, Transport Workers Union of America: Mr. Chairman, brothers and sisters, I have been on the board of our union for the past 27 years. In the outset, I want to say that in my union, this feeling of discrimination ranks second to none.
What is civil rights? Civil rights coming from a Negro—and I am a Negro—is the right to live. Is there any man or women in this auditorium who would stand and tell me that I have no right to live? I came into this world I should say, some 50 years ago. I had no say. I find myself here and I believe every delegate in this house finds himself or herself here in that same manner.
Brothers and sisters, we Negro people look toward you—and when I say “You,” I mean the labor movement—for relief. Where else should we go? We must come to you. We are asking you here to examine your hearts and to tell us Negro people how long will you keep us in servitude. How long will you keep us in slavery? We are asking you to do something and to do it now, not tomorrow, not a month from now, not a year from now, but for Jesus Christ’s sake, do it now.
Brothers and sisters, the eyes of the world are watching us in America. And every time a Negro is lynched and every time a Negro is denied his civil rights, communistic Russia and the satellites are looking on. You are giving them food and you are giving them ammunition to use against us.
I want to see a strong resolution passed here today so that the brothers in the back of the hall can take it back to their country and tell about it. I am telling you, brothers and sisters, that would be selling America. If we would do that, we would be in a position to cut out some of the grants to buy good will. The African people are looking on and they are watching every move that we are making.
I say, brothers, you have to be a Negro to know what it is to be discriminated against. When I walk down these streets, I wonder if they would serve me at the lunch counter. Yet I am an American and am willing to give my life for America, I am willing to die for America like my brothers of the past. I say to you, fellow delegates, that the time is now; now, not next year. Don’t put it off but give us real honest to goodness civil rights.
I thank you.
DELEGATE RUSSELL R. LASLEY, United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers: Mr. Chairman, there is one particular phase of the civil rights program that I don’t believe any delegate to the convention has spoken on yet, and yet I consider it to be basic if we are to have any kind of a meaningful civil rights program within the Federation. That is the whole question of representation of Negroes and other so-called minority group members and all members of our trade union life.
Look around us today in this hall and you will see only a handful of Negro delegates present here. Over the past several years that I have been attending conventions, which has been for quite a number of years, first in the CIO and now in the AFL-CIO, the number of Negro delegates attending conventions has been dropping off year by year. The reason for that is that there has been no real push and aggressive movement to integrate Negroes into the full life of the labor movement. And I mean by that, the code of ethics for civil rights—written by A. Philip Randolph and to be presented to this convention now included in the omnibus resolution—does not pinpoint exactly what I’m talking about. In the code of ethics it shows that Negroes should be brought into activity in the local unions and then brought up to the international union level so that Negroes play a role as administrators and policy makers within the Federation.
It is not enough to be only a dues paying member. It is a fact that Negroes have the capacity and the ability to give leadership as well as be led. And until we recognize that particular point, until we recognize the significance of this, then we will not be able to carry out a meaningful civil rights program.
I hope that by the time of the next convention of this Federation, the program that is intended and anticipated will bring about the result of more Negroes as delegates to this convention, because they are in positions of leadership in their particular local unions, federated bodies and in their international union.
Thank you.
DELEGATE CLYDE ROGERS, International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers of the United States and Canada: There is one thing that I am really happy that has come out of this convention. I am a Southerner and I am proud of it.
In the mill where I work, I can testify to two colored men that are printing press operators in the heart of Dixie; top paid jobs. We haven’t at any time attempted to take these men from this job. That’s their job. It is their seniority right. Their rate is the same as any others. This is in the heart of Dixie.
A little more than ten years ago it would have been a far-fetched idea that a colored man would have been a deputy sheriff of Mobile County, Alabama. But I can boastfully say today that we have a number of colored sheriffs in Mobile, Alabama.
Ten years ago it would have been a far-fetched idea to have thought about a colored man being a city officer. But we have them on the job now that patrol our streets every day. And I am proud of it. That’s in the heart of Dixie.
We have colored bus drivers in Mobile. That’s in the heart of Dixie.
I have been sitting here and I have been having myself a field day. I heard from Chicago, I heard from Denver and also about the problems that you have over in other major cities. I heard from many of them and you have convinced me of one thing here today. Somebody has been talking out of both sides of their mouth. For years and for years you have been trying to work with the problem, trying to convince the South of how we ought to work with it, but you haven’t found the solution yet by your own testimony, and it is the truth.
I would like to say this. I am opposed to any person being brought down that has the right, ability, and claim to a job. Once he gets that job, he should have the right to work on that job. I do not oppose that right. But I think, as I have heard right here from the delegates, that you need a Martin Luther King somewhere else, too. I would like to say this. I think a lot of the guns are shooting at a sinking ship. I am reminded that the same principle would be involved if my wife should come and say, “Roger, your breakfast is ready. Everything is just right. I love you more than anybody in the world”—and then say, “I want a divorce.” It really would not make sense. We have been talking about how we have solved the problem, and by the words of the testimony of these men from the north and in various parts of the United States, you have not solved the problem. You have not solved the problem. This is a problem you have been working with for over 100 years and, mind you, when we train our attention on a few southern states, let us not be blinded by the problems involved in “right-to-work” laws around other parts of our country.
There is something that we can say here on the matter of “right-to-work” and on the subject of civil rights, President Meany. We have racial problems. You have convinced me that you have them also, and you have not ironed them out. You have had 100 years and you have not done so yet.
But there is one thing that I can proudly and boastfully stand here today and tell every one of you delegates. Our problems in some of our situations right now would be the next thing to a Sunday afternoon picnic compared to some of the problems that you have in Chicago. And it is the truth.
Friends, let me say this to you today. I think that our thinking covers a central part of the United States instead of a limited area. Every one of us would do good and well to take some of the thinking that is written in the civil rights resolution today back home for some real down-to-earth serious consideration. I make that statement based upon your own words of testimony, from the various states of this great union of ours. I wanted to hear how you were doing in other places. I certainly feel that after hearing some of the words of testimony from the various parts of the United States, we could walk away from this convention saying, “The job we are accusing the Southerners of not having been able to accomplish we have not been able to accomplish either,” which should give us the initiative to work even harder than we ever have before in the history of this nation to prove the thing that we are hollering about the most—that we are doing the fair thing and the right thing. I do not think the fair thing and the right thing has been done in the other places. It has not been proved. So the civil rights program is not being carried out. The resolution has not been worked out. I feel that it is something that everyone could work with if we find the solution and devote the time and effort to prove to one another that it can work. Thank you.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes Brother Carey.
VICE PRESIDENT JAMES B. CAREY: Mr. President, I rise to present my own explanation of my own proposal. I am not in agreement with the way it was presented by Chairman Harrison of the committee. I present a proposal that was adopted by the Convention of the AFL-CIO in 1957 in the civil rights resolution. It was reaffirmed and adopted in the 1959 AFL-CIO Convention in San Francisco. It reads as follows:
“We again urge the National Labor Relations Board to adopt the policy that the use of race hate propaganda during union organization campaigns is deemed to be interference with and coercion of employees and constitutes an unfair labor practice and, further, that the use of such propaganda will constitute sufficient grounds for setting aside an election upon request of the union.”
The IUD Convention, in keeping with the position taken by the AFL-CIO on the Civil Rights question in 1957 and 1959, adopted the following:
“We believe that when an employer resorts to racism to interfere with union activity, it violates Federal law. We urge the National Labor Relations Board and its general counsel to effectuate the Federal labor policy.”
Mr. Chairman, I submit that the resolution adopted on this subject by the AFL-CIO conventions of 1957 and 1959 and the IUD Conventions of 1961 is a sound position, despite any reference that any lawyer may have made on the action of the AFL-CIO at two of its conventions and the IUD at its recent convention.
I suggest that the present resolution falls short in this respect of the resolutions previously adopted on this subject. It says:
“We further urge that the National Labor Relations Board carefully review every unfair labor case,” and emphasizes that the board shall find that the use of race-hate material by an employer shall be declared an unfair labor practice. I have been charged with seeking to pack a committee. Nothing of the sort; I merely want to see this crucial committee guided by men who are solidly devoted to AFL-CIO policies.”
I would suggest that the committee not have in its membership people who are not dedicated to the AFL-CIO Constitution and the precepts of this resolution. It would be unheard of to suggest that we cannot find interested people in the leadership of the American labor movement who are dedicated to the furtherance of this important objective and principle of the AFL-CIO as it is contained in the Constitution.
Mr. Chairman, I do urge the Chairman of the committee to accept at least the wording with respect to the Labor Board procedure that was adopted by two previous conventions to the AFL-CIO.
DELEGATE FRANK RILEY, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: Mr. President, I subscribe to the policy of Brother Harrison and Brother Curran. I have had considerable experience with the problem of the dark-skinned man in my local union in the city of Detroit. I cannot subscribe to the policies, that is, many of them, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I do not know whom they represent when they say “colored people,” because the black man, in my estimation, is not a colored person. When I went to school black was not a color. We are the colored people, the white, yellow, brown, and the red races—but when they try to shove something down my throat that I cannot digest, then they are going to have trouble with me. That is what has happened in the city of Detroit.
Recently, not I myself personally, but my organization was criticized on the front page of the Detroit Free Press for discriminating against the Negro race in our local unions. The brother was an officer of the Wayne County Federation of Labor, a Vice President. I sat on committees with the same brother when I was a member of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Wayne, and never at any time did this brother ever discuss the problem of the Negro entering the union that I represent.
I also sat as a member of the Public Lighting Commission of the City of Detroit for 11 years, and on that Commission sat another gentleman who is a member of the Detroit Urban League. Many times we discussed the problems of the Negro in Detroit. He explained to me the policy of the Detroit Urban League and the way that they tried to help the Negro and the other colored people that may also be protected by the Detroit Urban League. He asked me if I would sit down with the Committee of the Detroit Urban League and discuss the problems of the Negro in my local union.
I said “Yes, I would be glad to,” and I did sit down with the Committee of the Detroit Urban League. I sat with them for three hours. They asked me how many Negroes did I have in the local unions that I represented. I told him I did not know. And I was truthfully telling him I did not know because in our organization we do not ask the race, color, creed or nationality of any member who becomes a member of our organization. To this Committee, who were all, I think, members of the Negro race—I never asked them, but I think they were—I outlined the policy of our organization and the qualifications that they would have to meet if we were to accept an agreement with any of the Negro contractors in the City of Detroit who themselves had an organization of their own.
After I outlined the policy to them, I said, “You take this to your people. If they accept the qualifications that I am offering you, which are not any different than any other contractor—white, yellow, brown, or any other race—I will be willing to meet with them, and if they can meet those qualifications, we will sign an agreement with them and accept them into our organization.”
You know that I never heard again from that Committee until I read in the newspaper that we were accused of being discriminatory. Later on we received applications from about 14 employees of a contractor in the City of Detroit. We were asked to accept them into our organization. All we could go on was what we read on the applications that they had filled out. It was not our application. It was one that they had typed up themselves. Most of them were from Tuskegee Institute. They had had two or three years in there, which qualified them as electrical workers. Well, we did not accept them right away, but it was not long after that we were charged with discrimination. In the State of Michigan there is an antidiscrimination law. At that time I was bowing out as business agent of Local 58 for health reasons. Later on these members were accepted into our organization and we had an agreement with this contractor. As I told that committee when I sat with them in the Urban League, I did not think that they would ever be able to compete with the white contractor with the same wages and on the same basis as other contractors. They didn’t believe me. But I want to tell you here that just two months ago that contractor sent a letter to our organization—at the time I happened to be president of the Executive Board in my organization—canceling the contract. He could no longer operate under the contract with our local union.
And we are accused of being discriminatory.
Now the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on many, many occasions tried to shove people down our throat.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Frank, please get to the resolution.
DELEGATE RILEY: And we refused to accept them. But I want to say this, that I think the resolution covers this situation very thoroughly. I think the amendments and the speeches of others of the self-appointed world-savers that are vying for the front pages of the newspapers at the present time do not know what they are talking about. They are only using it as a means to obtain publicity. I hope, delegates, that you vote for the acceptance of this resolution. Thank you.
PRESIDENT MEANY: I would like to put the resolution at this time. I think we have discussed it at great length.
I would like to point out, however, first, that this is the most comprehensive resolution ever presented to any convention I have attended on this subject. I think it represents the thinking of those who feel that we can do something on this problem, do more than we are doing.
But I want to emphasize that it is not going to be done in Washington alone. We will get a good committee and we will get a good staff—we have a good staff. We will add to that staff and we will get a good committee. But when it is all said and done, it must be done at the local level with the cooperation and assistance of the international unions of the state federations and of the local central bodies. The local central bodies can perhaps be more helpful than the international union in this respect, because I have experience, and I know what is going on in the City of New York.
Puerto Ricans were mentioned. Let me say that if the Puerto Ricans didn’t have the labor movement in back of them in the City of New York, they wouldn’t have any friends.
For many years, the trade union movement in the City of New York has had a committee to help these people who came up from the South and landed in New York, not knowing the language in a good many cases, unable physically to cope with the climate, and they landed on relief rolls and were given the most menial jobs at the poorest wages.
The local labor movement under Charles Zimmerman and Harry VanArsdale set out to do something, and they are doing something every day in the week, with the cooperation of the city authorities. And I am proud of what they are doing.
So this calls for something more than speeches. This calls for action at the local level, the international union level and in Washington where we will have our Civil Rights Department and our Civil Rights Committee in operation.
I like the resolution. I hope that we can put it into effect so that we can come back to the next convention with a report of progress and of having eliminated a good deal of these problems.
Everybody is in favor of the resolution, but it is boiled down now to a question of substitution of language for the last portion of the resolution where the committee brings in a report urging the National Labor Relations Board to carefully review unfair labor cases and representation proceedings where false epithets are used, and so on and so forth. And Brother Carey brings in an amendment which he feels represents stronger language, in which he asks that they set aside any of these cases where race hate is being used to frustrate union organization.
So I will now put the question on the amendment proposed by Brother Carey. Those in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye; those opposed, no. The amendment is lost.
I will now put the question on the original resolution as presented by the Committee. Those in favor of the resolution as presented by the Committee signify by saying aye; contrary minded no. The ayes have it and it is so ordered.
Proceedings of the Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Miami Beach, Fla., December 7–13, 1961, Vol. I, pp. 490–516.
10. AFL-CIO RESOLUTION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1963
RESOLUTION NO. 116—By Delegate Walter P. Reuther, Industrial Union Department.
RESOLVED: We earnestly resolve to do whatever is within our power to tear down the barriers between us: IN UNIONS—Trade Unions were formed to secure social justice for workers. The reason for our being is to build a free society dedicated to human dignity and happiness. The achievement of this goal is predicated on equality and brotherhood. Thus, our history and our very purpose demand that we be in the forefront of the struggle to assure first class citizenship to all people—to all colors; to all creeds; to all citizens, without regard to national ancestry.
We call upon all union members in our ranks to search out and eradicate all vestiges of discrimination and segregation in the labor movement. Labor can hardly point a finger of scorn at others when there are still segregated locals and when Negroes and other minorities are barred from apprenticeships because of race.
Time is of the essence! We cannot wait any longer. IN CONGRESS—The moral crisis in American race relations grows worse. The President warned in June that “continued Federal legislative inaction” will result in increased “tension, disorder and division.” We call this warning again to the attention of Congress and urge Congress to redouble their efforts to enact a broad comprehensive civil rights bill in the remaining weeks of this session.
While the bill approved on October 29 by the House Judiciary Committee contains significant improvements over the original bill proposed by the Administration, it can still be strengthened. While we are gratified to see an FEPC provision in the bill, we want a Commission with more power, one that could issue its own final orders, enforceable in the courts. We pledge ourselves to work for the strengthening of the FEPC provision as well as for provisions that will open all places of public accommodations to all citizens and give the Justice Department greater power than the compromise bill does, to protect peaceful demonstrators and workers for constitutional rights from harrassment and police brutality.
THE EXECUTIVE—We note with satisfaction that President Kennedy and the Administration through executive action have pursued an affirmative and aggressive policy and program of achieving equality for all Americans. We applaud this achievement of the President and his Administration, but there is much more to be done. Therefore we urge the President to extend Executive Order 11063 so that it covers not only FHA and VA-insured mortgages but also conventional mortgage activities of such federally-assisted lenders as banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or federally-insured savings and loan companies. We also urge him to establish by Executive Order, a Community Relations SErvice such as he originally pledged to do in his Civil Rights message of June 19. The fact that the Service has been deleted from the bill approved by the House Judiciary Committee puts an additional obligation upon the President to establish a service that would seek voluntary solutions of community relations problems arising out of discrimination.
IN THE NATION—We call upon all individuals in and out of the labor movement to speak out against discrimination and to act in their daily lives to end it. Only the hourly, daily actions of millions of us will make a brotherhood more than a platitude and launch, at last, “a great moral crusade to arouse America to the unfinished work of American democracy to the end that all Americans may enjoy the privileges of first class citizenship in all phases of our national life.”
COMMITTEE SECRETARY McDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I am proud to move the adoption of this resolution.
PRESIDENT MEANY: You have heard the reading of the resolution and the motion is to adopt.
The Chair recognizes Vice President Philip Randolph to open the discussion on this subject.
VICE PRESIDENT A. PHILIP RANDOLPH, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters: President Meany, members of the Executive Council, platform guests, fraternal delegates, brothers and sisters:
We are on the threshold of what may well be the most important discussion of this convention. The labor movement is now called upon to take a stand on the civil rights revolution that has gathered momentum during the past year. I do not propose to launch this discussion with a chapter-and-verse recital of labor’s failure to keep pace with that revolution. Nor do I propose to rehash altercations that are better left to labor’s past than projected into labor’s future. I intend instead to analyze the plight in which the Negro finds himself in the year 1963, and to make concrete proposals for action by the labor movement.
Let me say that I have been very much encouraged by President Meany’s discussion of civil rights in his opening remarks Thursday. Those remarks help to establish an atmosphere in which we can plan constructive action.
Let me also say that our deliberations today proceed under international scrutiny. I am delighted by the presence here of representatives from labor movements around the world, especially from the developing countries of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. They have first-hand knowledge of the American labor movement’s unshakable commitment to the development of free, democratic institutions throughout the world. They know that the AFL-CIO has backed up this commitment with investments of millions of dollars, so that fledging trade unions may achieve viability under difficult circumstances. But, while foreign observers are duly impressed with the achievements of the American labor movement, as with the achievements of American technology, they sometimes point to spiritual or moral deficiencies which we cannot defend or rationalize. Foremost among them is the persistence of racism in American institutions.
The labor movement cannot afford to measure its achievements in the field of racial justice by the standards of other institutions. As a force for social progress, we have always prided ourselves on being in the forefront. Similarly, in assessing labor’s contribution to civil rights, it is not enough to measure how far we have come; it is not enough to compare ourselves favorably with government or management. We must measure our achievements against the needs of our time, the demands of our democratic creed, the imperatives of the Judeo-Christian traditions.
The Negro is caught in a severe economic crisis. The mass of black Americans stand today in the same relative economic position they occupied in the depths of the great depression. The destructive forces that have been at work on the American economy over the past decade have hit the Negro especially hard. Two out of three Negro families subsist on less than $4,000 a year. More important, the gap between Negro and white median incomes has actually grown wider in recent years. The same is true of the gap between Negro and white unemployment rates.
Thus, the Negro worker finds that, despite progress toward social and political equality, his relative economic position is deteriorating or stagnating. The desperation and frustration that this paradoxical situation engenders is responsible for much of the militance and impatience of the current civil rights revolution. And that militance will not abate. For long ago—during Reconstruction—the Negro learned the cruel lesson that social and political freedom cannot be sustained in the midst of economic insecurity and exploitation. They saw that land in an area which was the chief source of life, they had none. Freedom requires a material foundation. Our recent civil rights gains are based largely on the economic progress the Negro registered, with labor’s help, in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. We are fearful that these gains will be wiped out by the economic stagnation that has characterized the Negro community since 1953.
This is the economic background which gives rise to much of the apparently irrational and excessive behavior accompanying the revolution. But the labor movement must not ignore or ridicule those who lie down before delivery trucks, climb cranes, or engage in other allegedly “extremist” actions. These actions are frequently led by responsible and dedicated Negro ministers who are determined to shake the white community out of lethargic indifference. These ministers recognize that their actions may be only symbolic. But they also know that, in the words of the scriptures, if they do not speak out, “there is nothing left but the stones to cry out in their place.”
Moreover, labor is no stranger to these techniques, I bid you to recall the unbridled hysteria which greeted labor’s first sit-down strikes. If the Negro’s nonviolence movement owes a great deal to Gandhi and Thoreau, it is also indebted to the American labor movement. If the behavior of militant Negroes baffles many white Americans, it should not baffle the house of labor. For, more than any other segment of American society, we have intimate knowledge of the forces blocking the Negro’s stride toward freedom.
Among those forces are automation and technological change, of which Brother Meany has spoken. Automation is destroying tens of thousands of the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs to which Negroes have traditionally been relegated. Meanwhile, centuries of discrimination and exploitation have deprived Negro workers of the education and training required by the new skilled jobs opening up. Thus, we find that approximately 25 percent of the long-term unemployed are black Americans.
As unemployment becomes increasingly structural, the Negro is increasingly rendered economically useless. His old job is obliterated by the machine, and he does not qualify for new jobs. We hear a great deal of talk about the need to accelerate our rate of economic growth, and to increase purchasing power as a means of increasing the labor demand. These are goals to which labor is correctly committed, just as we are committed to a shorter work week. But we must bear in mind that these remedies are not enough so long as millions of Americans, black and white, are not prepared for the new jobs that an expanding economy will create. There is already a shortage of highly skilled technical and professional workers. These skilled workers are so much in demand that they work over-time and enjoy high standards of living, while millions of other workers are unemployed, underemployed or unemployable. These millions are creating what the great Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal has described as a vast “under-class” in American society. They are the pariahs, the exiles, the untouchables of our economy.
The Negro finds himself trapped in this under-class. He finds himself trapped in the growing slums and ghettoes of the big cities, while more prosperous white workers are migrating to the pleasant suburbs. A racial and occupational separation is taking place which dooms our aspirations for integrated housing and schools. In fact, residential and educational segregation is actually increasing in our metropolitan centers. Deprived of decent integrated education, how are Negro youth to acquire the skills demanded by our technologically advancing economy?
This is the vicious circle in which the Negro finds himself. And the Negro is not alone. Many white workers also find themselves caught short by the profound transformations our economy is undergoing. The problem of these workers, black and white, is not merely an economic problem. It is a social problem. Social justice and economic reform have become inextricably intertwined in our time. If we are to speak to the needs of these workers, the labor movement will have to tap its wellsprings of social idealism. It will have to renew its crusading spirit. It must move toward a new evangelical spirit to reach down and lift up the poor workers, the disinherited, those in poverty and despair.
Our failure to meet this challenge can bring only the ugliest consequences, of which the first signs are already evident. Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, there is a growing feeling of alienation from the labor movement in the Negro community. The Negro’s traditional loyalties toward organized labor have been put to a severe strain. The Negro-labor alliance, needed now as never before, is being pulled apart. It is being pulled apart not only by the persistence of racial discrimination in a number of unions, but also by the failure of labor to throw its full weight into the civil rights revolution in every community.
The Negro will become more critical of labor precisely because he has learned to expect more from labor. These expectations are just and must be fulfilled. Otherwise, I fear, brothers and sisters, that advocates of so-called “right-to-work” laws and other anti-union legislation will receive a better hearing from the Negro community than they have been accustomed to in the past. And I ask you to remember the role which Negroes played in defeating “right-to-work” laws in California and other states only a little while ago. Any alienation of the Negro from organized labor, any breakdown of the natural alliance between the Negro and labor, can only encourage the reactionary currents in American political and cultural life. The Negro-labor alliance is our strongest weapon against the coalition of reactionary Republicans and Dixicrats who would deprive the Negro of his civil rights and drag organized labor back to the nineteenth century. The political power of this coalition must be shattered. It must be shattered in Congress, where the seniority system and the disfranchisement of Negroes enables the coalition to exercise a stranglehold over congressional committees. It must be shattered on the local level, where radical right-wing groups are launching a reactionary counter-revolution against the civil rights revolution. The coming struggle for power between liberalism and reaction can eventuate in victory for the liberal-labor forces only if the Negro is liberated from the thralldom of exploitation, from the remnants of a feudal caste system. The reactionary coalition which denies us medicare, old-age security, higher minimum wages, and other social needs—and which at this very moment is blocking both civil rights and tax-cut legislation—this coalition can be smashed only by a strong Negro-labor alliance, which rests on a new faith and confidence on the part of Negro workers in the AFL-CIO. For when masses of white workers join black workers in the streets and at the polls, we will be well on the way to the democratic political revolution which will free all Americans from minority rule.
Let our alliance be strengthened. It is in labor’s own interest. For the Negro’s protest today is but the first rumblings of the “under-class.” As the Negro has taken to the streets, so will the unemployed of all races take to the streets. To discuss the civil rights revolution is therefore to write the agenda of labor’s unfinished revolution. The labor movement cannot ignore this under-class. It cannot degenerate into a mere protective association, insulating the “haves” from the “have-nots” in the working class.
And so the Negro looks to the labor movement to lead the struggle for full employment now. We cannot accept economic policies which envision 4-1/2 percent chronic unemployment by 1980, when current trends indicate that most of that 4–1/2 per cent may be black. We certainly need a tax-cut. But even more, we need a massive federal works program to put all Americans back to work at decent wages. We need higher minimum wages. We need a massive federally-administered training program to prepare unskilled and semi-skilled workers for the new jobs that the coming decade will bring. These are among the most important planks of the March on Washington Movement. They must be inscribed on labor’s banner.
I have heard many sincere criticisms of the demand for preferential or compensatory treatment raised by numerous civil rights leaders. Rather than debate the validity of this demand, let us recognize that it will grow louder as unemployment continues. For history shows that as unemployment rises, the gap between Negro and white unemployment rates widens. As this gap widens, the Negro’s demand for preferential treatment to close the gap becomes more vociferous. But, my friends, there is no need to demand preferential treatment in full-employment economy. To achieve a full-employment economy, in fact, labor must be in favor of preferential treatment—not just for the Negro, but for all the unemployed, the poor, the aged, and the deprived youth of this nation. These groups would benefit from a domestic “Marshall Plan” organized on the basis of need. On their behalf we must insist on a constitutional right of every worker to a job.46
As the labor movement struggles for full employment, there are immediate tasks we can execute to strengthen the Negro-labor alliance. To accelerate the eradication of discrimination and segregation within the house of labor, we need better lines of communication between Negro trade unionists and labor’s leadership. I would propose the establishment of a representative committee of Negro trade unionists and officers of the AFL-CIO to plan programs and evolve new techniques to deal with discriminatory practices on the local level.
Just as we need more communication within the labor movement, so must the labor movement establish closer official relations with the civil rights organizations. The coalition of civil rights, labor, religious, and fraternal groups that organized the March on Washington vividly demonstrated the value of such relations. I would therefore propose that a committee of the AFL-CIO leadership be appointed to meet periodically with leaders of the six national civil rights organizations to work out mutually beneficial policies and programs that concretely strengthen and substantiate the Negro-labor alliance. Civil rights is labor’s day-to-day business, just as economic justice is the Negro’s day-to-day business. We must therefore infuse our efforts on behalf of civil rights with the same enthusiasm and rugged determination that we bring to the collective bargaining table. Thus, I should like to see this committee stimulate vigorous local and national mass-action campaigns by labor for a strong civil rights bill by Christmas!
I should like to see both these committees cooperate on a close examination of the economic crisis of the Negro as it relates to the problems of technological change and automation—problems of urgent concern to labor. These problems need to be clarified and solutions to them must be advanced, if the Negro community is not to succumb to demoralization and frustration, and if it is not to fall victim to false leadership.
All of us are heartened by the creation of the Special Task Force “to help affiliated central bodies in community-wide drives to eliminate discrimination from every aspect of community life.” We must vigorously support and expand this Task Force so that its influence will be felt in every city in the country. We must give it the means of moving into communities where vigorous civil rights campaigns are under way, to mobilize local unions on the side of those campaigns. This Task Force must have maximum moral and financial backing if it is to succeed in educating rank and file workers to their responsibilities to themselves, to their black brothers, to the cause of human rights, and to the sacred principles of free, democratic trade unionism.
But this vast educational task cannot be shouldered by the Special Task Force alone. President Meany, Brother Reuther, and other outstanding national leaders of the AFL-CIO must lend a hand. They must themselves be prepared to go into areas of racial tension—into cities like Birmingham and Danville, in Houston, in various areas of the North—and speak to the rank and file in the moral and economic terms they can understand. The principles of labor solidarity and of racial equality will be seriously undermined if we permit a cleavage to develop between the rank and file and the leadership of the vital issue of civil rights. The leadership of organized labor seems to be in advance of the membership in their comprehension and attitude toward the civil rights resolution.
Brothers and sisters, the resolution before us is the strongest statement of labor’s position in civil rights ever to come before a convention of the AFL-CIO. I am happy to have played a part in drafting it. It firmly commits organized labor to a frontline role in the civil rights revolution.
The resolution unreservedly commits us to a strong civil rights bill. That bill must contain a solid Part III, authorizing the Attorney General to initiate injunctive civil suits against violators of any constitutional right. Remember, brothers and sisters, that this provision will not only help protect southern Negroes from police dogs and fire hoses. It will also protect southern labor organizers.
The civil rights bill must also contain a strong FEPC with commission-enforcement rather than costly court-enforcement procedures. Neither the labor movement nor the civil rights movement has fared well at the hands of southern judges.
Let me then commend this resolution to your solemn and undivided attention. It speaks forcefully of the wrongs of segregation, discrimination, exploitation, and disfranchisement suffered by black Americans. And it says in unmistakable terms:
“These wrongs cry for correction. And it is the responsibility of all of us, individually and collectively, to work diligently for that correction.
“As trade unionists, we must work in two directions. We must set our own house in order, removing the last vestiges of racial discrimination from within the ranks of the AFL-CIO. Secondly, we must cooperate with our neighbors in the general community to assure every American the full rights of citizenship.”
Brothers and sisters, it is for the purpose of expediting progress toward these twin goals that I have proposed the establishment of two committees to facilitate communication with Negro trade unionists within the house of labor and with the civil rights organizations on the outside of the house of labor.
For it is not enough—though it is our task—to give resounding approval to this resolution. We must each go forth from this historic convention determined to implement this resolution—its letter and its spirit—in every city and town, in every village and hamlet across the country.
Let each of us individually and unequivocally embrace the Negro’s struggle for freedom, and the labor movement will rise to its full moral stature. Let us do this, and when labor’s rights are threatened, you will see an outpouring of black Americans into the streets in defense of those rights, as they have taken to the streets in defense of their own rights.
Let us so implement this resolution that the day will come and not be far off when the white steelworkers of Birmingham will take the hands of black children in the crusade to redeem the South.
Let us so implement this resolution that the mill workers of Danville will join the struggle for civil rights in that beleaguered city—so that white unemployed miners in West Virginia and Tennessee will march arm-in-arm with their black brothers to transform their bleak hills into flourishing countrysides.
Let us so implement this resolution that the dispossessed migrant farm workers—Negro-American, Mexican-American, Indian-American, and poor white alike—will stand together for dignity and economic justice—so that the sharecroppers and tenant farmers of Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia will know that decisions made this day and implemented this year sounded the deathknell of their bondage and heralded their liberation.
In the last analysis, my brothers and sisters, the essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement traditionally has been the only haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, and the poor. We must pledge our lives to the social revolution which will bring all of them into labor’s crusading fold—into the pale of dignity and economic well-being.
This is labor’s ultimate faith. This is the basis of our program. This is the challenge before us. This is the task to which we must now rededicate ourselves.
PRESIDENT MEANY: May I congratulate Phil Randolph for a very moving, intelligent address on a subject in which he has been a leader for many, many years.
Before going into a general discussion of this subject, in order that this convention will have before it all of the information which I feel is pertinent, I would like to have a report from our own Standing Committee on Civil Rights under the Chairmanship of Secretary-Treasurer Schnitzler. Then I will make a very short report on the special Task Force Committee which Phil mentioned in his address.
I would like to now call on Secretary-Treasurer Schnitzler to give a report for the Standing Committee on Civil Rights, particularly on what progress has been made and what plans the Committee has for solving the internal civil rights problems. That is in other words, the problem within our own organization.
I call on Secretary-Treasurer Schnitzler.47
SECRETARY-TREASURER SCHNITZLER: Mr. President and delegates: the work of the Standing Committee on Civil Rights has been with the international, local unions, state bodies and central bodies throughout the country. While numerous complaints have been received and processed through the Committee, through our Subcommittee on Compliance, and through our Civil Rights Department, nevertheless the discussion through the five meetings we have had since the last convention has been directed towards developing a mass approach to this entire problem.
True, on many occasions we received complaints in which only one person was involved. That received our immediate attention, but the Committee was conscious of the fact if we were to deal only with complaints involving one, two or three persons, we would run out of years in our life before we could make any kind of an impact on this entire question.
I would like this morning to break down the report I am going to make in three sections. First I want to talk about some of the work that has been done in cooperation with the government.
Many of you, of course, were present at the White House conference on June 13 when over 300 of our presidents of international unions, state federations, and the larger of the central bodies were present. The President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity has up until this month had three conferences throughout the country, in St. Louis, in Detroit and in Los Angeles last Thursday. In every one of these conferences the major part of the work was done by trade unionists from these respective areas.
I may point out that President Meany, at the time he was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Apprenticeship & Skilled Training of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, proposed that minority group specialists be added to the staff of the United States Bureau of Apprenticeship. They complied with the recommendation, and five minority group specialists on apprenticeship are presently working in the offices in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and St. Louis.
We had also recommended on numerous occasions that the Department of Labor expand its activities and open up what we call information centers throughout the country, centers where minority groups can go to find out the various requirements for entering the various trades, apprenticeship and so forth. There are at present in operation four centers in the cities of Washington and New York, and there are four in California cities.
In February of 1962 President Meany issued a directive to all of our state, local and the central bodies in which he laid down the policy for convening conventions, meetings, conferences, schools and seminars by those groups.
On July 22 of this year he appointed a special committee and a task force that would be engaged in community-wide racial activities.
These are reports that we have. I know somebody is going to come up and say probably, later on, that I didn’t make mention what they had done. The only reason I can’t mention what they may have done is because they didn’t tell us about it; and one of the big problems we have had is getting the information from our affiliated organizations.
There are at present 38 state councils that have standing Civil Rights Committees that are on the job all of the time. In some of the lesser populated states the state organizations don’t have the necessary income to be able to set up a committee, so the work is carried on by the officers of the organization, together with nominees or those that serve on committees that are established by the governor of the state or by the mayors of the respective cities.
We have recorded now in the headquarters that 45 of the larger central bodies throughout the country have standing committees on civil rights.
I want to point out, as I go along, some of the things that represent highlights in the work of some of our affiliated organizations. It was through the efforts of our Vermont State Council that they were able to pass an FEPC law in that state; and whenever you meet the officers of that organization they don’t talk about all of their activities; they are so happy about this, which they consider to be a tremendous accomplishment on their part.
In the state of Texas, the State Council made up a half-hour film that has been shown throughout the state at various meetings, and has also been used on television throughout the state of Texas.
Since our last convention there have been desegregated conventions of state organizations,—and I don’t only mean meetings, I mean for housing and health as well,—in the states of Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Our COPE organization reported that four area conferences in the early part of this year that were held in Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia and Texas, were completely integrated.
The state of California has been in the forefront of receiving applause for what they have been doing and it has been through the work of our state council in California that the governor set up a statewide Committee on Equal Opportunity in Apprenticeship & Training for minority groups. Many splendid reports have come from that state of the work that has been done by this committee, which has been staffed more or less by representatives from the trade union movement.
In New York City and in Chicago, through the efforts of our central labor bodies, they have had civil rights conferences.
The states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Massachusetts as state organizations have had a state conference on civil rights.
Let me get into some of the work of our affiliated international unions. I want to say first that at the convention in July of this year, the Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen removed the white Caucasian clause from their constitution by convention action, which now means that there is not a single affiliate of the AFL-CIO that has any kind of discriminatory regulations against application for membership in its organization.
118 of our international unions have signed agreements with the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. In addition, 87 of those international unions have designated an executive officer as the contact man; that is, the man that would be contacted if there would be any complaint of any kind against any of the locals of that affiliated organization. These are mostly, of course, the larger international unions. Among all of the smaller international unions the president of the organization serves as the contact man.
Of the 130 international unions, there are 111 at the present time that have no segregated locals of any kind, and of the 19 international unions that do have segregated locals left, there are only 172 out of over 55,000 local unions in the AFL-CIO. One of the international unions in the railroad crafts has merged 22 locals so far this year, and it always maintained that they weren’t segregated locals by color as such; rather, the segregation came about through work jurisdiction and charters being granted in particular work jurisdiction fields. As I go on through my report, I am going to point out where there have been mergers recently that have come to our attention affecting segregated locals in our international unions.
Our reports at headquarters indicate that there are five unions, the IBEW, Bricklayers, Plasterers, Machinists and Painters, who have signed national agreements with their employers in which they have written into the national agreements non-discrimination clauses.
Just about two months ago, the Executive Board of the Carpenters International Union issued a directive to all of their affiliate local unions in which they laid out a four-point program with which each local union is to comply.
You have heard quite a lot about apprenticeship, but before I get into that subject let me point out to you that insofar as the Building Trades are concerned, back in the years of 1950, ’51 and ’52, there were approximately 168,000 apprentices indentured every year in their certified apprenticeship programs. That has been reduced to approximately 100,000 at the present time; and while everybody is talking about apprenticeship, they haven’t had a clear vision of the entire problem of apprenticeship.
There are only approximately 100,000 apprenticeships indentured into certified apprenticeship programs every year, which is only two-thirds of what it was 10 years ago. It seems to be going downhill constantly, and with the few openings that you have in apprenticeship, there isn’t any opportunity to take care of many of the youngsters coming out of school that want to enter the apprenticeship of the skilled trades.
In the District of Columbia, there are 104 Negroes presently serving as apprentices in the trades in the District of Columbia; and since July 1st, 29 more have been added, so there are presently in apprenticeship service 133 in the District, and of six other unions there are 82 out of 401 presently in the apprenticeship programs in the District.
Brother Randolph mentioned Danville, Virginia. Based on the information we have at headquarters, the two local unions of the United Textile Workers voted to merge and have merged in that city. As I understand it, there are 7,000 members in the white local union. There are 1,100 members in the colored local union. So as a merged organization that will represent over 8,100 workers in the City of Danville, Virginia, and we can look forward to them utilizing their best efforts to get rid of many of the problems that have plagued that city for much too long.
In June of 1963 the union presidents of the Building Trades Department wrote a four-point program designed to grant equal opportunity and admission to members and job referrals and apprenticeship and training, and then in September of this year the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity of the Construction Industry Joint Conference adopted what they call non-discrimination guide lines for all of the local joint and apprenticeship committees throughout the country.
In Charleston, South Carolina, through the efforts of the local union of the Retail and Wholesale and Department Store Workers, they were able to eliminate all departmental segregation and racially separate lines of promotion and seniority and eliminate whatever wage differentials existed.
There are seven Philadelphia Printing Trades unions that have signed a 12-point agreement with the employers in the graphic industry, and while I don’t want to particularly keep mentioning the names of local unions, there’s some I just have to.
The Tobacco Workers have been at work in merging with segregated unions that they have had. The segregation that exists in the tobacco, cigarette and tobacco companies in America was there long before the plants were organized, and it is through the direct activities of the officers of the International who are working with the officers of their affiliated local unions that I am able to report to you that in the Philip Morris plant of Richmond, Virginia, the American Tobacco Company in Richmond, Virginia, the American Tobacco Company in Reidsville, North Carolina, the U.S. Tobacco in Richmond, Virginia, the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company in Louisville, that the ten segregated local unions in these five plants have been completely merged; and the two local unions in the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company in Richmond, Virginia, have already voted to merge, but they haven’t completed all of the details of putting the two locals together, even though it has been voted by both of the local unions involved. They are presently working on, and have favorable reports from the officers and executive boards of the local unions of Brown & Williamson in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the Lazrus & Brother Company of Richmond, Virginia.
Reports have come to us from the Musicians that locals have been merged in Denver, San Francisco, Sioux City, Cleveland and Hartford.
The Retail Clerks granted a charter, a new charter in Shreveport, Louisiana, in which there are 800 members of that local union on a completely integrated basis.
Reports have come to us from the various trades that work at the shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi; and our figures take us up now to somewhere 18 or 19 workers have been entered into the apprenticeship program in that yard.
The two segregated locals of Carpenters in Knoxville, Tennessee, have been merged, and the Buckeye Oil Company in Memphis, Tennessee, was persuaded by a local union of the Retail and Wholesale Clerks to get rid of the dual seniority list and are promoted on the basis of their qualification and qualification only. Through the work of the local of the UAW in Memphis, Tennessee, the facilities in the cafeteria and locker rooms have been desegregated, and Negro workers have been hired for the office force of that plant. In Memphis, Tennessee, also, the two segregated locals of the American Federation of Government Employees, employed at the Kennedy Hospital, have merged into one integrated local union.
Also, in Memphis, the Rubber Workers at the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company report that 21 Negroes have been indentured for the first time on tire-building machines, and the seniority rosters were merged into one roster where heretofore there were separate rosters.
The Aluminum Workers report that two segregated locals in Richmond, Virginia, were merged, and two segregated local unions in Sheffield, Alabama, were merged, meaning that there are no longer any segregated locals within that international union. Their job is now 100 percent complete.
In Atlanta, Georgia, the State, County, Municipal Employees merged two local unions at the Grady Hospital. In Baltimore, representatives of the Building Trades have gone to the vocational schools and told of their trade, the training required, the qualifications necessary, and pay scales as they go through apprenticeship, and the pay once they reach journeyman status.
As a result of their efforts, there have been more applicants from the minority groups, many of whom have been accepted into the apprenticeship programs for the first time.
The Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers have had a number of segregated local unions in the South, and they have merged locals in Lufkin, Texas, Savannah, Georgia, and Calhoon, Tennessee. Recently, as a result of organizing campaigns, when they chartered locals in Crossett, Arkansas, North Little Rock, Arkansas, Atlanta, Georgia, and Dallas, Texas, they chartered completely integrated locals to start with.
In Birmingham, Alabama, the Steelworkers, through their efforts in the Tennessee Coal and Iron Division, have eliminated separate lines of seniority and set up one line of seniority governing all of the workers in that plant. The Steelworkers have non-discrimination clauses in all major agreements.
In the State of Oklahoma we have a report that of 41 apprentices that are presently in the trades, there are seven Mexicans, seven Indians and 27 Negroes.
The Oil and Chemical Workers merged two segregated locals in Beaumont, Texas and in Port Arthur, Texas. Those were the last remaining segregated locals in that international union, so they have no further segregated locals and their job has been completed 100 percent as well.
In Cincinnati we have reports that seven local unions have taken in colored members either directly or in apprenticeship programs for the first time.
The ILA here in New York has merged two segregated local unions.
In the Rochester area in upstate New York 19 local unions will have taken in colored or minority group workers for the first time.
In the Batavia section there are four; in the Geneva section there are seven, and in the Syracuse-Schenectady section there are four.
In the City of Philadelphia, six local unions, and in Pittsburgh seven local unions have made agreements with the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission.
In addition to that, we have been working very closely with NILE recently—the National Institute of Labor Education—working with the Office of Manpower, Automation and Training, initiated a union-sponsored training program for unemployed and under-employed youth. I might add that the President of the Building Trades Department served on that committee and was very active in helping develop the program. Their No. 1 project will involve 100 youngsters in the District of Columbia who will participate in a training program for apprenticeship in the carpenters trade. There are two programs in Newark, New Jersey, in which 40 youngsters will be working with the Newark Paint Trades Joint Board.
IATSE Local 152 accepted into membership a Negro American. The Laundry Workers chartered a completed integrated local union in Shreveport, Louisiana. A completely integrated local union has been organized at the Atlanta Metallic Casket Company, Villa Rosa, Georgia, with single job posting and promotion lists.
Community Progress, Inc., a private foundation of which former Connecticut State Labor Council President Mike Sviridoff is Executive Director, has helped place minority groups in apprenticeship programs and reported 17 of these apprentices have been placed.
Chicago Building Trades reports placing 90 American Negroes on federal building projects in that city.
St. Louis Bricklayers’ union reports 18 Negro Americans placed—two bricklayers and two apprentices. The Machinists’ local of St. Louis at the McDonald Aircraft Corporation reported upgrading two American Negroes to supervisory positions.
Houston, Texas, IBEW local and the Printers’ union accepted Negro journeymen into membership.
The Glazers union of Houston, Texas negotiated a contract calling for complete integration in a manufacturing plant.
The Boilermakers, Machinists, and Molders union jointly negotiated a contract with the Lufkin Foundry in Texas, calling for complete integration and upgrading and promotion.
Pantex of Amarillo, Texas, under Metal Trades Council contract is completely integrated, including promotions and supervisory jobs.
The Boilermakers negotiated contracts with the Exchange Parts Company and Stratoflex, Inc., in Fort Worth, Texas, with everyone having the same rights to promotion and higher paid classifications.
The Boilermakers in Houston, Texas, merged two segregated unions.
The Office Workers union, holding bargaining rights in General Dynamics plant in Forth Worth, have negotiated contracts covering Negroes who have been employed and they can bid for upgrading and promotion.
In Fort Wayne, Indiana, Negro apprentices have been placed in the International Harvester Company and several Building Trades unions have Negro apprentices for the first time.
The A&P and Kroger food markets in Terre Haute, Indiana, employ Negroes as cashiers and stock workers.
These are the things that are going on.
I mentioned that many complaints have been received. They have been processed. We have at the present time at headquarters nine complaints that are being processed. Never have we failed to complete a complaint. Where it was an improper complaint, of course, it was eliminated, but where it was a proper complaint, through the help of our international unions, and local unions, state and local bodies, we have been able to make the necessary adjustment to eliminate the complaint.
Let me just enjoy a little luxury this morning and talk about ourselves.
I must say that our Director, Boris Shishkin, and his two Assistant Directors, Don Slaiman and Walter Davis, have been running back and forth across this country jumping in wherever necessary to try to carry out the obligation we had under the Civil Rights Resolution that was passed at the last convention.
In my travels throughout the country I have come in contact with many representatives of many recognized national organizations, and I have talked to them about this problem.
I have mentioned these various instances to give you an idea of the work that’s going on in all of the 50 states by our trade union movement. As I examine the work that our people have been doing, there isn’t anybody in this country that is more determined, that shows more good will in eliminating the discrimination as it has existed, than the representatives of our trade union movement.
I think that on this platform I ought to say we haven’t done all that we should have done, but I’m certainly interested in harnessing all of your good will and your efforts, so we can move on and do the total job that our resolution calls for.
Before concluding, I want to announce that the members of the Civil Rights Committee are: Eugene Frazier, George Harrison, Dave McDonald, Lee Minton Louis Simon, Richard Walsh, Charles Zimmerman, A. J. Hayes, Ralph Helstein, Joseph Keenen, Emil Mazey, John Murphy, James Suffridge, Milton Webster, Robert Powell and Dave Sullivan.48
PRESIDENT MEANY: Thank you, Secretary Schnitzler.
I will have a report on this special Task Force a little later. I think at this time we should allow the discussion to proceed on the resolution itself.
The Chair recognizes Vice President Reuther.
VICE PRESIDENT REUTHER: President Meany, fellow delegates and friends: I rise to support the resolution on civil rights and to lend my voice on the sentiments expressed by Brother Phil Randolph.
American democracy is in deep moral crisis. I believe that as a people and as a nation we face the challenge of whether or not we are equal to being true to our faith, whether we are equal to being true to America’s promise of the equality of all men.
We in the labor movement share a heavy and unique responsibility in this crisis, for it has been the historic role of the labor movement to take the concept of human brotherhood out of the stratosphere of pious platitudes and bring it down to earth and give it new meaning and substance in the lives of people. The civil rights struggle is about that practical job.
For 100 years Negro Americans have been denied, they have been deprived, they have been degraded, and they have been discriminated against. Today they are on the march to achieve freedom and first-class citizenship.
As one member of the trade union movement, I share the view that the labor movement of America has the sacred duty, it has the moral responsibility and it has the historic opportunity to join in that march with Negro Americans so that freedom can be a blessing of every American regardless of race or creed or color.
Our Negro brothers and sisters will not be satisfied, nor should they be satisfied, with tokenism, because there are no half-way houses on the road to freedom. Each of us, every American of every creed, every color, of every political persuasion, shares the responsibility for joining together so that we can build a bridge over the moral gap between what American democracy has promised and its failure to perform up to that promise in the field of civil rights.
I believe that we all recognize that we must be deeply involved in this struggle because the labor movement is about the struggle for freedom; it is about the struggle for human dignity, it is the struggle for social justice not for a few but for every man and his family.
It is our task to strip the mask from those Americans who practice what I call high octane hypocrisy, who sound off and make noble noises about human brotherhood and, having made these noble noises, they drop the “brother” and keep the “hood.”
We have understood that no man is an island, that freedom is indivisible and that you can make freedom secure for yourself only as you make it universal. Abe Lincoln knew that and he said that those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and they will not long retain it.
We stand on trial before the world. The world knows we have the most productive economy in the world, that our technological progress is second to none, and that we do have the highest living standards of any people in the world. But we are not going to be judged by material standards.
We are going to be judged by moral standards, by the ability of our free society to relate its technical progress to human progress. They are going to judge us in the field of civil rights and human rights not by what we preach but by what we practice. And I believe, with the President, when he stood before the Berlin wall, which is a tangible monument to the moral bankruptcy of communism, that we are committed to defend freedom in Berlin. But I think we need to understand that we cannot successfully defend freedom in Berlin so long as we deny freedom in Birmingham, because the two are tied together.
Now, what does the resolution call for? First, it says that we shall join with men and women for good will throughout our nation to secure passage of the strongest civil rights bill, a bill with teeth in it, a bill that will give America effective tools to end the ugly forms of discrimination in every aspect of our national life.
The bill that came through the committee in the House is a move in the right direction, but we have to be eternally vigilant to work to strengthen that bill so that we can go to the Senate with the strongest possible bill.
Then we face the practical task of joining with church groups, with civil rights groups, with civic and fraternal groups in the creation of a great coalition of conscience to try to bear upon the United States Senate the total pressure of an aroused people so that we can smash the filibuster. If we do that, I say we can sweep aside the Eastlands and the Goldwaters, and we can get a civil rights bill through the United States Senate.
But after we have that bill, the job will not be done. Our job will just be beginning because we then will be called upon to implement in every state and in every community the purposes of that bill and the use of the tools that it will provide. This means we must work on the job front, on the housing front, on the education front, in the broad field of public accommodation. Then we must work to get legislation at the local and state level to fill those areas where the federal government does not have adequate jurisdiction.
Then it calls upon the labor movement to set its house in order. And I think this Convention has to say in a loud and clear voice that cannot be misunderstood that there is no room for Jim Crow in the house of American labor.
I believe that we have to say that labor’s solidarity is colorblind and that we are going to build that solidarity to encompass every American, regardless of race or creed or color.
We have heard Bill Schnitzler’s report. We have made progress, but progress is a relative thing. We are in the middle of a social revolution and when you are dealing with the dynamics of a revolution, people will not judge where we are or where we have come from; they will judge us based upon how far we still must go.
It isn’t what we have done that is important; it is what remains to be done.
There will be many pressures. There will be much criticism. Yes, there will be times when that criticism directed against the American labor movement will be unfair, it will be unreasonable, and many times the criticism will be most sharp against the very people and the very organizations who are doing the most.
But that is the nature of the struggle to make human progress, because the people who are impatient, who are reaching out to be free, to be whole human beings, they are not going to use microscopes and work out the refinements of niceties.
They are going to look at the NAM. They know the NAM is not committed to human values, it is committed to property values. The American labor movement historically has put priority on people and not profits because we have been committed to human rights over property rights. And for this reason they are going to expect the American labor movement to do more and more and more.
The important thing today is not will we adopt this resolution. Every delegate here knows that that is precisely what we are going to do. The important thing is not what we say. The important thing is what we do to implement the purposes of this resolution. The words are good, but our task is to commit ourselves to implement those words.
It is not going to be easy to tear down the structure of hatred and prejudice that has disfranchised millions of Negro Americans. This is a hard task, but was building the labor movement an easy task? It was not. It took sacrifice, it took struggle, it took dedication, it took determination, it took courage and it took compassion.
The struggle for civil rights will require nothing less than what we put into building the labor movement in the early days when the going was rough.
What we need to keep in mind, I believe, is that the measure of our conviction and the measure of our commitment as a labor movement cannot be measured in the area of convenience and the area of comfort of articulating brave goals in an area where it is easy, where everyone agrees. That is not the best.
The test is, what do we do in those areas when we are dealing with the forces of change and challenge and controversy? Will we have the deep moral conviction to stand up and fight to do the right thing when it is hard?
That is the task on civil rights. The civil rights fight has to be won in the areas where it is difficult, not in the areas where it is easy.
Our problem in America is further compounded by the fact that we are dealing with two parallel but separate revolutions.
We are dealing with the great social revolution of civil rights, in which the structure of American society must yield to the morality and the reality of the 20th Century. Parallel to that revolution is a technological revolution which complicates the social revolution of civil rights.
We cannot solve either of those revolutions in a vacuum. We have got to find a common solution to both. What we need to avoid more than anything else is to be trapped in a dead end alley where people believe that you can solve the problem of employment opportunities for Negroes outside of a broad full employment program for every American.
We should not get ourselves boxed in where the discussion will be whether a black American walks the streets unemployed or a white American walks the streets unemployed. The position of the labor movement has got to be that there must be a job for every American, whether he is white or black or brown or yellow, because there is no other answer.
I am confident that we in the American labor movement, in cooperation with men and women of good will—and the church groups are one of the encouraging elements of this whole development—can by rational and responsible action find answers to America’s and democracy’s great dilemma.
If we fail to work together and find the answers in the light of reason, in the spirit of brotherhood, then the apostles of hatred will move in to fill the vacuum created by our failure. Reason will yield to riots, and brotherhood will yield to bitterness and bloodshed, and we can tear asunder the very fabric of American democracy.
This is the great challenge. Let us adopt the resolution, but then let us go back home, each of us, and commit ourselves to the practical task of implementing the high purposes of this resolution. If we do that, I believe that American democracy can be equal to this challenge. Thank you.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Thank you, Brother Reuther.
The Chair recognizes Vice President Keenan.
VICE PRESIDENT KEENAN: Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this resolution. I would like to say a few words about the present. I am not ready to stand for this labor movement being put on trial. Many of our organizations date back some 60 or 70 years, and 60 or 70 years ago they had to meet the requirements of that time in order to maintain their existence. The skilled trades had to develop an apprentice system because of the conditions in the industry. Years ago the contractors generally maintained their offices in their vest pockets, and called the organizations for men. Then continual employment was normal. In late years, in most of the .industries, we have had full employment, and that set up another set of circumstances. I get quite concerned every time I pick up a newspaper and read about the discrimination in the Building Trades or the Printing Trades.
Just a few years ago we had the Taft-Hartley Act passed. A few years later we had the Landrum-Griffin passed, and in Landrum-Griffin they placed on the labor organizations of this country some of the most dastardly regulations that could be conceived in the minds of men.49
You all have the reporting forms. You all have the regulations for bonding, and Bill Schnitzler, I believe, can make the greatest dissertation on bonding that I know of.
Just some six months ago the government handed out a questionnaire asking the unions of this organization to render detailed reports on the makeup of their unions. I don’t mind that, if it is general. But when they talk about hiring halls, they are talking about just a small percentage of the total membership of this organization. What about the hiring halls of AT&T and all of the great corporations of this country?
I have been in this field for just 22 years. In 1940 I came to Washington to serve on the National Defense Council, and this was one of the first issues that we were faced with, on construction jobs. There were 23 international unions with a color bar then. I can say that there has been progress all the way along the line. Slow, yes. Discouraging at times. I spent hours in certain cases trying to get the regulations changed, or some modification in order that we could cope with people of other than white races on the job. Today I would think that the time has come to look into the large corporation and their hiring practices. This is one issue on which more people talk out of both sides of their mouth than on any other issue that I know of. I think the time has come that we must stand on our own feet and stop being on the defensive.
We are known as the family of labor. Every family, no matter how large or small, has its complications and its heartaches. I am not going to say here today that we have been perfect. Most of us have tried to do our job. Most of us have tried in our own way to overcome the handicaps we find in our local unions. This is a question on which in every section of the country you find a different flavor. I just want to say this: after we adopt this resolution, let us implement it in this organization. We have a Committee on Civil Rights. As the complaints come in they go to the Committee, and we will be coming to you with those cases.
I am sure, if we all cooperate, that we can put the wording of this resolution into effect a whole lot quicker than we now realize. I say, let us do the job ourselves, and let this organization go out and do the job that it is set up to do and that it is destined to do. Thank you.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Thank you, Brother Keenan. Any further discussion?
DELEGATE CLEVELAND ROBINSON, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union: Brother Chairman, I rise to support the resolution. It is hardly necessary for me to do that because, as Brother Reuther said, everybody in this room will vote for the resolution.50
I do believe that there are some things that ought to be said in this Convention which have not yet been said, because in my opinion, unless we face the facts as they are, and unless we are prepared to tear away the mask of hypocrisy which exists in too many places in our labor movement the job is not going to be done.
We have heard much talk about help internationally, and I am all for it. I am very happy to see that there are delegations here from Africa, Asia and other nations. All to the good. It is fine when our Negro community reads about the amount of money that our government is pouring into these countries, and what AFL-CIO is doing, and it is very fine and heartwarming to know that we have the ability, by the Marshall Plan for example, to restore Europe after its devastation in war. Nobody can question the ability of the United States when we really mean to go to work.
If we do these things, why, in 1963, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, do we have to have these despicable conditions that pertain to the Negro in America?
This is the basic question, and to those who are talking about the progress that has been made, let us come to one conclusion: Either a man is of the Negro race or he is not. If he is a man, then one day more is too long for him to suffer, and he does not want to suffer 350 years of slavery. He has suffered 100 years since Emancipation, and as far as he is concerned, he reads a little better today, his kids know a little more, and that is why they are ready to fight for democracy, because it is working for everybody but them.
Let’s examine some of the things we have heard here today. Brother Schnitzler reported about the Building Trades, and he talked about the fact that there are declines in jobs, number of apprenticeships, but there are still 100,000 apprenticeships that go out each year.
May I ask how many of them go to Negroes—that’s a basic question—in the year 1963, and you will find what the answer is.
We hear a report a hundred and eighteen unions signed with the Vice President of the United States that they will not discriminate. Well, I’m informed that no more than 30 of these unions as much as published it in their publications, said nothing about doing anything else about it. Now, I know what we did in RWDSU. We had a doubt. We adopted a policy, and we went ahead with the job. It is not, for a fact, perfect, but things are being done.
I don’t think many unions as much as took it to their Executive Boards to say anything to acquaint their membership with this fact. As far as they are concerned, the day of their signing was they day they forget about it.
Are we going to have these kinds of situations? If we do, the labor movement will continue to receive severe criticism from the Negro community, and justifiably so, because the Negro has supported the labor movement all down the years, and the labor movement has betrayed the Negro worker.
Let’s go a little further. We talk about the fact that there are such vast areas when Negroes and other minorities work without any kind of protection by federal laws. No unemployment benefits, no minimum wage, no workmen’s compensation and no social security. I think the figures run into the millions. They are to be found in hospitals, working as janitors in schools, in some instances working for state governments at wages as low as 50 cents an hour.
This is happening not yesterday. It’s happening today. It’s happening right here in New York, and one of the things I haven’t heard mentioned here is that one local union of RWDSU, under the leadership of a man known as Leon Davis, undertook a campaign to shed some light on this picture, and, from nothing, in less than four years, has organized some 10,000 of these Negro-Puerto Rican workers, and has by so doing doubled their wages from $28, $30 a week to today $60 a week, and what was the crime that this man committed?
He, along with leaders of the New York labor movement, and with consultation with state officials and in the labor movement, agreed with Governor Rockefeller that legislation should be passed which would give the people collective bargaining rights which they did not have before. It didn’t take anything from them. It gave them something they didn’t have, and for this this man is being punished. He is being called a criminal. He went to jail for 30 days, the only union leader I know who has been to jail for picket line activity in recent years, and was sentenced to another six months, and I will say this: That if we could get others in the labor movement, other segments of the labor movement, to move in on the millions of workers, underprivileged workers, throughout the length and breadth of our country who are working at starvation wages, who are literally in slavery, if we could get this to be done, it would be a fine thing on the part of the labor movement.
I must commend Brother Reuther that he saw to it that the Industrial Union Department did give some money to support these down-trodden, forgotten workers in their struggle for dignity. I hope that something will be done to continue to organize these workers throughout the length and breadth of our country.
I believe that Brother Randolph’s suggestion about upping the minimum wage is quite in order, because while the President talked of the tax cut, there are millions of workers to whom a tax cut means nothing. They never made enough to pay taxes in the first place, so what can a tax cut do for them? But if we were to broaden the minimum wage law to cover these workers and bring it up from where it is today, from a dollar and a quarter to somewhere about $2.00 an hour, this would be money which would be going to people who would have to spend it for food, clothing and shelter, and American business would hum.
More people would be on jobs, and the greater measure of security would be found for these downtrodden people.
There is one other basic question we have to face. What do people do who are in the low income brackets with education of their kids? The government tells us it takes $6,000 or better for a family of four to live. Well, all of us have reports about how many people are making less than $6,000, how many are making less than $3,000, and, certainly, you know that Negroes, Puerto Ricans and other minorities form the bulk of these numbers.
What are we supposed to do in terms of educating our kids? How can we carry a kid through high school? We hear about the eight million dropouts. Wouldn’t it be in order that the labor movement find some way of formulating some policy where we could pressure the federal government to grant subsidies and loans to these families so that they can see their kids through high school, if not through college, at least?
I think it is in order, because the money that we would advance and invest on our kids today will pay off bigger dividends for tomorrow, and if we do not do it now, in 1970 or 1980 our problems will be so very great that today will be a picnic.
All in all I’d say that we have a big problem ahead of us, and the labor movement, I believe, can do a big job. In some areas some unions are doing a fine job. In other areas it must be said that less than a fine job is being done.
I tell you that when upwards of 250,000 people marched on Washington on August 28th, with the churches in the vanguard, with the civil rights organizations in the vanguard, and with the official labor movement not approving it, the Negro community was very, very disappointed.
I hope that this will not happen in the future. I think that the official body of the AFL-CIO missed the boat despite the fact that many fine trade unionists, including Walter Reuther and others, found ways and means to support this to the hilt. But this was a fine demonstration of what is necessary if we are to put a minority on the road to success, to freedom and equality for all. Thank you.
DELEGATE FRANK EVANS, Allied Industrial Workers of America: Certainly we are happy to have a resolution coming from the Resolutions Committee on Civil Rights, and there is no question in any of the members of organized labor’s minds as to how far organized labor has gone into the field of civil rights. I think I can stand here today and say that organized labor has gone further into this field of civil rights than any other organization in America, but at the same time say that we are not satisfied with resolutions. We do want resolutions passed, but we want agencies that are able to support and back up the positions that are outlined in the resolution.
We know that this body here cannot hand down orders to local unions where discrimination prevails in the lower echelons of organized labor. I do know that this Convention can give orders to international unions, national unions and city central bodies, but the international unions will have to order the local unions that are discriminating against Negroes to stop discrimination and do the job that is outlined here in Convention.
I want to say that we should do the thing that was done in Cleveland this year, during July and August, on the question of discrimination in the trades, by calling in all the executive boards of the local unions, the representatives of the local unions, and in some cases of the international unions, and sit down around the table to negotiate this question to a satisfactory conclusion. While on the floor, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to point out that when Brother Cruikshank and I, went into Chicago in 1962, meeting with the convention of the National Medical Association, and we got passed in that convention a resolution on aid to the aged in spite of the AMA’s position on that question. After getting this resolution passed, we then had, for the first time in the history of America, for doctors of America to say to you that I went with a delegation of doctors to the offices of the AFL-CIO, met with Brother Meany on this question, and there we did receive the aid and assistance for these doctors who had filed suits against some 56 hospitals and medical organizations in Cook County, Illinois.
I don’t want to say too much on this question at this time, because they’re in litigation, but I can say to you that we are now in the process of a settlement agreement on the question of discrimination against Negro doctors and Negro patients who could not get into these hospitals in Cook County, Illinois, and I can say I’d like to commend the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO on their position in getting this thing passed. I thank you.
DELEGATE LEO SMITH, IUE: Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the resolution. Let me say that the Negro is fed up with delay and indecision. Let me say that we want jobs. We want freedom, and let me say that the time is now. Let me point out to the delegates of this Convention that all of you have a stake in the Negros’ fight for first and not second class citizenship.
Let me point out that three-fourths of the world’s people are members of the so-called darker races. Yet they say also that despite this sweetness and light there is a tremendous bout being waged for the controls of the minds of men in the United Nations.
Let me also say now racial difficulties are being phonographed in sound and are being played by Russia all over the world. This is used to blacken the name of America: the snarl of the police dog as he rips the flesh, the filthy language of the police as they turn water hoses on our people.
Let me say that the concept of nonviolence has grown very, very thin; that the Negro is at the breaking point and that unless our elected officials from President Kennedy on down assert themselves in the cause of freedom, then we are going to witness a blood bath that will make the purge of Adolph Hitler look like a tea party.
Let me say again, in support of the resolution, that I urge each delegate to this convention to go back into their communities and do their part in implementing it. Thank you.
DELEGATE H. S. BROWN, Texas AFL-CIO: As one of the states represented at this Convention South of the Mason-Dixon Line, Mr. Chairman, I rise in full support of the remarks and full support of the resolution.
I do this not on my own individual action, but with the unanimous decision of the state convention, which concluded without a dissenting vote on August 29 in the great city of Houston, to support the fullest and strongest civil rights measure than can be passed by the Congress of these United States, and calling upon eliminating from our membership any local union that has any form of discrimination.
It requires that every central body shall have an active civil rights committee that shall meet on a regular monthly basis and shall submit its grievances to the State Committee with the right to suspend that organization from its membership.
In addition to that, however, and in support of the remarks of Brother Randolph and Brother Reuther, I think that we must take this matter from this Convention to the local level. In our state, it is not just the Negro. There are two million Latin Americans who receive less than 50 cents an hour.
This resolution is applicable in South Texas where 100,000 Mexican citizens cross the bridge every day as so-called commuters and take jobs in Laredo and in Brownsville and in El Paso where the trade union movement is non-existent today except for a few crusaders. It means that the employees who are working, the maids in the biggest hotel in one of the national chains, are working 60 hours at $11 a week. Many of you in this hotel carry a carte blanche card to that kind of an operation.
We will take our stand with the Negro, with the Latin American, or ten years hence we will not stand at all in our state, and I don’t know about yours.
We called on the governor of our state of Texas five times in five weeks to call a special session of the legislature to denounce all forms of discrimination, including the damnable “right-to-work” law, which is a device and a scheme that is being peddled to our minority friends as a way in which they can be guaranteed a job—and 268,000 Texans are looking for a job today with a phony set of Texas Employment Commission figures that says that there are 3.9 percent unemployed but fail to mention the people over 50 that can’t get a job, and, therefore, not being in the labor market are not reported in the official unemployed statistics.
These are the conditions of which we speak when we talk about civil rights. Not Negro, not Latin American. It’s jobs and decent wages with a collective bargaining agreement, with a right to be heard, with a right to be grieved.
There are a half million Negroes in our state working for less than fifty cents an hour. There are nearly a million unorganized Latin Americans in our state working for less than fifty cents an hour, so when we put our TV show that Brother Schnitzler talked about on every station, we didn’t talk about color. We showed an actual family of Juan Hernandes and nine kids trying to live on 31 cents an hour, and that a union contract would mean decent wages and decent conditions.
Ask the ILGWU what happened in San Antonio, where they once had 4,000 members in eleven plants, and today, under right-to-work and the prejudice of one person against another, not a single member is left, not a single union contract.
Ask Brother Potofsky of his fight in El Paso today to organize 50,000 garment workers who are working under pitiful substandard conditions.
Civil rights means more than just doing something for the Negro. Politically we can’t win in Texas against the money changers that run the temple, called the state government, with just organized labor. We formed, Brother Randolph, the alliance you speak of a year ago then known as the coalition, and if you are interested in how it works, come and see our movie, a second one we are producing for state-wide TV. It will be shown at four o’clock today in the Georgian Room of this hotel.
It is a premiere, and we would like for other states to take the hand of the Negro, the Latin American, the Indian, whatever he is, if he is a worker, and he is not making at least $2.00 an hour. That is the brother that we need to get with and win the kind of progress we are talking about. And we are proud to support the resolution. Thank you very much.
DELEGATE MARY CALLAHAN, IUE: I rise in support of the entire civil rights resolution. However, on the implementation I think there was one thing that could have been brought out a little more clearly and something that I think every one of us can address ourselves to. We who are parents and teachers, who are delegates here today, we have a message to take into our own homes. We don’t want ten years hence to have another social revolution, because we have been remiss in our duties and responsibilities in not following through on the precepts of equality and equal rights for all peoples.
Therefore, we can sort of make up for our remissions and omissions of the past by starting out with our children in our homes and in the schools and teach brotherhood of people and children, because children aren’t born, you know, with hatred and discriminatory practice. They learn it somewhere.
Should we examine our consciences and see if maybe we who are standing here today and applauding and preaching have done our job? It is not too late. If our children are grown up, certainly we have grandchildren whom we can reach. I think this should be part of the resolution, Mr. Chairman.
PRESIDENT MEANY: The Chair recognizes Vice President Walsh.
VICE PRESIDENT WALSH: Mr. Chairman and delegates: I rise in support of the resolution. But in support of that resolution, I would like to call to the attention of the delegates and to the governmental agencies that we, the international unions, need help. Too long now the government of this country has been enacting laws which have been tying the hands of the international unions and then sending them out to do jobs with their hands tied behind their backs.
Not too long ago the AFL Convention suspended an organization from the American Federation of Labor, and very shortly thereafter in an election which was held the same people were designated as the bargaining agency for that organization.
As an international president, I want to see segregation wiped out in our international union.
I want, as president, to have the power to instruct our local unions to comply with the action of this Convention, and if they don’t comply with the action of this Convention, I want to discipline them, even to the extent of removing the charter of that organization, if necessary. But I would like a promise from the people who are handling the laws of this country, especially Taft-Hartley, and Landrum-Griffin, to give a promise to our international unions that when we discipline a local union because they will not carry out the mandates of this Convention, that they won’t certify the same people as the bargaining agent for the people whom we expel from our international union. I think we are entitled to that support.
From this platform today I say to the agencies, give us the help to help us to stop segregation in our international unions. Permit us to discipline the people who won’t carry out the orders, and we’ll try to do the job.
Thank you.
DELEGATE MATTHEW GUINAN, Transport Workers Union of America: I rise in support of the resolution on civil rights, and also in support of the expressions of Brother Randolph and Brother Reuther, and particularly Hank Brown from the State of Texas, because I think the job that Hank Brown is doing in Texas deserves a great deal of credit, because they are doing it under great difficulty.
The Transport Workers Union has never taken a back seat to any union or any other organization in the country when it comes to the fight for civil rights, because from its inception in 1934 we adopted principles for equality and for anti-discrimination against all minorities, not just Negroes.
I am happy to stand up here before this Convention today and am proud to say that we have practiced these principles that we adopted back in 1934 and have continued to practice them. We distributed this pamphlet that we put out here this morning, so it gives you a record of the Transport Workers Union on the question of civil rights over the past 25 years.
But, Mr. Chairman, I have been at many conventions and listened to resolutions on the question of political action, on the question of civil rights, and I’m sorry to say that to this day I have never seen effective implementation of these resolutions of the past.
I know, Mr. Chairman, it is in your heart at this moment to see to it that this resolution has effective implementation.
There is just one thing I would like to add, Mr. Chairman. I think that it is most important in the fight on Capitol Hill to get out a strong civil rights bill that we mobilize the full labor movement to lobby on Capitol Hill to bring about an effective bill.
I say that some people here perhaps feel that the progress is too slow. I particularly refer to Cleve Robinson, who thinks that we are not going fast enough, and I agree that perhaps we are not going fast enough. But this, Cleve, is one of the major problems that faces the labor movement today.
We, you, say that the labor movement had the full support of Negroes right from the beginning, going back many years, let’s not talk too freely about that, because I’ve seen the problem in my own organization—and we went through some rough times from 1937 until 1950. I’m sorry to say that many of the Negroes did not join our organization when we had the open shop. But I’m glad to say that they are getting more sense, they are coming into the organization, and we’re giving them every support in fighting for their civil rights and all of their rights.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DELEGATE HERRICK S. ROTH, Colorado Labor Council: I would like, if this is seconded, to move an amendment to the resolution, Mr. Chairman, which would add the remarks of Brother Randolph as the preamble to this resolution and the recommendations of Brother Randolph to the resolves of this resolution. If it is seconded, I would like to indicate why.
PRESIDENT MEANY: You are moving to amend the report of the Committee.
DELEGATE ROTH: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Is there a second?
A DELEGATE (Name not given): Second.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Who seconds the motion? Give your name.
DELEGATE EVANS: Evans.
DELEGATE MAZEY: Mazey.
DELEGATE ROTH: Evans and Mazey, among others.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Very well.
DELEGATE ROTH: Brother Chairman, I think perhaps one of the most eloquent speeches we have had here on the floor was by my good brother, Hank Brown, from Texas, and illustrates why Brother Randolph’s remarks themselves are even more stirring than this resolution. The trouble, I suppose, with resolutions is that we don’t often get down to statistics. Brother Randolph gave a number of specifics that keyed to the kind of thing that’s going on in Texas and that some of us in some states, I think, are trying to do at our own levels, because we are not going to solve this, I know, without getting to the grass roots.
I want to make it perfectly clear that the AFL-CIO and our own state organization are working harmoniously on this with the full support of President Meany. The thing is that in the specifics, Brother Randolph mentioned at least two things that, if you adopt this amendment, would be added that are of great importance from our point of view, after trying to tackle this at the grass roots pretty hard for the last four months.
One of these specifics is that we need a coordinating body between the leaders of the minority communities and the labor movement in every town and city in this country. If we did this at the top level officially, which seems to me his remarks would direct us to do and which I am certain will be done anyway, this would convey the sense of this Convention and would not just be another committee report. The sense of the Convention then would say, do this not only at the national level, but at the local level.
Then I think, too, in his remarks, as he was emphasizing the importance of this communication, that we will find that we will begin to open up job opportunities. Right now we aren’t talking to the people in business and industry who have job opportunities, but the nice part about it is that when you do this, you do it exactly as Brother Brown has said, you find that your building trades people want to expand the apprentice program and not cut it back in job opportunity. You find that leaders of business and industry decide that it is worth working with the labor movement to give this kind of opportunity.
I think the last reason, though, that we should really support this is that over the years Brother Randolph within the labor movement and on the outside has been a key spokesman not just for the Negroes but for the Latin Americans, the Spanish Americans. Better than ten percent of the population of our state is in this category; less than three percent is in the Negro category. But this is the great unemployed, the great underemployed, the great undereducated segment of our society.
Nobody but the labor movement can do this. The NAACP over the years has not done it until this sudden movement of peoples. If they had harkened to Brother Randolph long ago historically, even we would have done more in the labor movement.
So I would like to suggest that we add this, and I would say fittingly as a preamble, and with the recommendations as part of the resolve to this report, because it makes concrete sense and comes from the great leader within our own movement and would, therefore, be strong support of this Convention for it. I urge your support of the amendment.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Now, Brother Roth, you spoke of the idea of the AFL-CIO doing something at the local grassroots level in conjunction with other groups of citizens. I said at the beginning of this discussion, after the resolution was read and Phil Randolph made his address, that I had a report to make on a special committee, a special task force committee. I am rather surprised that Brother Roth is unfamiliar with this, because his city is one of the cities where we have already gone to work. He must know that we are doing this work, because we have not only gone to work there, but we are helping the Denver local central body finance this activity.
Last July, after a meeting at the White House of a number of trade union leaders, the question came up as to the best way to accelerate progress in the field of civil rights, with the idea of placing more reliance on community action.
In the final analysis, this problem is an old one of about a hundred years, more than one hundred years. We have to do something more than pass resolutions and use the weight of the labor movement and pass laws. We have to change the thinking of a great many people in this country, people who do not think of themselves, if you please, as being segregationists or being anti-Negro, but people who don’t hate, don’t think of themselves as having prejudices, but who have gotten into a certain way of life that excludes any recognition of those with a different color of skin. There is sort of an indifference on the part of a lot of people. They don’t think in terms of this being their responsibility.
So we in the labor movement felt that we have to go to the local level, that it involves all Americans, that all Americans can be adversely affected by this business of race discrimination. So we set up a Special Task Force of the AFL-CIO, consisting of Secretary-Treasurer Schnitzler, Vice Presidents Randolph and Reuther, President Haggerty of the Building Trades Department and myself.
The purpose of this committee is to assist AFL-CIO local central bodies to initiate the establishment of bi-racial human rights committees, or civil rights committees, whatever they want to call them, in the major cities across the nation; where none exists, to initiate the action, and where they do exist, to help support and strengthen these committees.
The idea was to have a broadly based committee involving every important segment of the community, with labor in the forefront, with labor initiating, labor pushing for action, parent-teacher associations, religious groups, civic leaders, and so on, right down the line.
This is to fight discrimination every place, not just on the job, but in the schools, in housing, in stores, in theaters, in local recreation areas; and this, of course, means the full cooperation of the entire community.
We have started. July is not so long ago, but we got started. I assigned two assistant directors of the AFL-CIO Department of Civil Rights to head this committee staff. We have already begun work in eight cities in the brief time since our August Executive Council meeting.
Our staff leaders have met with local central bodies in Boston, Cincinnati, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, Houston and other places. We have plans under way in practically all of these places.
We have received a tremendous fine response from the local labor movement. They like the idea of our staff people coming and assisting to set up these meetings, and here at a meeting of the five-man committee the other day we decided to double the staff; in other words, instead of having a two-man team, to have two two-men teams, because in each of these cities, when they go there, it takes at least two or three days.
The success of this program will play a large part, I think, in this field, because it gets right down to the local level. This is where you have got to eliminate discrimination. You have got to eliminate it right down at the local level, right at the grass roots level, and we can use the assistance of every national union, the national representatives throughout the country, the state federation people, and the central body people. I think this will be a definite contribution to this problem.
I would like to talk very briefly on the resolution. If you read the resolution you will find that it covers a wide range of activities, legislation, action within the unions, discrimination, apprenticeship, all the way down the line.
I recall when we didn’t have such an active interest in this field. Oh, yes, I recall when Phil Randolph, Milton Webster, and two or three of us would sit down during a convention and see how far we could go. We had Matt Woll, Dave Dubinsky, and Bill Green, who carried the ball on this for many, many years, convention after convention of various international unions, meeting with the officers, pressing officers to reach down and bring about the elimination of these clauses. 51
We had in the AFL in 1940 23 national unions with a color bar in their constitution. Whether we should be proud of that or ashamed of it is hardly the question today. We did have it. It was there. It was a fact. It has been eliminated.
Of course this represents progress of some kind, but we are told that this doesn’t mean much today. I think it means something. I know that Phil Randolph came here year after year after year, and made his speech, made his plea. He didn’t have too much help. There wasn’t too much activity in those years as we have seen this past summer.
I had an old friend who came in to see me just a few days ago, a fellow by the name of George Hunton, head of the Catholic Interracial Council. He is over 80 years of age. He came in and I talked to him. I have known him for many years. He said, “You and I remember when this was kind of a lonesome field. We didn’t have any bishops talking about this. We didn’t have the great religious communities.” Yes, we had clergymen here and there, but we didn’t have the top people in those days. We had the Catholic Interracial Council. We helped finance it. It didn’t have much money. It did the best that it could.
So, as I say, my mind goes back in this field, and I refuse to accept the idea that the American trade union movement should be scolded and berated because it is not doing enough, because I remember the time when this was the one segment of American society that was out in the front and fighting in this field, and we didn’t have too much help.
I know the Negro is impatient. I know he has a right to be impatient. He has a right to say he wants these things, and he wants them now. He has waited a long time. I can understand that perfectly, but I can’t understand the idea that the way to get these things is to abuse your friends. The way to get these things is not to abuse the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the one union that stood out in this city over the years, and hold them up for abuse. I don’t buy this idea at all. I think the White Citizens Council should be abused, I think the big corporations, who give lip service to this idea of equality should be abused, and I think the trade unions should be criticized wherever there are shortcomings, but I don’t get the idea that it is good policy to abuse the people who are doing the most for you, to get them to do more, on the ground that you are wasting time criticizing those who are fundamentally opposed to you.
I think we can do a job. I am confident that we can do a good job in this field. I don’t know of any time where I have seen the American trade union movement, right down to the very grass root level, more conscious and more awake on this particular problem. We have to do it from a trade union point of view. It has got to be the trade unions, and there is no reason why it shouldn’t be trade union action, because the fundamentals of this American trade union movement, the fundamental principles upon which we are founded, indicate that this activity is a normal activity of the trade union movement.
I am quite sure that the resolution covers the subject very, very well.
The committee that has considered this resolution includes in its membership practically every president of every fair-sized international in this Federation, and I am sure that they went over this resolution with a great deal of care. I think it represents the sentiment of the convention. I think it gives us a program that we can well set our minds to carrying out, and if we carry it out, I think we will do a really good job.
I realize that you have an amendment before you, and I would suggest, if the resolution is not satisfactory, rather than vote for that amendment, that you send it back to the committee, because if we are going to consider those amendments, I would like to talk to the committee about it.
I think the proposals made in Philip Randolph’s speech will certainly be given consideration by the officers of the Federation, and by the Executive Council. I think the portions of this resolution which direct action on the part of the officers and the Executive Council certainly can be carried out, and I am certain that all the members of the Executive Council will put their best efforts forth to carry them out.
As I say, you have before you the question of amending this resolution or of passing it as is, so I would like to first put the question before you and take a vote on the amendment to the resolution proposed by Brother Roth and seconded by Brother Evans. Those who favor the amendment signify by saying aye; those opposed, no.
The amendment is lost.
You will now vote on the resolution as presented by the Committee. The amendment was rejected and you are now going to vote on the resolution as presented by the Committee, signify by saying aye; contrary, no.
The motion has carried and it is so ordered.
I would like to announce for the record that the resolution was adopted unanimously.
Proceedings of the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, New York, November 14–20, 1963, Vol. I, pp. 204–41.
11. AFL-CIO RESOLUTION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1965
RESOLUTION NO. 95—By Delegate Walter P. Reuther, Industrial Union Department.
The industrial unions of America have long been in the forefront of the civil rights movement. Through the years, they have joined with others in helping to make the important progress of recent years possible. But to achieve real civil rights for all our citizens, much more remains to be done.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 transformed into law the beliefs of the Declaration of Independence and the promises of the post-Civil War constitutional amendments. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened up the public accommodation of the nation, provided for the desegregation of all facilities receiving federal funds and sought to guarantee equal employment opportunities for all. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided the means to end discrimination at the ballot box. We commend President Johnson for his courage, his skill and his leadership in securing the passage of these laws—a truly historic code of freedom and equality.
But laws do not enforce themselves. Laws form the basis of change; only enforcement produces change. The challenge now is to convert these laws into solid and continuing accomplishment; unfortunately this challenge has not been fully met.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provides for Federal registrars in counties where there is discrimination against Negro registration and voting and against registration and voting by other minority groups. Today almost four months after the law took effect the Justice Department has sent registrars into only thirty-two counties; Congress has provided a ready and effective means for breaking through the voting discrimination pattern but unless registrars are promptly appointed in every county where discrimination exists the 1966 elections will once more see massive disenfranchisement of Negroes. After a hundred years of delay we cannot wait longer for “voluntary” compliance; the tools for the enfranchisement of Negroes are at hand and they should be used.
Nor has the Department of Health, Education and Welfare protected the school desegregation rights recognized and enforced by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What the Supreme Court required in its historic 1954 decision was public school desegregation; that is what Congress has required HEW to foster through the withholding of federal school aid. Yet instead of requiring desegregation, HEW is accepting so-called “freedom of choice” plans permitting the Negro child to choose white or Negro schools. But the choice is illusory; the option to a Negro child in the deep South is only freedom to invite harassment. whatever may be the virtues, if any, of freedom of choice in areas of the country free of intimidation, freedom of choice in the deep South today is nothing more than laundered segregation.
But this is not all. There remain urgent civil rights areas where we have yet to make even a significant beginning. Every day new all-white suburbs spring up in metropolitan areas and tighten the white noose around the deteriorating central city with its Negro, Latin-American, Puerto Rican and other minority ghettoes. For all the promise of desegregation in employment, education and public accommodations, the pattern of segregation in housing continues unabated as we create new apartheid communities.
And there are other fronts on which action is vitally necessary if we are to make equality a reality in America. It is high time to begin the reform of judicial administration in the South. The judicial system in some of our southern states today is racially segregated and discriminatory in purpose and effect at every significant stage. The courts themselves—from the judge to the prosecutor to the marshals—all these are “for whites only.” Negro citizens in these localities cannot obtain fair treatment from the courts when their most fundamental rights are at stake—to purchase property, to have their contracts honored, to be protected from physical assault. Moreover, Negroes continue to be denied participation in the jury system; a Negro charged with a crime thus comes before “twelve good men and true” drawn exclusively from the hostile white community in a discriminatory and segregated fashion.
Thus Negroes cannot use the courts either to preserve and vindicate their rights or to obtain a fair trial when they are accused of violating the rights of others. And possibly worst of all, those who dare to stand up for the protection of the Negro in his civil rights are assaulted and attacked, and even murdered in cold blood while the southern system of “justice” fails to operate or actually protects the white citizens who perpetrated the crime. The unpunished killings of William L. Moore, Medgar Evers, four young girls in a Birmingham church, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Colonel Lemuel Penn, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Reverend James Reeb, Mrs. Viola Liuzzo and Jonathan Daniels demonstrate that southern prosecutors, judges and juries will not or cannot punish cold-blooded murders of Negroes and their civil rights supporters.
The rule of prejudice in many southern courts is destructive of our basic precepts of justice and strikes at the fundamentals of a free and civilized society. Government by the lawless, by the ruthless night-riders of the Ku Klux Klan and their ideological allies, must come to an end!
But even when the last law providing for equality has been passed and when the full resources of the federal government are put behind the enforcement of all the laws, there will still be a gigantic task ahead. Centuries of discrimination have left Negroes and members of other minority groups disadvantaged to a degree that even full legal rights cannot overcome. Undereducated, under-housed and underemployed, the alienation and hopelessness of many Negroes and others is the fault of a society too long indifferent to their cause. A massive poverty program—on which we have made only a small down payment—is the responsibility of a society which has permitted this alienation and hopelessness to take place.
We do not urge this massive program out of fear of repeated Watts-type riots. We urge it as the responsibility of civilized society to see that none shall be denied where means exist to help. This is no time for a slow-down in civil rights; speed must be the watchword until the job is done. And, as we call upon the nation to redouble its efforts toward equality, we pledge to speed up our own work to bring full equality to all within the ranks of labor. . . .
RESOLVED: 1. We call upon the Administration to move forward with the implementation and enforcement of the 1964 and 1965 civil rights laws with all the vigor and resources at its command.
2. We urge President Johnson to extend the 1962 Housing Executive Order to cover not only FHA and VA insured mortgages, but to cover mortgage activities of all federally-assisted or federally-insured bank and savings and loan companies.
3. We strongly recommend the passage in the next session of Congress of legislation making acts of physical violence against persons attempting to exercise civil rights or to peacefully protest the denial of civil rights federal crimes to be tried in the federal courts. And we call for immediate federal criminal prosecution of local law enforcement officers who by condonation, conspiracy and inaction deny equal protection of the law to citizens.
4. We urge that the federal government enforce civil rights laws to the limit of its ability, especially in curbing the vicious lawlessness of the Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers among public officials and private citizens. Federal agents should be ordered to act promptly to arrest violators of all federal laws. Federal prosecutions should be multiplied. Better appointments of judges will make those prosecutions more likely to result in justice.
5. We urge that jurors in both federal and state courts be chosen from jury rolls made up completely by chance selection, so that systematically all-white juries in both federal and state courts in the South will become a thing of the past.
6. We pledge to continue our past close cooperation with men, women and organizations of good will outside the labor movement who seek wholesome and democratic solutions to the vexing problems of discrimination. The hope of the future lies in the continuation of this alliance of labor with other groups and individuals in search of justice. Together we can find the way.
Proceedings of the Sixth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, San Francisco, Calif., December 9–15, 1965, Vol. I, pp. 210–13.
12. STATEMENT BY THE AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ON CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1966
Chicago, Illinois
August 23, 1966
On September 6, the Senate will begin consideration of the Civil Rights Act of 1966 (H.R. 14765), which meets the major objectives of the 1965 AFL-CIO convention’s civil rights resolution.
This bill is not as strong as we would like but it is a positive step forward in the achievement of full and equal opportunity for all Americans.
The bill contains provisions assuring non-discrimination in the selection of federal and state juries; broadening federal laws against acts of racial violence, and authorizing federal court injunctions against anticipated violence or intimidation.
Probably the single most important section of the bill is Title IV, establishing for the first time a federal guarantee of the principle of fair housing. We wish this section were stronger but the hard, practical fact is that this was the strongest possible title that could have been passed in the House of Representatives.
As passed by the House, this section does guarantee the principle of fair housing. It does provide an important first step in implementing that principle. It applies to an estimated 40 percent of the nation’s homes (about 23 million dwellings) as well as to all new housing developments and high-rise apartments.
We would have preferred 100 percent coverage but such a proposal would not have passed. We supported, without apologies, the Mathias amendment as an acceptable compromise to insure passage of this title. Without it, the title would have been defeated and there would have been no open housing section at all.
The compromise contains less than we wanted and less than justice demands, but by establishing the principle of fair housing it makes a significant start.
However, the fight is far from over. In the Senate, a determined filibuster is planned by those who traditionally oppose any civil rights measure. That filibuster must be broken before the Civil Rights Bill of 1966 can become law.
We intend to do everything in our power, in cooperation with others who believe in full civil rights, to break the filibuster and pass the bill. We earnestly solicit the support of all in America who believe in the principle of open housing. Certainly the inhumanity of the ghetto, the injustice of segregated housing, the denial of equal opportunity to Negroes is just as reprehensible when it occurs in Northern cities as in the South.
Therefore we urge the Senate to pass H.R. 14765 with speed and without crippling amendments.
AFL-CIO press release. Copy in possession of the editors.
An Exchange of Views Between Jerry Menapace, Executive Secretary of Local 117, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, and Abe Feinglass, Vice President and Director of the Fur and Leather Dept. of the A.M.C.B.W.
July 21, 1966
Abe Feinglass, Vice-President
A.M.C. and B.W. of N.A.
2800 North Sheridan Road
Chicago, Illinois 60657
Dear Brother Feinglass,
I write at this time because I am disturbed and disillusioned by the change in direction of the Civil Rights Movement.
As you know, Local 117 has always supported the movement, vocally, physically and financially, and our Union meets C.O.R.E.’s standard as a “good” organization. 52
When C.O.R.E. selected Baltimore as its Target Project, I was pleased, and I felt that those of us in Labor who are and have been genuine friends of the Civil Rights Movement could join hands with C.O.R.E. and clean up the stinking injustices which still prevail in certain sections of Baltimore, including certain all-white Local Unions in the Building Trades.
The Building Trades elected a new President, a young, active and rough former Iron Worker, and they rented offices in our building. Largely through my efforts at getting close to this new President and convincing him that he must use his position to break down the barriers to minority groups, he has embarked on a bold, new (for Building Trades) program to integrate his Council, and in less than a year, he has accomplished more integration than anyone could have predicted. We used our influence on him and on one of our Employers who happens to be Negro to settle a dispute between them as to who would construct a new plant. We also were responsible for the Building Trades hiring a Negro girl as private secretary to the President.
All of this was done only to improve Labor’s image with the Negro community, and especially with C.O.R.E.
Then came the introduction of what’s called the Maryland Freedom Union. As in a few other areas, this so-called Union is attempting to organize workers in all-Negro plants or stores, in all-Negro areas, and using the emotion-charged momentum of the Civil Rights Movement to accomplish their goals. The Freedom Union began by organizing a small department store employing twelve or fifteen Negroes, which, of course, brought loud cries from the Retail Clerks Union here.
Our Central Labor Council’s Civil Rights Committee, acting on a letter from the Clerks, recommended to the Council (of which I am Secretary) that we condemn the actions of the Maryland Freedom Union. Not wanting to put our Council in the position of opposition or condemning any legitimate effort to organize workers, especially an all-Negro effort, I successfully amended the Civil Rights Committee’s report to refer the entire matter to the Council Executive Board, of which I am an Officer, and forbade the press in the meeting to print any reference to the battle which took place on the floor.
Subsequently, I met with leaders of the Maryland Freedom Union, one of whom is a full-time C.O.R.E. activist and a very intelligent, dedicated young man, in an effort to learn more about their purpose and goal. They assured me and the Amalgamated Local 117 that we were a “good” Union and that they would not attempt to organize in our jurisdiction. They agreed further to turn over any leads that might pick up in our jurisdiction, if we would agree to help them financially and oragnizationally.
I explained to them that as an Officer of the AFL-CIO Council and as head of the fourth largest Local Union in the Baltimore area, I could not help them organize workers in other Union’s proper jurisdiction, but if they could assure the Council that their goal was to organize workers into legitimate Unions and not to perpetuate this Freedom Union in direct competition to Locals of our Council, I was sure that together with C.O.R.E., we could set this town on its ear.
I am sad to say, not only would they not give this assurance, but they went right to the task of raiding two Unions affiliated with our Council, using the “black brother” approach.
Then came the much publicized Baltimore C.O.R.E. Convention, which I attended as “Community Observer.” I’m sure you have read the results.
The day after the Convention, two leaders of C.O.R.E. came to my office to ask for financial support for their “Baltimore Project.” I underscore “financial” because they no longer want my personal physical support and their reasoning makes me doubt very seriously the moral and practical application of “Black Power.”
These two C.O.R.E. leaders told me quite matter-of-factly that they do not intend to accept white liberals in positions of leadership in their movement. That Negroes must develop “their own” leaders, even if it means serious and costly mistakes in the process. That Negroes cannot continue to “accept the patronage” of white liberals, because to do so somehow leaves the Negro feeling inferior and unable to do for himself.
When I suggested that this new concept was “separatism” of a different color, and that the phrase “Black Power” would undo much of the work that had been done by so-called white liberals like myself, I was politely told that I was afraid of Black Power, I never was a true friend of the Civil Rights Movement.
It took a few seconds to let my blood cool down, then I not so politely told the young gentlemen to get the hell out of my office.
Abe, I am very disappointed. And, from reading the remarks of Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, and several of our Baltimore Negro leaders, I’m not alone.
The problem for me is one of mixed emotions at this moment.
I agree wholeheartedly with the goal of true equality for all Americans. But I find myself in complete disagreement with this new “Black Power” approach. And I am incapable of defending C.O.R.E.’s actions, because they have neutralized me to the point of complete apathy insofar as Community Action is concerned.
Please give me the benefit of your thoughts, Abe, because I feel that I have not deserted the cause of Negro rights, rather the cause has deserted me.
Fraternally,
Jerry Menapace,
Executive Secretary
July 28, 1966
Mr. Jerry Menapace,
Executive Secretary
Local Union No. 117
1216 East Baltimore Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
Dear Brother Menapace:
I have your letter of July 21st, and have read it carefully.
It is clear that the problems you raise are serious, and do complicate our efforts to play a role in the struggle for Civil Rights. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the fight we have developed, and which people like you have carried forward, to achieve equality and integration was motivated by our own conscience, and our own understanding that a great wrong had been committed against the Negro people. We have the responsibility of attempting to correct it.
Nothing that any Negro leader or organization does changes this fundamental premise or justifies the abandonment of this worthwhile cause. It is a fact of life that in all revolutionary causes and upheavals, there develop some mistaken and distorted policies. These usually reflect inevitable responses to delays, sellouts, frustrations and continued massive exploitation.
I am sure that you will recall from reading recent history that in the years after the Automobile Workers were organized, there were hundreds of wildcat strikes all over the country. You will also recall the arguments of the employers and many public officials who said that although they could understand these outbreaks prior to an agreement, now that machinery had been established for the solution of grievances, these wildcats were indefensible.
Our answer was that you cannot spoon feed liberty. We asked for understanding, however illogical individual acts were.
I am confident that you understand that there are many in the labor movement who do things that we cannot accept as proper. Nevertheless, we would fight against anyone who would deny the decent objectives of all of labor because of some actions of a union or a few unions.
I do, therefore, believe that this period requires the greatest understanding of those of us who are really concerned with the whole struggle. I cannot, in good conscience, on the basis of what you tell me in your letter, recommend that you give money to CORE’s present community project. This would be to support the long term goal of a labor movement divided along lines of color.
On the other hand, I would suggest even more energetic activity by our Local Union and other local unions in bringing opportunity for employment to Negro workers everywhere in the area. I would suggest development of even stronger Negro leadership inside the ranks of our own and other local unions. Only by developing such a Negro leadership within our own ranks can we carry forward the fight which can be successful only as a joint and common effort—the elimination of bigotry, racism and all Jim Crow practices.
Beyond that, by developing a Negro leadership within our Union, there is the hope that such a leadership can play a role in bringing clarity to the Civil Rights organizations whose basic purpose we honor and share, but whose current tactics we believe, frankly, to be mistaken.
I hope this letter will help you in clarifying your own thinking on the matters you raised with me.
With best wishes and best personal regards, I am
Fraternally yours,
Abe Feinglass, Vice President
Director, Fur & Leather Dept.
Labor Today 5 (December-January, 1966–67):16–18.
14. AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL REPORT ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1967
How can we explain riots and eruptions in cities and the emergence of the black power slogan after civil rights victories in the courts and in the Congress?
There are those who say nothing has happened except a few token steps in eliminating discrimination and segregation. There are others who say too much freedom has been routed too fast.
At the February 1967 executive council meeting we said:
“Sweeping changes have taken place on the American scene in the area of civil rights over the past few years but the forward momentum has clearly slowed . . . Yet the problems of civil rights remain and continue to affect basic components of our social fabric—schools, jobs, housing and other urban problems.”
It is true that the public accommodations issues which generated the sit-ins and the freedom riots have been all resolved and that some progress has been made in the areas of employment, voting, hospitals and school desegregation.
There is still a long way to go in ending the dual school system in the South. De facto school segregation in the North exists as well. Equal justice and freedom from intimidation have still to be finally won. The struggle to end discrimination in housing has barely begun.
It may be safe to say that, but for housing, legal remedies exist for most practices of segregation and discrimination based on race, color, national origin and religion. However the country, white as well as nonwhite, expected that with the acceleration of the pace by which segregation and discrimination were being eliminated, minority group citizens would move up the economic ladder into the mainstream of American life.
From 1939 until the Supreme Court Decision in 1954, the gap between the average income of minority group citizens and the population as a whole narrowed slowly but steadily and perceptively. Indeed it did so on an average of one percent a year, so that by 1955, the average income of minority group citizens had moved from 45 percent of the national average to 60 percent.
Since discrimination and segregation were a substantial reason for that gap, it was logical for many to assume that a more rapid elimination of discrimination would lead to a more rapid elimination of this gap.
While for many individual minority group citizens the dropping of barriers led to better jobs, better education and better housing, for large masses of minority group citizens it did not. In the last decade, during a period of rising standards of living for the population as a whole and for many minority group citizens as well, the median income of minority group citizens has not kept pace with that of the population as a whole.
Not only has the gap not narrowed at a faster pace, it has not narrowed at all. Our great urban centers have developed overcrowded, decaying center cities with high unemployment rates, and increasing problems and difficulties in providing adequate education, housing, and social services.
In the last few years, we have reduced unemployment to 4 percent and lower. Minority group unemployment has also come down from 11–12 percent to between 7.5–8 per cent. However it remains double that of the national average and minority group youth unemployment has maintained itself at between 21 to 30 percent. In the hard-core ghetto areas it is as high as 35 percent.
Here is the powder keg. Legal guarantees have been established, expectations have risen. But for many, no significant, tangible benefits have been experienced.
Earlier this year this council said:
“Equal opportunity in employment requires full employment and education and training needed for higher-skilled and better-paid jobs—in addition to the elimination of discrimination. Equality of opportunity in education requires that sufficient funds are provided to raise the quality of our schools, North and South, to meet present day needs as well as that these schools be integrated.
“Equality of opportunity in housing requires that we eliminate slums and build up the homes that are needed for all of America’s population—in addition to eliminating discrimination in sale and rental of housing. Indeed we must make our cities a healthy and decent place to live and repledge ourselves to the elimination of poverty in America.”
However it has become increasingly clear that to accomplish the foregoing requires complex and massive action.
To start on this monumental endeavor it is necessary that Congress enact the civil rights legislation put before it by the President and adequately fund model cities, anti-poverty, housing, education and job training legislation.
In addition, there is a crying need to enact an emergency job creation bill which would provide employment in public services in our cities for a million unemployed, largely unskilled, workers. Finally Congress and the nation must develop a comprehensive program for the reconstruction of our cities that will end slums and urban decay while providing fruitful employment at adequate incomes.
It is only on this base that we can expect the “Fulfillment of These Rights.”
In August 1967, the AFL-CIO participated in the Urban Coalition Conference convened by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. At the Conference, the delegates, consisting of representatives from labor, business, civil rights and religious institutions called for such a program.
The AFL-CIO Compliance Program
While government action is essential, there is an important role for voluntary institutions: business, labor, civil rights, religious and others. We in the AFL-CIO have long assumed a responsibility not only to help get legislation but to help work for its effective and intelligent implementation. We have also acknowledged the responsibility of working in our own house to eliminate discriminatory practices that may exist.
The program that was developed by the AFL-CIO after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to help bring about compliance with the act still provides a meaningful guide.
Point One was an education campaign in regard to civil rights problems. This is a continuing program. The AFL-CIO through its departments of civil rights, legislation, education, public relations, community services, publications and political education does a year-round job in this area.
Civil rights programs are conducted at summer schools of international unions and state federations, at conferences and special education institutes. In the spring of 1966 a third four-week staff training institute for full-time southern union staff members was held at the University of Georgia. There was a full week on civil rights problems, and Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the NAACP, was a guest speaker at the institute.
Following the 1966 elections, the November issue of the Federationist was devoted fully to civil rights, with articles by President Meany, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and Bayard Rustin. It also carried articles by the directors of the Civil Rights and Education Departments and by Professor Ray Marshall, well known authority in the area of labor and civil rights. This issue had an additional run of 80,000 copies by now exhausted because of requests and orders by unions and others.
In addition to other AFL-CIO pamphlets and material, 100,000 pamphlets on “Right to Work, A Trap for America’s Minorities,” prepared by the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and 30,000 pamphlets on President Johnson’s civil rights message to the 90th Congress have been distributed.
The Civil Rights Department also makes monthly mailings of important material on civil rights to key union leadership.
Another point of the program called upon the labor movement to observe the workings of the Civil Rights Act, “so that any inadequacies which may develop in practice can be presented to Congress for further legislative action.”
We have, following this mandate, supported and helped get enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and are now supporting various proposals before Congress in the areas of equal protection under the law, fair housing and the strengthening of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. President Meany testified in August 1967 on fair housing legislation.
Next, the AFL-CIO pledged to support adequate funding of effective implementation of existing legislation. We have continued to support adequate budget requirements for those federal agencies entrusted with the responsibility of implementing existing legislation.
We have also worked with the compliance committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, both in helping and pressing these federal agencies.
Liaison Programs
Most importantly as we have said before, “The promotion of equal opportunity in employment is a major concern of unions. Unions, of course, do not control the overwhelming majority of hiring, but unions can . . . make a significant contribution to achieving voluntary compliance with this section of the law.”
It is significant that the recent survey of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other studies show that the employment area that has been least penetrated by minority groups is that of white collar. This area also has been much less penetrated by unionization.
Another growing segment of the labor force is that of government. In some sections of the country, especially in state and local government employment, minority group representation is extremely low. It is for this reason that the AFL-CIO recommended that Title VII be extended to state and local government employment.
Even prior to the appointment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, President Meany had asked each international union president to appoint an officer to work on fair employment problems with the commission and the AFL-CIO Department of Civil Rights. Today, some 85 international unions have assigned an officer to work in this area.
Shortly after the appointment of the EEOC, the Civil Rights Department obtained an agreement with EEOC that a copy of all discrimination charges which involved local unions would be sent to the Civil Rights Department and to the international union whose local was involved. Many similar agreements have since been obtained with a number of state fair employment practices commissions.
In the past two years the work of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee and its Subcommittee on Compliance has increased tremendously. In many cases international unions, working with the Civil Rights Department, have helped the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to conciliate complaints with local unions and have also been able to provide staff investigators with an understanding of why some charges were not justified.
Since December 1965 the Civil Rights Department has received notification of over 350 charges of discrimination involving AFL-CIO affiliates.
Besides work on individual complaints, there are complicated policy problems which the AFL-CIO attempts to help the commission to resolve. An all-day meeting between the commission and a representative group of international unions on problems of seniority and a second similar all-day conference on problems of sex discrimination have been held.
In February 1967 the EEOC published in the Federal Register an announcement of an open hearing to discuss proposed reporting forms to be issued to unions and joint apprenticeship committees.
The AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee devoted a good portion of its March meeting to a discussion of these proposed forms. The AFL-CIO testified at the public hearing and asked that the commission take the forms back for review because some questions were unclear, some unnecessary. This was done. Although there is still not complete satisfaction with these forms, significant improvements have been made.
Shortly after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission became operative, Walter G. Davis, then assistant director of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department, became deputy executive director of the commission on a temporary basis. He helped develop its field office structure and, even more importantly, he helped familiarize the commission and its personnel with the structure and policies of the labor movement.
Since his return to the AFL-CIO and the resignation of Winn Newman, a labor liaison officer, who is now with the United Steelworkers Union, the EEOC has appointed two labor liaison officers.
The Civil Rights Department, working with labor liaison officers and regional EEOC offices, has helped to promote a series of conferences for key union leadership at regional and state levels. Two fruitful conferences have been held this year, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in Washington, D.C. Others are scheduled.
At the same time, the staff of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department has begun a series of visits to the various regional offices of EEOC and one and two-day conferences for EEOC staff. The purpose of these conferences is to provide background and information about union structure, principles of collective bargaining and union policy.
Although the EEOC has had difficulties with turnover in staff and with budget and has experienced many problems, being a new agency, there have been some important achievements.
The AFL-CIO has fought long and hard for a FEP law and we will continue to work with EEOC for effective and intelligent enforcement of the act, as we continue to work with our affiliates in maximizing the elimination of discriminatory practices that may exist in local unions.
In addition to work with the EEOC, the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee has seen a need to develop avenues of cooperation with other government agencies such as the Office of Federal Contract Compliance and the Justice Department.
The Civil Rights Department is attempting to develop a procedure for conciliation between international unions and these two government agencies.
The last point of the 1964 program was a call upon our state and city central bodies to work with other groups in the community to help solve civil rights and related problems at the grass roots level. The need for this is, if anything, far greater than even before.
Mergers of Segregated Locals
The AFL-CIO began working on problems of discrimination before there was a Civil Rights Act.
At the founding merger convention, the Civil Rights Committee was established.
At the 1959 convention, the various types of discrimination that were known to exist within the labor movement were identified. The convention called on all affiliates to cooperate with the Civil Rights Committee to solve such problems.
One such problem is that of segregated locals. Affiliates were asked to effect mergers of such locals, separated because of race.
Many of our affiliates that had segregated locals responded to the AFL-CIO convention mandate calling for merger with all possible speed before the Civil Rights Act was on the books.
The first interpretive guideline issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stated that separate locals and separate lines of seniority based on race were a violation of the Civil Rights Act. President Meany responded immediately by stating that the AFL-CIO was in agreement with this guideline and that it was perfectly consistent with the AFL-CIO policy.
Since that time there has been acceleration in the activity of affiliated international unions in effecting mergers of segregated locals. The American Federation of Musicians for instance has assigned James C. Petrillo, its former president, to work with local unions in bringing about mergers. He has been successful in effecting mergers of separate locals in Baltimore, Md., Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Va., Chicago, Ill., and other cities.53
The Molders International Union earlier this year instructed separate local unions in Virginia and Alabama to appoint committees to work out satisfactory merger agreements in compliance with the law and with AFL-CIO policy. This has been successfully done in Holdt, Anniston, and Mobile, Alabama and in Richmond, Virginia.
The Chemical Workers, Oil Workers and Tobacco Workers also have completed the mergers of all their remaining separate locals.
Other affiliates have successfully completed mergers and continue to work on those still existing.
Out of the 60 thousand-plus local unions that our affiliates have, at the latest count 142 racially segregated locals remain. Plans for merger of many of these are presently under way.
Apprenticeship Programs
Although there are less than 250,000 registered apprentices in the U.S., approximately half of which are in the building and construction trades industry, access to these jobs by minority group youth has generated a very high degree of interest.
This is understandable because these apprentice openings lead to skilled and well-paid jobs and frequently to supervisory and business opportunities. Since the technological revolution we are going through is eliminating many semi-skilled and nonskilled jobs, entry into the skilled and technical job section of the labor force becomes even more significant. What is involved is not merely finding better jobs but being left increasingly in low-paid service jobs or finding no job at all.
It was assumed by many that if nondiscrimination was assured, significant numbers of minority group youth would automatically find their way into large numbers of apprenticeship openings.
Nondiscrimination regulations were enacted by the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training. Apprenticeship was specifically covered in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and regulations were adopted by the contract compliance agencies as well.
We have discovered however that unless special efforts are made to bring information about apprenticeship opportunities, actively recruit and motivate minority group youngsters and frequently help them prepare for admission to programs, very little progress results.
However, in the last couple of years some government and private efforts have been successful in bringing significant numbers of minority group youngsters into skilled apprenticeship jobs.
The Apprenticeship Information Center of the Employment Security Office in Washington, D.C. has placed some 500 Negro youngsters in apprenticeship openings since June 1963, almost 400 of these from June 1965 to June 1967, as printer, bricklayer, carpenter, cement mason, electrician, plumber, steamfitter, ironworker, sheetmetal worker and plasterer apprentices.
The Labor Department has established information centers in more than a score of other cities and while none have worked as effectively as the one in Washington, the one in Chicago has achieved some significant results. It has placed over 100 minority group apprentices in the last year alone. It is hoped that other centers will increase their effectiveness.
In New York City, the apprenticeship program of the Workers Defense League and A. Philip Randolph Education Fund has been successful in placing over 250 minority group youngsters within the last two years—as electricians, carpenters, steamfitters, iron workers, stone derrick men, metal lathers, plasters, sheet metal and elevator construction operators.
This program has been funded by the Labor Department to expand its activities into New Rochelle and Buffalo, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and Newark, New Jersey. It has already placed electrical, plumber and bricklayer apprentices in New Rochelle and Westchester County. In Buffalo, New York, where the program has only been in operation since May, it has placed apprentices in sheet metal; other youngsters have made application and are being prepared to qualify for steam fitters, roofers and ironworkers programs.
It helps willing youngsters to apply and prepares them to qualify and brings information to the schools and the community and it has, by demonstrating its competency, received cooperation from the trades and the contractors.
In Baltimore, Maryland, the Urban League has received a grant to develop the same type of program and has also received the cooperation of the Baltimore Building Trades Council and its affiliated unions in carrying out such a program. The goal of at least 30 minority group youths placed as apprentices by the first of the year, has already been reached in such trades as iron workers, steam fitters, operating engineers and carpenters.
In Detroit, Michigan, a similar grant has been made to the Trade Union Leadership Council, which has signed a contract with the support of the Detroit Building Trades Council to recruit and refer minority group youth in the coming year.
In Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the Building Trades Council has cooperated with community groups to insure opportunities for minority group youngsters. In the past few months Negro apprentices have been placed in sheetmetal, roofers, operating engineers and carpenters.
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the Opportunities Industrialization Center, in cooperation with the Building and Construction Trades Council, the Negro Trade Union Leadership Council and the Urban League has referred and placed 65 Negro apprentices in the lathers, sheet metal workers, plumbers, roofers, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians and iron workers programs.
Although the number of jobs involved can have no great impact on overall Negro youth unemployment figures, these job openings, for the reasons we have mentioned above, have more than symbolic significance. It is for this reason that Secretary-Treasurer Schnitzler, Chairman of the Civil Rights Committee, assigned a good portion of his speeches to the subject of equal opportunity at the Southern States Apprenticeship Conference in New Orleans two years ago and the Mid-Atlantic States Apprenticeship Conference in Norfolk, Virginia this year. Director Don Slaiman of the Civil Rights Department did the same at the Southern States Apprenticeship Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi this year.
Although not receiving as much publicity as the question of apprenticeship entry and that of merging segregated locals, the AFL-CIO and its affiliates continue to work on other matters pertaining to the elimination of discrimination and the expansion of equal opportunity for all.
The following are some of these areas: Equal access to membership, equal wages and conditions of work, elimination of discrimination in seniority and promotion systems, nondiscriminatory representation and finally union initiatives to expand equal opportunity by negotiation of nondiscriminatory clauses in collective bargaining agreements and other affirmative measures, including helping workers to file complaints with government agencies where necessary.
The organization of minority group workers into unions is in itself a very significant step towards expanding opportunities, increasing wages and improving working conditions for these workers.
Proceedings of the Seventh Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Report of the Executive Council, December 7–12, 1967, Vol. II, pp. 158–66.
15. AFL-CIO RESOLUTION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1969
Fifteen years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools violated the Constitution and called for its ending with all deliberate speed. But compliance with the law came very slowly. After ten years, only 1% of Negro children were going to integrated schools in the South. Today, the figure is still far from satisfactory.
During the Kennedy-Johnson Administration, Congress passed comprehensive civil rights legislation to end discrimination in all aspects of American life—public accommodation, voting, education, employment, housing and in the administration of justice.
Today, we can see the results of substantial progress not only in this fight against discrimination but in bringing minority group citizens into the mainstream of American life.
But despite this progress, there are no grounds for complacency. The increasing crisis proportions of problems in our cities, the abnormally high rates of unemployment among Negro and other minorities and the remaining pockets of discrimination are festering sores. It would be idle and tragic to ignore them or pretend that they will go away.
Indeed, it cannot be stressed too strongly that the country as a whole, and we in the labor movement in particular, must pay greater attention at every level—national, state and local—to bring about sound, effective and democratic solutions to these problems.
In fact, since the last election, the momentum for sound progress has slowed.
It is no exaggeration to say that the great gains that have been made as a result of the efforts of the civil rights movement, the American labor movement and religious and liberal organizations are in peril today.
The Nixon Administration has failed to provide forthright and unambiguous support or adequate and consistent implementation of the laws.
The United States Civil Rights Commission recently observed that “for the first time since the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation, the Federal Government has requested, in court, a slowdown in the pace of desegregation.”
This is no isolated incident. In failing to oppose the Whitten amendment in the House of Representatives and by moving from established, successful regulations to complete reliance on the courts, the Nixon Administration is permitting a major threat in the struggle to achieve meaningful school desegregation.
Another example is in the area of voting, where the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aided by vigorous implementation by the Department of Justice under President Johnson resulted in 800,000 new Negro registered voters in those states where voting discrimination had been most onerous. But here too, the Administration has failed to press for a simple five-year extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that would insure that the clock not be turned back.
Nixon Administration officials are covering this retreat in civil rights enforcement by trying to make a whipping boy of unions, especially those in the building trades. They have resorted to an unsound double standard in attempting to deal with the legitimate problem of expanding the opportunities for minority group workers in higher paid skilled and technical jobs.
It is part of a calculated strategy of accommodating conservative elements in the South while, at the same time, trying to divide minorities, labor and liberals who have been the backbone of the effort to achieve progress in the civil rights area.
The unity of these forces for equality are vitally necessary today to maintain the gains that have been made and to start a new march forward toward the goal of an integrated society with equal opportunity and equal justice for all.
The AFL-CIO is proud of its record in the struggle for civil rights and we have particularly sought to end discrimination in employment. The AFL-CIO played a major role in getting a Fair Employment Practice section into the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which covered unions as well as employers. It has worked with its affiliates to attain compliance with the law. Today, it strongly supports efforts to strengthen the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by giving it cease-and-desist powers needed to make it more effective. The Administration is opposed, seeking enforcement in the federal district courts. Here as in the school desegregation situation, the Administration moves in a direction that the civil rights movement can only view as dilatory and ineffective.
Nor has the AFL-CIO limited its efforts to the legislative front. It has taken the initiative to work with affiliates in developing affirmative action programs on a sound basis that would bring significant results, whether required by law or not.
Specifically in the construction industry, the AFL-CIO has worked with the Building Trades Department, international unions, local building trades councils and groups like the Workers Defense League—A. Philip Randolph Education Fund Committee, the Urban League’s LEAP Program and other community groups. The results obtained speak for themselves.
By July of 1969, 4,248 minority group apprentices were placed by Outreach Programs. Of these, 3,958 were in building and construction trades apprenticeship programs. The bulk of these were not in the so-called “trowel trades.” Electricians, carpenters, iron workers, plumbers, steamfitters and sheet metal workers accounted for 2,293 of these apprentices.
Minority group apprentices in the construction industry have moved from less than 2.5% in 1960 to 7.2% in 1968. The majority of regular apprentices in federally serviced programs are in the construction industry. The percentage of minority apprentices is higher than in metal manufacturing, non-metal manufacturing and public utilities and transportation.
At its last Convention, the AFL-CIO endorsed the Outreach Programs that then existed in sixteen states and recommended that these programs be emulated in other states. Today, Outreach Programs for recruiting, motivating and preparing youngsters for building trades apprenticeship programs have been founded by the U.S. Department of Labor in fifty-five cities after agreement by local building trades councils for full cooperation.
This is an excellent example of a sound policy being designed and implemented with effective results.
The AFL-CIO is encouraged by the policy statement of the Executive Council of the Building and Construction Trades Department, which was passed unanimously at its recent 1969 Convention. This statement reaffirms the Building Trades policy of non-discrimination and calls for the acceleration and extension of apprenticeship Outreach Programs which have proved successful in actual operation. Moreover, it does not limit itself to these successful programs.
It also outlined a program for increasing minority group participation outside of the apprenticeship route, saying:
“We make flat and unqualified recommendation to local unions throughout the United States that for a stated period of time they should invite the application of qualified minority journeymen for membership in their respective local unions and should accept all such qualified minority journeymen provided they meet the ordinary and equally administered requirements for membership.”
It also recommends for study by local unions the establishment of training programs for minority workers who are not either qualified journeymen or eligible for apprenticeship. The statement says:
“We also recommend that the local unions and the local councils explore and vigorously pursue training programs for the upgrading of minority workers who are not of apprenticeship age. Such programs should be developed in such manner as to prevent under-cutting the established apprenticeship programs. The recommendations which have been previously made on model cities should furnish an appropriate guideline for development of these journeymen training programs.”
The implementation of this excellent statement is a sound basis for bringing increased participation by minority group workers in skilled jobs in the construction industry, especially in those locals which now have low participation rates. The use of quotas is a bad substitute for sound, effective programs. It is not only of questionable legality under the Civil Rights Act, but it does not even insure permanent skilled jobs for minority workers.
The Administration’s so-called “Philadelphia Plan” sets up unsound procedures used in no other industry, segment of the labor market or in government itself. The excuse for this is the low percentage of Negroes and other minorities in the construction industry. In most cases, the figures that have been used for justification have been erroneous. For example, in Philadelphia, government officials implied that less than 2% of building trades membership were minority group workers. The facts are that over 30% of Philadelphia Building Trades members are Negro, and excluding Laborers, 12% of all journeymen are Negro.
Government figures on white collar occupations and in industries, such as textile, banking and newspaper, show far less overall minority group participation than in construction and no higher percentages in skilled categories. In these industries, employers unilaterally do the hiring. Unions have little if any, say. There is no excuse for the Administration to play a “numbers game” as they did in the Philadelphia Plan publicity. Falsely portraying the facts won’t help minorities get jobs or end discrimination.
The AFL-CIO urges that vigorous efforts be made to expand opportunities for minority group youth and workers in the better-paid and more skilled jobs throughout our economy, including the building and construction trades industry. But we urge that it be done on a sound, fair effective continuing basis and we are opposed to making a political football out of an issue as important as the issue of ending discrimination in employment—everywhere, in all kinds of employment, for all time.
Discrimination and deprivation are problems not only of the American Negro, but of other minority groups. Americans of Mexican descent are the second largest minority. Puerto Rican, Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Eskimos and Aleuts today face problems of discrimination.
Some of the Spanish-speaking minorities have a disproportionate number of people unemployed, under-educated, and below the poverty line in income.
The AFL-CIO especially and its state federations in those areas where these minorities are concentrated must pay increasing attention to their special problems. We are proud of our efforts and those of our affiliated unions in helping the farm workers, under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, to bring dignity and an end to exploitation to this segment of the working poor. The AFL-CIO is also proud of the increased participation by minority group workers in the trade union movement and of the contributions that they are making.
The AFL-CIO reiterates its dedication to the principle established in its Constitution—when the merged federation was founded—equality and equal benefits of union membership for all workers regardless of race, creed, national origin or sex. We urge that all international unions, state federations and central bodies insure that their civil rights committees be active and work with the Civil Rights Department of the AFL-CIO toward the end of eliminating any vestige of discrimination that may remain in labor’s house.
We must—and we will—continue our fight for full civil rights.
We will continue to measure progress and not seek to hide it. We will continue to delineate shortcomings and move to eradicate them. We will continue the unity of labor, liberal and civil rights forces.
We stand firm in the conviction that has brought us this far—our belief in the dignity of a man, the worth of an individual, the classlessness of citizenship.
The answer is the keystone of the trade union movement—brotherhood.
Proceedings of the Eighth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Atlantic City, N.J., October 2–7, 1969, Vol. I, pp. 460–64.
16. THE FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IS ALIVE AND WELL
Thanks to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights—25 Years Old
Several hundred trade unionists, civil rights leaders, church leaders, community leaders and members of Congress recently gathered on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol for a very special occasion.
They were marking the 25th anniversary of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights—the vast coalition, now made up of 135 national organizations, that spearheaded the successful drives for national civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s.
It has been through the LCCR that organized labor has been able to play a significant role, itself, in the civil rights fight. Today, in addition to the AFL-CIO, 24 labor organizations are affiliated with the Conference. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was one of the first to join.
At the 25th anniversary reception on the Hill, two of the three top founding leaders were on hand, Roy Wilkins, the executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Arnold Aronson, an official of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. Wilkins is chairman of the LCCR and Aronson the secretary. The third founder, AFL-CIO Vice-Pres. A. Philip Randolph, was unable to attend; but he was surely represented in spirit by Bayard Rustin, director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and chairman of the LCCR executive committee.
As Wilkins licked the white icing of the birthday cake off his fingers, he exclaimed, “If anyone tells you civil rights is dead, say you saw it alive tonight.”
Civil rights was very much the topic as the LCCR held its annual board meeting during the day.
The meeting affirmed the present focus on the civil rights movement. The general consensus is that what is needed, more than new civil rights laws, is the enforcement of the laws now on the books.
“When a law is passed,” said Clarence Mitchell, who serves as legislative chairman of the LCCR, “opponents take the second line of defense.” Enforcement is critical, he said, noting that “some people thought that everything was done when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.”54
In addition to enforcement, the LCCR stresses economic issues.
Rep. Andrew Young (D-Ga.), a one-time aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, said that “the civil rights movement made life better for those who have always done fairly well. We have still not helped those who are excluded from the economic mainstream.”
He said that in Atlanta mass transit was not presented as a civil rights issue although poor blacks would benefit from the system.
Along this same line, the latest LCCR memo to participating organizations listed the pending Congressional issues of concern: legal service, genocide convention, busing, education, voter registration, budget control, minimum wage, Labor-HEW appropriations, manpower and D.C. home rule.
This was an entirely different ball game from 1949 when Randolph, Whitney Young, Wilkins, Walter Reuther, Aronson and others first formed the Leadership Conference. It was motivated by a 1948 report of a panel named by President Truman entitled, “To Secure These Rights.” It recommended legislation not just on fair employment practices but in other areas such as voting rights, education and housing.
The Leadership Conference had its first major success with the passing of the 1957 voting rights bill. That law had severe limitations but did provide for setting up the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
In 1960 and 1962 further civil rights progress was made in voting rights and outlawing the poll tax.
It was in 1963, following the tragedies of Birmingham, Ala., that President Kennedy called for across-the-board civil rights legislation. However, it was after his assassination that President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and in programs receiving federal assistance or by unions or employers and set up the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
A stronger voting rights law was passed in 1965 and, in 1968, a bill prohibiting discrimination in the sale or rental of about 80 percent of all housing.
About the time that the drive to support the Kennedy legislation was starting, organized labor’s central role in the LCCR began to show itself.
The AFL-CIO, which had been cooperating with the LCCR, formally affiliated, adding considerable weight. Also, Walter Reuther and Jack Conway, then director of the Industrial Union Department, agreed to assign a staff member to the Conference.55
The IUD move proved to be a particularly fortunate one. Marvin Caplan, a respected Washington newsman who had worked in fair housing programs, was assigned to the Conference and named director of its Washington office.
For the first time in its history the Leadership Conference had an office and full-time director. With its growing number of affiliated organizations, it has played a decisive role in the civil rights legislation of 1964 to date.
Five task forces were set up in employment, housing, federal programs, education and federal regulatory agencies. Later task forces were established on health, veterans’ affairs and women’s rights.
The Leadership Conference rarely gets into the headlines. It brings together lobbyists from its affiliated organizations and works quietly but effectively.
Its broad front ties in closely with trade union goals. Of its 15 executive committee members, four are from organized labor—AFL-CIO Legislative Director Andrew J. Biemiller, former AFL-CIO Civil Rights Director Donald Slaiman, AFSCME Pres. Jerry Wurf and ILGWU Vice Pres. Wilbur Daniels.56
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has changed with the time but its prime goal has always been to make this democracy work for all its citizens through the democratic process.
The Advance (April, 1974):12–13.
17. AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL REPORT ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1975
Since Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964, its widespread, positive effect on social behavior and employment practices in this country has been heartening.
It became law at a time when many symbols of racial discrimination remained, such as water fountains marked “white” and “colored.” Blacks and other minorities were denied hotel accommodations and meals in restaurants solely because of their race or color. Libraries, public parks, swimming pools and other government-owned facilities were also segregated. In employment, most low-paying jobs were relegated to minorities and women, and very few blacks held public office.
With implementation of the various titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many of these symbols of discrimination vanished within a decade and, hopefully, remain relics of the past. At the present time, most jobs are no longer designated on the basis of race and sex. Lines of progression and seniority rosters are devoid of racial and sexual designations.
The entree to higher job classifications through upward mobility programs grew at an accelerated rate until equality of aspirations and opportunity became a victim of the economic mismanagement that cast America into a depression.
There can be no denial that some slippage has occurred in civil rights progress. A number of important social programs, enacted during the Kennedy-Johnson years, were dismantled by the Nixon Administration through callous vetoes and heartless impoundments of congressional appropriations. Discriminatory allocation of revenue-sharing funds at the state and local levels has likewise had a negative impact on much-needed social programs.
Therefore, it is important to make sure that local and state governmental agencies disburse and allocate revenue-sharing funds in a non-discriminatory manner. The labor movement should concern itself with the programs for which these funds are allocated, and seek to preserve those social programs beneficial to the poor, minorities, elderly and handicapped.
Jobs and Manpower Training
Depression-level unemployment has hit all workers, but is particularly devastating in its impact on minorities and women. The unemployment rate for blacks at this writing was a frightening 14.6 percent and certain to go higher and remain high for many months to come. The official figure for unemployed black teenagers was an alarming 40.2 percent.
In spite of the economic crisis, some progress has been made in civil rights, but much more remains to be done. Minorities cannot get a room in the inn, or put food on the family table, or send their children to school properly clothed, unless they have jobs. Jobs are important to everyone. Therefore, full employment is as essential to fulfillment of civil rights as it is to a healthy economy.
The problems of blacks and whites are not the same in 1975 as they were in 1963. Today’s problems have little to do with racial attitudes and prejudices. Blacks and whites share concern about crime. Both races are emphatic in their feelings about law and order. Mutual concerns among both blacks and whites include housing, drug addiction, transportation, education and, above all else, jobs.
Emergency unemployment legislation enacted by Congress in late 1974 in order to create thousands of public service jobs has been grossly underfunded, perpetuating atrocious inner-city jobless rates. The government must become the employer of last resort for all workers—of all colors, at any age, for both sexes. The AFL-CIO has been in the forefront of those calling for full employment in this country. We recognize that this nation has the manpower to work and the technology to open the job market. What is needed is governmental leadership to achieve full employment.
The affluent have fled the cities, taking with them expansions of major industrial plants. This exodus to suburbia eroded the tax base of central cities, and many municipal governments are unable to provide some essential and necessary services. Rising unemployment also reduces tax revenue for local governments, forcing layoffs of civil servants, and among those hardest hit are minorities and women.
In the private section, plant closing and reduction of work forces affects all workers, including minorities and women.
The remedy proposed by friend and foe alike in order to curtail layoffs, especially as they effect women and minorities, is creation of alternatives to layoffs by seniority. These so-called alternatives include, among other things: Work-sharing imposed by law; “phantom seniority,” and proportionate layoffs on the basis of race and sex not seniority.
The issue of layoffs by seniority is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Council Recommendation
The seniority system is a cornerstone of the American labor movement. It is a contractual right. Seniority itself is color-blind. American workers, regardless of race or sex, must not be compelled by government to surrender a portion of the work to junior employees. Workers must not be forced to accept alternatives to seniority unless the decision is a voluntary one, arrived at through the free collective bargaining process.
Therefore, the AFL-CIO pledges its total, emphatic commitment to the support of seniority systems that grant each member of the workforce his or her “rightful place.” The AFL-CIO will also continue its unflagging opposition to any effort to dilute the rights of any employee by granting others preferential treatment.
We reaffirm our commitment to affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination in hiring, training, upgrading and promotion, and urge our affiliates to utilize the services of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department when necessary for assistance in the implementation of civil rights policies and programs, including state and federal laws relating to equal opportunity. Further, we commend those affiliated unions with manpower training programs which assist in upgrading their membership for all job opportunities.
Apprenticeship and journeyman outreach programs, endorsed by the AFL-CIO and its building trades affiliates, have proven their worth in recruiting and preparing minority youths to enter the skilled trades. A new dimension was added to these programs in 1974 when women began to be recruited for skilled trades through these programs. Outreach programs are coordinated basically by three contracting organizations: the Recruitment and Training Program (RTP, Inc.) of the A. Philip Randolph Educational Fund/Workers Defense League; the National Urban League Labor Education Advancement Program (LEAP); and the Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI). A number of other local organizations also participate in outreach activities. Currently, programs are functioning in 120 locations throughout the United States. The success of these programs depends largely upon the amount of construction going on in the community. Without a doubt, the depression in the construction industry has adversely affected these work-related programs.
Despite the present gloom, we must think in terms of a healthy economy that will create additional training and employment opportunities for young people desiring to become skilled in the building trades. It is essential, then, that we reaffirm our commitment to provide opportunities for young people to enter the trades, regardless of race or sex. Thus we commend the efforts of RTP, LEAP, HRDI and other organizations in the implementation of outreach programs and for the placements they have achieved.
The struggle for a society free of discrimination based on race, sex, religion and national origin is a continuous one. It is a battle which must be constantly waged as a national endeavor until the last vestige of discrimination is eliminated. However, this country must be mindful of the progress made in the last decade through the efforts of government and voluntary organizations.
We in the AFL-CIO are proud of our involvement in the struggle for equal opportunity for all. Many problems remain unresolved largely because of continuing high unemployment. Full employment and civil rights go hand-in-hand. Without full employment, civil rights are empty indeed. America’s twin problems of unemployment and discrimination are not resolved by pitting worker against worker for the right to be unemployed. That is why the best weapon against discrimination of any form is a healthy full employment economy.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Fair employment practices was a national goal of the labor movement for many years prior to enactment of federal legislation. AFL-CIO civil rights policy for the elimination of segregated local unions, segregated lines of progression, seniority lists based on race, and providing full membership in unions and admittance to apprenticeship programs for minorities predates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Despite our commitment to assist in implementing Title VII of the 1964 law, the AFL-CIO has met stubborn resistance from the EEOC to providing adequate notice of alleged violations to the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department and the respective affiliated union. National or international unions should be automatically advised by the EEOC when one of their locals is charged with a violation. Copies of charges should be provided to the parent union and the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department to facilitate our efforts to achieve voluntary compliance. Failure to give adequate and expeditious notice is a major reason for the excessive backlog of unresolved allegations languishing in the Commission’s archives.
The AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department and the EEOC have discussed the problem for 10 years. A tentative agreement was finally reached to conduct a pilot project to expedite the handling of backlogged cases and to develop a speedy procedure for investigating allegations and to provide remedies without jeopardizing the charging party’s rights to full relief under the law. But the proposed agreement was never considered on its merits by the EEOC.
The AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee formed a subcommittee and called upon EEOC commissioners to indicate their concern about the ever-increasing backlog and the apparent indifference on the part of the commission.
It is our hope that this attitude of the commission majority will change immediately. The charging party is entitled to speedy relief under the law if the charge has merit. On the other hand, the respondents have the right to know the nature of the charges within a reasonable period of time.
Council Recommendation
The AFL-CIO commitment to fair employment practices predates the law itself. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires the EEOC to seek resolution of complaints through the conciliation process before litigation. Yet unions are being bombarded by litigation, rather than conciliation by the commission. The manner in which this law is presently being implemented certainly reflects a lack of sensitivity toward unions on the part of the EEOC.
We call upon the commission to expand its conciliation efforts, reserving litigation for those respondents who refuse to comply with the law or who fail to recognize that all men and women are entitled to equal opportunity to earn a living.
We strongly urge the EEOC to provide unions and the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department with the necessary information to develop a speedy procedure for investigation and achievement of voluntary compliance as suggested in the proposed agreement between EEOC and the AFL-CIO.
Further, we urge our affiliates to call upon the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department to assist in matters involving EEOC and state commissions whose concerns are to eliminate discrimination based on race, sex, religion or national origin.
Proceedings of the Eleventh Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, San Francisco, Calif., October 2–7, 1975, Executive Council Report, pp. 214–18.
18. REAL EXERCISE OF CIVIL RIGHTS LINKED TO FULL EMPLOYMENT
The following remarks by AFL-CIO President George Meany were made in accepting the Social Responsibility Award of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Social Change. They were delivered by AFL-CIO Vice President Murray H. Finley.57
This award belongs not to me but to the entire AFL-CIO—the men and women who have worked so hard for social justice for all Americans.
It is not a culmination, but a continuation of a shared dream that has always bound the labor and civil rights movement together.
Dr. King himself said it best: “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs,” he told the 1961 AFL-CIO convention, “decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children, and respect in the community.”
Today, we have reduced that phrase and that dream to two words—“full employment”—because “full employment” is absolutely essential if civil rights are ever to be fully enjoyed and exercised by every American.
“Full employment” is not just a black issue or a labor issue. Yes, a far higher percentage of the unemployed are black. And yes, when unemployment is used as a tool of economic policy it is workers who suffer most.
Full employment is truly a human rights issue. It is the issue of the last quarter of this century. Because, without jobs for every American who is able and seeking work, the American dream—the dream of Martin Luther King, the dream of Samuel Gompers, the dream of Phil Randolph—will remain a dream—an unrealized dream.
We have an opportunity—in our lifetime—to take a giant step toward making that dream a reality. The Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment & Balanced Growth Act would, in my opinion, take its place beside the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as legislation which frees America—not just black Americans. It would free all Americans from the archaic theory that when workers are set against each other for available jobs—through artificial divisions such as race or sex or national origin—those with jobs will work harder for less money, fearing an unemployed worker standing at the plant gate waiting for their job. That is, of course, exploitation of the cruelest form.
Thanks to Arthur Burns and the Nixon-Ford Administration, there is a new segregation in America. A segregation as bitter and brutal as the one outlawed by the Civil Rights Act. It is a segregation based on whether or not an individual has a job—those always working and those always jobless. Like segregation based on race, this new segregation must go.58
So passing the Humphrey-Hawkins bill is essential. We are pleased that President Carter has committed himself to this fight by endorsing the amended bill. We in the labor movement and the Center for Social Change share a keen interest in this bill, but we know it is only a first step. It must be backed up with effective, extensive programs and we intend to keep fighting for such programs. To us, the Humphrey-Hawkins bill is the foundation on which to build, the necessary base for realizing our dream.
There is one other important piece of legislation, which, in my opinion, is equally vital to economic and social justice in America. That is labor law reform, now before the Senate.
It is a measure of great importance to black workers, who are union members in greater percentage than their percentage in the workforce generally, because they have found in the labor movement a vehicle for social change, for a strong voice in their own destiny.
During the hearings in the House and Senate on labor law reform, it was clearly evident that employers who are the most flagrant violators of workers rights to form unions usually have an almost identical record of violations of equal employment opportunities. The unorganized worker—is very often black, very often a woman, always underpaid and almost always afraid.
Mrs. King has eloquently testified to those facts and her support for the protection of the rights of all workers to form unions has been invaluable. We know, as she knows, that Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered in a march for workers rights to form a union.
That the labor movement shall never forget. And that is what makes receiving this award such a great moment for me personally and for the entire AFL-CIO.
In accepting this award, we are not expressing satisfaction for what we have done in the past. Rather we look upon it as an emblem of intention of what we shall accomplish together in the future.
AFL-CIO News, January 28, 1978.
19. MEANY HAILS SOLIDARITY OF CIVIL RIGHTS ALLIANCE
Louisville, Ky.—Much remains to be done in the struggle to achieve social and economic justice for all Americans, AFL-CIO President George Meany said in a message to the NAACP’s 70th annual convention.
He noted in a letter to NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks that progress has been made in the past 25 years toward racial justice through the cooperative efforts of the labor-civil rights coalition.59
“Working together, the labor movement and the civil rights movement have largely succeeded in wiping out the legal and legislative sanctions that perpetuated injustice,” Meany observed.
“But we are painfully aware of how much remains to be done to secure equal, quality education for all our children and to secure equal rights, equal opportunity and a decent measure of economic justice for Americans of both sexes and all races.
“The AFL-CIO remains fully dedicated to achieving these goals,” Meany declared. “We are convinced that no more effective instrument exists for pursuing them than the mutual understanding and unity of purpose that have been forged between the leaders and members of the AFL-CIO and the NAACP.”
He said the coordinated efforts of the two organizations in voter registration and voter education campaigns have become a vital force for social and political change. “And we intend to do all we can to make them more effective.”
Warning that the progress workers and minorities have made “is menaced by a revival of reactionary forces ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to ‘Proposition 13’ evangelists to professional union busters,” Meany said it’s essential that “we present a united front against those who would tear down the social and economic programs designed to move America ahead.”60
He said the AFL-CIO and NAACP must jointly continue the fight against bigotry while stepping up the fight against the dismantling of educational and social programs.
“We have to work together for job-creating programs aimed at full employment and equal opportunity for all,” Meany declared.
“Together,” we can do much that neither organization could ever do alone. I have every confidence that in the future, as in the past, our two organizations will unite in the struggle to make the American dream of justice and equality a reality.”
AFL-CIO News, June 30, 1979.
20. LABOR’S CIVIL RIGHTS GOALS LINKED TO DEMAND FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT
The best possible affirmative action programs is full employment, the AFL-CIO declared in pledging to continue its support for integration, outreach programs and enactment of ERA and for allies who share those goals.
While reaffirming support for affirmative action, the convention vowed that “we will oppose any efforts to destroy the seniority system” and hailed recent court decisions for taking those two issues out of an either/or confrontation.
In a separate convention action, the AFL-CIO urged enactment of the Fair Housing Act of 1979, legislation written in the wake of a national survey finding that a “black person has a 62 percent chance of encountering discrimination in the purchase of a home and a 75 percent chance in the rental of one” and similar problems are faced by Hispanics, Asian-Americans, women and the handicapped.
Included in the bill, which the convention said would finish the job of the 1969 law by the same name, is a provision for federal enforcement powers on behalf of blacks or handicapped persons “after a full hearing establishes discrimination.”
Some of the measures advocated by the convention included reaffirmation of longstanding AFL-CIO goals or programs. Among them are:
* Continued emphasis on the outreach principle to recruit blacks, women and minorities, “which has been so successful in the construction trades and should be expanded into new sectors of the economy.”
* ERA enactment, which entails holding off right-wing attempts to have state referenda undo the recent congressional gain of deadline extension to 1982.
* The community groups to which the AFL-CIO pledges support and urges affiliates to do the same include such longstanding labor allies as the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, NAACP and National Urban Coalition as well as such relatively new organizations as the Coalition for Labor Union Women and the Labor Council for Latin-American Advancement.
* Designation by every affiliate of a person to work with the AFL-CIO Dept. of Civil Rights on relations with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The federation pledged continued cooperation with the EEOC “wherever it’s possible to find efficient and equitable solutions to employment discrimination charges.”
Cooperation from the EEOC under the Carter Administration was judged by the Executive Council to be an area of major improvement in the two years between conventions.
AFL-CIO News, November 24, 1979.
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland to the NAACP Convention61
The coalition between the labor and civil rights movements is the most effective and most constructive alliance in American political and social history. In the struggles of the 1940s, the ’50s, and the ’60s, to break down the legal sanctions that perpetuated racial discrimination in America, this alliance brought about a political and social revolution.
Millions of youngsters are now growing up without ever having seen a “whites only” sign over a public drinking fountain, and without ever having seen a fellow citizen turned away from a restaurant or a college admission office or an employment office solely because of race. To that extent they live in a different world—and a better one—than their mothers and fathers knew.
Yet those youngsters are also learning that while discrimination is unlawful, it has not ceased to exist.
None of the rights guaranteed under these laws has any meaning, except to those—black or whiter—who have the resources and the opportunity to exercise them.
Equal education is attainable only for children whose parents can afford to keep them in school. Equal accommodations are available only for those who can pay the dinner check or hotel bill. Fair housing laws hold meaning solely for American families who have not been priced out of the market. Equal employment opportunity is an empty promise to nearly 10 million American workers of both sexes and all races and colors who need and want jobs and cannot find them.
Inequality in America, in the 1980s, is not statutory. It is economic.
What is needed is a program to educate the politicians. If the American people are given the facts about who will benefit and who will suffer as a result of the current budget-balancing and tax-cutting proposals, I am convinced that they will teach the politicians. Getting these facts to the public is the most important task we face.
Our many years of working together toward mutual goals have taught us something about teamwork and coordinated effort. In the Budget Coalition that was formed in April to oppose the budget-cutting madness on Capitol Hill, we have helped lay the foundation for a far larger alliance of organizations, some of which have never before been aroused to political and social action on a national scale.
They include other civil rights organizations, labor organizations that are outside the AFL-CIO, women’s groups, religious organizations, family farm organizations, youth groups and senior citizens, the National Conference of Mayors, consumer groups, environmental groups and more than a hundred others.
What they have in common is that they genuinely represent the interests of people, rather than the interests of those whose chief concern is to maximize profit at the expense of the public.
That is the foundation on which we must build in order to remind our nation’s leaders that public interest is paramount to corporate interest.
AFL-CIO News, July 5, 1980.
22. LACK OF OPPORTUNITY THWARTS STRIDES TOWARD RACIAL JUSTICE
The following is from an address by AFL-CIO Sec.-Treas. Thomas R. Donahue to a Catholic Interracial Council dinner in New York honoring Federation Vice President Frederick O’Neal and lawyer William Shea.62
For the moment, the immense strides that were made toward racial justice and social unity during and after the civil rights revolution—in which the church and the labor movement played so large a role—have come to a standstill.
I say “for the moment” because I know well that all progress toward these goals is ultimately irreversible. This country will move ahead again, but meanwhile we have to fight with all our energy to retake ground that is being lost.
Bull Connor’s dogs and clubs are a thing of the past. I never expect to see again, in any public place, a sign that says “White only,” or even “No Irish need apply.”63
But there will be no end to discrimination in housing until there is enough housing to go around. There will be no end to discrimination in education until all parents can afford to provide their children with all the education they can possibly absorb. And there will be no equal employment opportunity until there is opportunity for all, until there is a job for every man and woman who is able and willing to work.
For the moment, what we face is the undoing of the progress we have made, and the division of the American people along economic lines or racial lines or sex lines or age lines or any other lines that are handy, and the restoration of the frozen, unjust social and economic order of the past.
The vital question is, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The church and the labor movement have always answered with a resounding yes. But those who preach the gospel of supply-side economics say the question is irrelevant.
They have no wish to talk about public health, public education, public welfare as human values or even as public capital investment that enriches and enlarges the society of which we are a part. They think of these things only as consumer expenditures that increase public spending and reduce the return on private capital.
When irresponsible tax concessions to the rich and the corporations have sent the budget deficit into orbit, their solution is to shoot down $40 billion in social security benefits—or at least it was until the Senate rebelled at that solution.
With 10-1/2 million human beings desperately looking for jobs that do not exist, they cut emergency job programs, job training programs, public service jobs and unemployment compensation programs, and promise only that things will get better soon.
It was actions like these that led Congressman Henry Reuss of Wisconsin to say that these policies are “not just mistaken; they are wicked.” To that I would add that they are deeply, shamefully frivolous.
The real capital of this nation is its human capital. No wealth has ever existed that is not the product of human hands and minds and hearts. To squander that capital by deliberately denying human beings the opportunity to develop to their highest potential is not only morally wrong but something that those responsible look upon as a far worse sin: Imprudent business management.
The American labor movement and the church have long stood together on the questions of this nation’s human capital—not really as “capital” but as “humanity.”
We have shared the simple goals of equality for all and the recognition of the dignity of every person. Actually those goals are not simple at all. They are simply stated—but their fulfillment has been a central occupation of labor and the churches for many years.
We need the laws and the courts, most assuredly, to set a legal framework for dignity and equality, but we need to shape the minds, hearts and acts of people—we need to truly love one another—if we are ever really going to “assure these rights.” We have to keep pressing for dignity and equality and have to keep on pressing against the “outer limits.”
After Dec. 13, when the Polish government moved to crush Solidarity, the amazing analyses by some of our commentators was that those brave Polish trade unionists had pressed against the outer limits and tried to achieve too much. It’s a line that never made a bit of sense.
For people who seek reform, for those who would disturb the status quo, for those who seek dignity and equality, there are only outer limits. There are no inner limits which fall easily. Every push is against an outer limit that some other person or force has set.
When a worker joins a union and seeks recognition of his dignity on the job, he or she presses against the outer limits of the boss’s authority.
When a black seeks the full measure of equality, in any form, he or she presses against the outer limit of some ancient prejudice. When the Poles sought a voice in their state, when the black South African seeks a voice on the job, when the South American peasant fights for land, they all press against the outer limits that some person or group seeks wrongly to impose.
It has to be our business to continually press against those outer limits until they all finally crumble.
AFL-CIO News, June 12, 1982.
A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: “GENTLEMAN OF ELEGANT IMPATIENCE”
A. Philip Randolph, Townsend Named to Union’s Exec. Board
By Harold L. Keith
A. Philip Randolph and Willard S. Townsend will be seated on the executive boards of the newly merged AFL and CIO as a result of actions taken at the founding convention of the organization in New York City.
Mr. Randolph is president of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (AFL) and Mr. Townsend is president of the CIO United Transport Service Employes Union.
Both men are Negroes and their appointments were hailed by labor leaders as “evidence” that labor intends to back up its “pledges” against segregation and discrimination in employment.
Mr. Randolph will be one of seventeen AFL vice presidents, and Mr. Townsend will be one of the ten representatives of the CIO on the AFL-CIO executive board.
Mr. Townsend’s appointment was made possible by the defection of Mike Quill, International Transport Workers Union. Mr. Quill had dissented regarding the merger on several key issues. Oddly enough, one of the things which led to Mr. Quill’s refusal to take a vice presidential seat was his insistence upon a more strongly worded clause against segregation or discrimination.64
Mr. Quill had protested strongly against other provisions of the merger agreement and then announced that he would not take a seat on the executive board “under any circumstances.”
However, Mr. Townsend was not without opposition. Many of the executives within CIO ranks had ripped into his appointment on the grounds that Mr. Townsend’s union did not have enough members.
They claimed that there were other CIO unions with larger and more representative memberships who should have received representation.
They noted that Mr. Townsend’s union has a membership of a little more than 10,000 spread out over the nation, while there are many CIO local unions with more members.
The CIO Executive Board in two separate sessions held prior to the New York meeting had turned down Mr. Townsend as an executive board possibility.
But, the big industrial union was faced with the practical necessity of having Negro representation on the board and Mr. Townsend was the only choice.
George L. P. Weaver, long-time stalwart of the CIO Civil Rights Committee, had been mentioned as a possible choice but overtures made in his behalf met with so many objections that Mr. Townsend ended up with the prize.
Mr. Townsend was recommended for the post by David J. McDonald, president of the CIO United Steelworkers of America.
Mr. Randolph’s appointment was a foregone conclusion. Long one of the most eloquent among the AFL’s leadership, he like Mr. Townsend was the only possible choice for appointment to the board.
His appointment was made despite his outspoken opposition to what has been termed the “mousy, mealy-mouthed” anti-segregation provision of the AFL-CIO merger constitution.
Mr. Randolph has staged rallies in New York and Cleveland on this issue and is expected to continue to fight for a more positively worded clause with punitive provisions for unions which discriminate.
The merger means that the combined strength of the nation’s biggest labor group is now 15,000,000 members with only the Mineworkers of John L. Lewis and several independent unions outside the folds.65
Pittsburgh Courier, December 5, 1955.
24. RANDOLPH SAYS NEGRO NOT FREE
Calls for “Complete Equality”
Speaking at an Urban League “Sound-off” luncheon last Tuesday, A. Philip Randolph, militant vice-president of the newly merged AFL-CIO, said “the Negro is not free” and called upon President Eisenhower to send armed troops into Mississippi and South Carolina to ease the “cold war” waged against Negro citizens of those states.
He also said President Eisenhower has “a moral obligation to make a major statement in the interest of Negro freedom.”
“The Negro has got to take what he gets,” the veteran civil rights leader said, “not by violence, not by the gun; but by continuous protest, continuous demands and continuous organization. Negroes want complete equality and first class citizenship and they want it now. Gradualism is no answer.”
Michael J. Quill, president of the Transport Workers Union of America, followed Randolph to the speakers’ rostrum and said that labor has material to win the battle for civil rights. Remarking that 1956 can be a historic year, he said that “the strangest kind of characters are running for President.”
“Some of them come from the deep South,” he said, “where they believe in one toilet for whites and another for Negroes. When they come to Washington they are democratic. In Philadelphia they are liberals and when they get to New York they are rip-roaring progressives. Then by the time they get to New Hampshire they are ready to do away with the white toilet.”
The “Sound-Off” luncheon was held in the Georgian room of the Hotel Picadilly, 227 W. 45th St., Manhattan. The luncheon was chaired by Theodore W. Kheel, impartial chairman of New York City’s private transportation industry and a member of the board of the Urban League. Other guests on the dais included Mrs. Ruth Whitehead Whaley, secretary to the New York City Board of Estimates; Frank Crosswaith, Harlem Trades Union; Lloyd Garrison, former president of the National Urban League; Mrs. Sophi Yarnall Jacobs, League president; and Monsignor Cornelius J. Drew, St. Charles Borromeo R. C. Church.
New York Age Defender, January 28, 1956.
25. AFL-CIO REPORT ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 1961
PRESIDENT MEANY: I have a special supplementary report to submit to the convention on behalf of the Executive Council on the specific question of civil rights in the AFL-CIO which has to do with a memorandum submitted by Brother Randolph to the Executive Council at its meeting last June, and answered by the subcommittee of the council at its October, 1961 meeting. This material was not prepared in time for inclusion with our full report, and is submitted at this time to the attention of the convention.
Before referring to the committee, however, I want to ask the special permission of the Convention for Brother Philip Randolph to make a statement on this matter.
Is there any objection?
Hearing none, I recognize Brother Randolph.
VICE PRESIDENT A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: Thank you, Mr. President.
Fellow Delegates, I rise to make some observations on this report inasmuch as it is based on the memorandum which I submitted to the Executive Council at its meeting in Unity House, Pennsylvania in June of this year. My report included a number of proposals concerning the question of advancing the movement of civil rights in the house of labor. It also included a number of charges.
One was that the basic status of workers in the labor movement who are non-white is that of second class citizenship. Of course this does not mean that in various areas of our American industry and in various communities Negro workers, some of them, are not admitted into a number of unions and some of them occupy places on policy-making bodies. There are about a million and a half Negroes in the labor movement. But I am talking about the broad status of the Negro workers in the labor movement as such. That status is that of second class citizenship.
The delegates of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters are basically concerned about that question. We indicated that evidence of this charge consisted in the fact that there are exclusionary policies applied to non-white workers by some unions, either in the form of color bar or in the form of tacit consent. Of course the color bar has been eliminated in practically all of the unions except one. But still workers of color are excluded from some unions by tacit consent.
This is not an exceptional affair. As a matter of fact, you will find this to be practically general in various communities with respect to craft unions. You will find that in one community Negro workers may be admitted to a Carpenters’ local union. In another community, they may be excluded. The same thing is true with respect to the Electrical Workers’ Union or the Plumbers’ Union or the Bricklayers’ Union. So that we are basically interested in the broad position of the Negro worker in the labor movement, and we are concerned about the development of a program that will meet that condition and solve it.
Other evidence of the status of the Negro is the fact that Negro workers in the possession of skills are 100 years behind their white brothers. This is due to race bias, and the problem today is for the Negro workers to catch up. The only way by which they will be able to catch up is for these barriers preventing them from entering apprenticeship training courses to be broken down. That is really the essence of the struggle of the delegates of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters against race bias in the labor movement and also of the Negro American Labor Council which was recently organized for the sole purpose of eliminating race bias in organized labor.
Another evidence of this second-class citizenship is the existence of racially segregated unions. This is a question which has not altogether been squarely met because the position has been set forth to the effect that if you have a Negro union in a given community and a white union covering the same jurisdiction in the same community, and if the Negro union has officers and members who want to maintain a Negro union, that they ought to be permitted to maintain that union. We disagree with that position. We hold that just as you will not permit a union under Communist domination or under corrupt influences to maintain its position, a union which practices racial discrimination should not be permitted, whether the officers or members want to maintain the union or not. It should not be permitted to continue to exist.
These are some of the problems that I set forth in my memorandum.
The result of race bias in the labor movement and in management and in the government, according to various economists,—Elmer Roper, for instance,—the results are that Negro workers lose about $30 billion a year in income. Over a decade they lose $300 billion in income. It is estimated that the Negro wage rates are just about half the wage rates of the average white worker. Therefore, this matter involves the question of economic survival, economic security. That is one of the reasons and the basic reason why the delegates of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters have presented this question upon the floor of the conventions of the American Federation of Labor for practically a generation. That is the reason why we have continued to carry on the struggle, because we are concerned about increasing the income of the great masses of black people in this nation who work for a living.
We are living in a day when automation is beginning to exercise vital influence upon the whole system of American production. The work force is changing. The tools are changing. It is estimated that by 1970, the population of this country will be around 208 million people and that it will require about $700 billion to sustain this population. In order to sustain this population by the production of commodities and services, the tools must change and the work force must change. But if the great masses of Negro workers do not have access to apprenticeship training courses, they cannot get the skills and the training that are necessary to play their role in our modernized industrial society.
The great drives that we are making today are to break down these barriers against the admission of Negro workers into apprenticeship training courses. The recent Civil Rights Commission set up by President Kennedy or President Eisenhower, recently made a report, and that commission indicated that there is widespread discrimination based upon race and color with respect to opportunity of black workers to get training, not only among the craft unions, but also in the giant mass production industries of the country. This then presents a crisis to the Negro masses of the country and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters has addressed itself to this problem.
We have also charged that the approach to this question has been one of tokenism and gradualism. I know that the leadership of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations has indicated that they are working and doing the best they can to change this situation. But time is moving and the industrial revolution is moving. The radical technology is changing American life, and Negro workers haven’t the time to wait for people to make up their minds to give them justice. That is the reason for the movement to bring about rapid change giving the opportunity to all peoples of color to acquire information and training in order that they may become a factor in this automated world.
We also made the charge that the leadership has not a deep enough sense of urgency of this problem. That is no reflection on the sincerity and the good faith of the leadership. But it has been my opinion that our unions have not yet grasped the significance and the depth and the magnitude of the civil rights revolution which is going on in this country.
The United States is covered today by uprisings of young Negroes who are sitting in in protest against the violation of the dignity of their personality.
Hundreds are on buses going into southern communities to assert their constitutional rights as American citizens, to enjoy the privileges and immunities that other American citizens enjoy. They are even willing to absorb brutality and violence from the police in order that they may exercise their rights. Many of them have languished in the jails of Jackson, Mississippi. They are still going in large numbers.
Therefore, this gives you some idea of the fact that the civil rights resolution was not caused by myself or by the delegates of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, but rather it is the result of the fact that the Civil War revolution was never completed. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were virtually nullified following the Civil War by a rising Confederate counterrevolution.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King—all of these agencies are concerned about completing an uncompleted revolution in order that the Negro citizens of this country may have first-class status. That is what this matter is all about.
May I say I have the highest respect and regard for the President of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. The delegates of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters are not mad at anyone. However, we have a responsibility to work in the interest of eliminating all vestige, all forms, all remnants of racial discrimination.
In addition to that, I presented in my memorandum a number of demands and indicated what ought to be done, and on the basis of this my proposals were rejected. I was condemned and denounced because of the presentation of the proposal.
Now, of course, anyone who is in the labor movement and has gone through some 40 years of struggle in the labor movement is not thin skinned. Consequently, I am willing to go through the fires in order to abolish second-class status for black people in this country. It must be done and it must be done now—not tomorrow. We cannot wait for tomorrow. In a nuclear age, tomorrow may never come. Consequently these are some of the demands that I presented in my memorandum:
1. Abolish barriers to Negro membership in unions, whether they be the color bar in constitutions or rituals, or by tacit consent.
2. Desegregate racially segregated unions whether the officials and membership desire it or not, just as the expulsion of Communist-dominated unions or unions under corrupt influences is carried out by the AFL-CIO without regard to the wishes of the officials or members of the unions.
3. Abolish barriers to your workers’ participation in apprenticeship training programs because of race or color.
4. Desegregate southern state AFL-CIO bodies and their conventions.
5. Desegregate southern city central labor bodies in all of their varied activities.
6. Integration of Negro trade unionists in departments and on staffs more equitably in the national headquarters and in national and international unions, state federations and city central bodies.
7. Seek and urge equitable placement of Negro trade unionists on the Executive Council, and policy-making bodies of national, international and local unions.
8. Reorganize the Civil Rights Committee and Civil Rights Department as follows:
(a) Assumption of the chairmanship of the Civil Rights Committee by President George Meany or Secretary-Treasurer William F. Schnitzler, to give it stature and prestige.
(b) Increase the number of Negro trade unionists as members of the committee to give its interracial composition reality.
(c) Place an eligible Negro trade unionist, sound on labor’s rights and civil rights, as Director of the Civil Rights Department. A trade unionist is needed in this post who does not only know the problem of race bias but also feels it. Moreover, if the federal government can appoint a Negro as head of a major department, the AFL-CIO should follow suit since it did not lead the way.
(d) Place an additional Negro trade unionist, sound on labor’s rights and civil rights, as one of the assistant directors.
(e) Place a southern native-born white trade unionist, sound on labor’s rights and civil rights, on the staff as one of the assistant directors.
(f) Integrate the office force.
(g) Hold national and regional civil rights labor conferences, and invite the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Jewish Labor Committee, National Urban League, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Congress of Racial Equality, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Workers’ Defense League and the Negro American Labor Council, to send fraternal delegates, with voice, if no vote.
9. Adopt a Code on Fair Trade Union Racial Practices, comparable to Code of Ethical Practices for trade unions of the AFL-CIO, the pattern of which was included in my Memorandum on Civil Rights submitted to the Executive Council at Unity House, Pennsylvania, June, 1961.
If a Code on Ethical Practices is necessary, desirable and effective in helping to eliminate corruption, by the same token, a Code on Fair Trade Union Racial Practices is necessary, desirable and can be effective in helping to eliminate race bias.
10. Develop its own survey of race bias in unions to determine its nature and extent, since any survey of discrimination and segregation even when made by a federal agency or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is promptly branded “anti organized labor,” which, of course, is not true. The survey should not only seek to disclose racial discrimination wherever it may be, but also disclose evidence of progress which has been made by unions in dealing with the problem, such as cases of Negro trade unionists serving as officials in unions and as members of policy-making bodies, wherever they may be.
11. Take the initiative in getting a bill for Federal Fair Employment Practice legislation introduced in the next Congress, and place the full weight of the AFL-CIO back of it. While the AFL-CIO should wage a veritable crusade for the enactment of a federal FEPC, this is not to be construed to mean that the federation does not continue to bear the responsibility to rid the house of labor of every vestige, remnant and survival of race bias. It still has the responsibility to wage a continuing warfare against racial discrimination and segregation even if, as, when a federal FEPC is achieved in the Congress, because the law must be enforced.
12. The value and validity of target dates to mark the time when specific action should be taken to deal with a specific case of race bias, such as the desegregation of a jim-crow union, should be recognized as sound and practical, since target dates have been used with respect to cases involving the merging of state AFL-CIO bodies, city central bodies and the expulsion of unions under corrupt and Communist influences.
13. In order to resolve the crisis of confidence between the AFL-CIO and Negro trade unionists and the Negro community, a conference between President Meany and with officers of unions appointed by President Meany and a group of Negro trade unionists selected by myself, should be held in order that this crisis in confidence may be resolved and that there may be a deeper sense of cooperation, of consultation and concern about the problems of organized labor.
These are some of the proposals I presented, and I hope and feel that it is possible for them to be realized.
And so, brothers and sisters, I wanted to make these few remarks to you in connection with this report, and to indicate that our organization represents the highest order of social ideals, economic and political; that we are committed to the basic values of human advancement and freedom and justice and equality.
Our organization has suffered, it has sacrificed and struggled for the realization of these ideals. We could not be a trade unionist and be anti-white, or anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic. Our organization is fighting to remove these barriers in our social life, and certainly, we would not be a party to practicing any kind of discrimination against anybody.
It was said that we have not negotiated a non-discriminatory clause in our contract for the Pullman Company. We had no reason to negotiate one. I have never known of a case where a white worker was denied a job by the Pullman Company because he was white.
Have we come to the time when the black workers have the responsibility of taking up the burden of freeing the white workers from job color bias? Well now, you know that is fantastic. It is a fabricated fiction. It has no basis in reality, and as a matter of mere humor it becomes comical.
So I wanted you to know the position of our organization on this question, because we stand by whatever we have done; we stand by the proposals we have made, and we will continue to fight for them. But we are going to fight for them in the house of labor. We have no desire to leave the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. We have no plan to organize any black federation of labor. But there are intimations in this report that we are black nationalists, and hence want to oppose everything that is not black. This is nothing more than a travesty upon common sense, an insult to decency.
This is the reason why I wanted to make my comments and my position and the position of my colleague M. P. Webster and also all the members and officers of the Negro American Labor Council clear to this convention.
Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Again, with the special permission of the convention, I would like to give the floor for a few minutes to Brother Webster of this same organization.
If there is no objection Brother Webster will have the floor.
DELEGATE MILTON P. WEBSTER, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters: Mr. President and delegates of the AFL-CIO Convention: I want to reaffirm the remarks made by International President Randolph on this matter. When this report was read to our international Executive Board a few days before we came down here, they were quite disturbed. They instructed us to come to this convention and protest this report with all our energy and influence, this report which has created a false impression of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Since I have been in this convention I have had delegates ask me if we were anti-white. As stated by Brother Randolph, we are by no means a new organization in the American labor movement. We came to the old AFL some 30 years ago, and we have had difficulty ever since we came in here. Objection was made to bringing us in because we didn’t have the white leadership, but we got in.
Then a couple of years after we got in, our jurisdiction was given to a white organization that had a color clause in its constitution. We got out of that. And all during the years we have stood upon the floors of these conventions and protested these discriminatory practices that have existed in many of the unions over the years.
But the subject wasn’t as popular as it is today. We never got any headlines in newspapers; we never had any press conferences and, as a rule, nobody but we made the protest. But we carried on the protest just the same, and we believe that some results have been obtained.
We have never said at any time that there hasn’t been any progress made on this question in the labor movement, but we can’t rest on our laurels. It is still here. It is here, probably here more subtle than it was when many unions had color clauses in their constitutions.
We have been loyal to the labor movement, despite our serious handicaps. We have participated in everything that unions are interested in; on any matter of fundamental labor principles we are always there. As a matter of fact, not too many years ago several of the railroad unions pulled a strike against the L & N Railroad. Some of those unions had color clauses in their constitution, but we wouldn’t let our men cross the picket line, and we lost thousands of dollars, as a matter of fact. So, we have made our contribution to the American labor movement on the same plane as has anybody else. And over the years, we believe we have made as great a contribution as anybody.
Only recently, as a matter of fact, one of the large railroad companies in a program to start to cut wages started on us, and they cut the wages $50 a month. As a result of the brotherhood’s negotiations, the $50 a month was not only brought back, but an additional $11 a month of fringe benefits were included. I don’t think other organizations in this organization have been able to do any better job than we have done.
And so, this is one part of this report today that the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. I might say that we are not looking for any sympathy, we are not looking for sympathy on this. And we don’t expect any sympathy. We don’t appreciate the patronizing attitude of some of the members of this organization towards the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Shortly after the convention in San Francisco, we had many people come to us and try to tell us what we ought to do and ought not to do about this proposition of race discrimination. I take the position that it is very difficult for a man who is white to understand and appreciate the disadvantages of discrimination.
For several years I was a member of the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practices, appointed under the late President Roosevelt. I always had arguments with the management side of the committee that I was too impatient, too sensitive, and too bitter. I think I might refer to you the same suggestion that I referred to them, white men don’t feel the sting and the disadvantage and the humiliation of discrimination in this country. And if you want to know how to feel about this thing, black your face up as black as mine and walk around New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and any other place, and then you will come back here more impatient than we are. There’s no question about that at all.
This is the point we want you to understand, that we are committed to the idea of fighting these racial policies within the labor movement and outside the labor movement.
Now, there are two points of disagreement in this statement here which Brother Randolph touched on that affects us quite drastically. The first is they claim that in Vice President Randolph’s own headquarters staff, in his own union, the employees are non-white, his employment policy on his own staff does not seem to be without regard to race, creed or color. I don’t know who wrote this report, but certainly they never made any investigation. The largest amounts of money we pay out today are paid out to white people. How anybody can say that we are prejudiced against white people is a difficult thing, and I think you ought to be practical about this thing.
We hire most of our people in the national office in New York and our office in Chicago. And our office in New York is located on 125th Street, in the heart of Harlem. The office in Chicago is located on the South Side, the heart of the so-called black belt. A stenographer, the type that we have to have, draws approximately $80 to $105 or $110 a week, and I think it is fantastic to think that white girls qualified to fill that kind of a job would come up in Harlem or come out on the South Side of Chicago to look for a job. I have advertised in the Chicago Tribune. I would have taken any kind of stenographer that I could get. We got seven or eight replies, two of which I believe were white, according to where the telephone number was. And they would talk over the telephone, but they would never show up. And I think it is fantastic and really going out of the way to point out the fact that we don’t hire any white people.
As a matter of fact we have about half the people we used to have, but there was a time when we had to go out in the street and hire new people. Over half the new people we hired were white.
Whoever wrote this report surely hadn’t taken it upon themselves to make any investigation of this matter or they wouldn’t have made the serious blunders that they did.
One other point, and then I am through; and that is on this question of discrimination in the employment of Pullman porters. I never knew that a white man ever wanted the job of Pullman porter. Not too many years ago an official of the old AFL came to speak to us when we were organizing. He said, “You know the sleeping car Pullman job is a black man’s job.” Well, now, you know what a black man is supposed to be, don’t you; low pay, long hours and a mean boss man. And that job included all of them. It is rather amusing at this late date that somebody would come around and ask why we haven’t urged white people to come into the movement.
In conclusion I want to say we have in our organization men of many nationalities. The Pullman Company, as oldtimers know, was one of the hardest nuts to crack in the labor movement, and we believe we are the first ones to crack it. All the crafts that work for Pullman are unionized now. But when we started to organize, they had an open job situation out there. They had company unions. We started on our campaign and were successful to a large extent. We had eight or nine hundred Filipino attendants. And they tried to make the Filipino believe he is a step above the Negro; he is not to associate with them. And we had about 150 Mexicans down in San Antonio. We had to walk out of the conference and threaten to strike until we made them include the Filipinos in our contract. The Mexican is supposed to be white. That’s what they tell me down in Texas. In fact, they can go places that I can’t go, so they must be white. We took the Mexicans in. We not only took them in, but we saw to it that they were given places of responsibility on our staff in order that every phase of our organization would be represented. One of our Filipinos who is now retired and has gone back to the Philippines to live was a member of our board for 15 or 20 years.
The Pullman Company went out on the street and hired about 25 white barbers. They put them on the train up in the Northwest and they doubled up that job with the club car porters. We went out and organized them. They stayed there until the job was abolished.
I don’t know yet who wrote this report. I hope to find out sooner or later. I am sure some of the members of the council didn’t have anything to do with the writing of it—but whoever wrote this report, if they had only taken a little bit of time to make inquiries about the matter, I don’t think they would have made themselves look as ridiculous as they have been made to look by putting out this kind of report against an organization that has shown its loyalty to the labor movement.
We have no desire to get out of the labor movement. We don’t want to see anybody else put out of the labor movement.
There was some comment on Brother Randolph’s contention that certain organizations ought to be put out. Well, the record of the Brotherhood is against putting people out. We were one of the few delegations that stood on the floor of these conventions when they were eliminating the unions that subsequently set up the CIO. We became very unpopular, so much so that they made wise cracks that: “The Pullman Porters have to get their tips from John L. Lewis.” We don’t like to see the Longshoremen put out of the organization or any other people, because we felt if you could put people out because they violated other principles and programs of the Constitution, we don’t see any reason you can’t put them out for violating the civil rights position.
Therefore, we have brought this matter to this convention. We want you to know how we feel about it. And, as Brother Randolph says, we have no intention of leaving the Federation of Labor. We are not mad at George Meany or anybody else. Newspapers have made a great big hullabaloo about the feud between Randolph and George Meany. But there is a principle involved and we differ. As a matter of fact, brothers and sisters, we have had controversies in this labor movement that were far more bitter than this. The only difference is that the civil rights program wasn’t as popular then as it is now and we never hit the front pages. So we bring these things to you in order that you might know how we feel.
We intend to carry on our campaign. We don’t scare easy. If we scared easy we wouldn’t be here. But we are here, ready and willing to work with the AFL-CIO and with any other organization. There are men sitting in this convention now that know we have cooperated with them in any matter that concerned organized labor as such. So we feel that some reconsideration ought to be given to this matter.
Therefore, Mr. President, I want to make a motion that this report be referred back to the Executive Council for reexamination. I so make that motion, Mr. President.
VICE PRESIDENT RANDOLPH: I second the motion.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Brother Webster, I cannot accept your motion.
This is a very unusual procedure we have just gone through. A report submitted to this convention for reference to a committee was discussed under special permission of the convention to the officers of the union involved. To refer it back now would mean this motion, if accepted, would not be debatable. It would mean that discussion would be shut off on this matter for the rest of this convention.
Therefore, I refuse to accept your motion. It is out of order on a number of points, and I refer this to the Committee on Resolutions for consideration and a report back to the convention so that those people who wrote the report will have their opportunity to defend the report and so that the delegates to this convention will have the report in their possession and know what we are all talking about.
Proceedings of the Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Miami Beach, December 7–13, 1961, Vol. I, pp. 463–75.
26. COUNCIL REJECTS RANDOLPH CHARGES, BACKS AFL-CIO RIGHTS RECORD
NEW YORK—The AFL-CIO Executive Council has rejected charges by Vice Pres. A. Philip Randolph that the federation has failed to come to grips with the problem of racial discrimination in unions.
The council adopted over Randolph’s lone opposition vote a 20-page report by a subcommittee set up in June to review a memorandum on civil rights in the AFL-CIO submitted by Randolph. The detailed and documented report answers Randolph’s charges and concludes that the “purport” of his memorandum is to have the AFL-CIO set up a “punitive program” in the civil rights field.
The council-adopted report, signed by Vice Presidents George M. Harrison as chairman, Richard F. Walsh and Jacob S. Potofsky, declares:
“Mr. Randolph loses sight of the fact that the AFL-CIO has been, and is today, a major and foremost force in the land for the elimination of all forms of race discrimination, segregation and racial injustice.”
The “major” responsibility for the “gap that has developed” between organized labor and the Negro Community, the report declares, falls “upon Mr. Randolph himself.”
AFL-CIO Pres. George Meany, terming the report “very factual and constructive,” told reporters that the consensus of the council during discussion was that Randolph should cooperate in trying to solve the problems of civil rights rather than attack the labor movement.
He commented that Randolph appears to be on the “other side of the table” against the AFL-CIO instead of on “our side” helping to work out solutions. Randolph’s attacks, he added, prevent the federation from making even faster progress.
In a general analysis of the Randolph memorandum, the council report notes that the AFL-CIO has an estimated 1.5 million Negro members, and that the federation’s civil rights policy “is forthright and unequivocal” that there must be no denial of benefits of union membership to any worker because of race, creed, color or national origin.
Among the multitude of organizations in the AFL-CIO, it notes, there are “many imperfections and shortcomings with respect to non-discrimination.” The report then details the intensified activities in affiliates and state and local organizations on civil rights.
The AFL-CIO, it says, has only one form of punishment—expulsion—which does not “cure the offending practices,” but rather removes the membership of the expelled organization from “corrective influences from the parent body through education and persuasion.”
In a detailed consideration of Randolph’s memorandum the report makes these points:
* The charge of racial exclusion from craft unions by tacit consent is based on one local union case which is receiving “diligent attention” and is nearing solution. Randolph, says the report, has cited “the exception that proves the rule.”
* The charge of racial exclusion from apprenticeship training programs is laced with “inaccuracies and misstatements.” It cites Meany’s recent testimony before Congress supporting legislation to deny federal assistance to apprenticeship programs where discrimination is practiced.
The report notes the charge that there are no Negro apprentices among Masons in Washington is in error, citing a top apprenticeship award presented to a Negro member of the union.
Randolph’s implied charge of discrimination in hiring of the AFL-CIO headquarters staff was tagged “false” by the report. It cited numerous positions filled by Negroes on the staff and clerical level, noting that “on the other hand” Randolph’s own headquarters staff at the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the union of which he is president, is all “non-white” and that his agreement with the Office Employes Union, covering the staff, “does not contain a non-discrimination clause.”
The charge of racial barriers to occupation status, says the report, is not supported by the facts as it concerns motion picture operators in New York City. The report lists the names of Negro operators holding top jobs as projectionists.
In the Hotel and Restaurant industry, Randolph leaves the impression that the Hotel & Restaurant Workers Union discriminates against Negroes, the report says, whereas the discrimination in fact is practiced by employers who do the hiring. The subcommittee report says that the union has “one of the strongest and most comprehensive civil rights programs anywhere.”
The report terms “false and gratuitous” Randolph’s charge that “not one single step has been made to desegregate and integrate Jim Crow unions” that belong to AFL-CIO affiliates. The report cites a number of specific cases in Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland, etc., where such integration has been accomplished.
It adds that “there is no evidence of any effort” by Randolph to get the Pullman Co., with whom he negotiates contracts, to agree to employment without regard to race or color. The company, says the report, employs only non-whites in the U.S.
To the charge that Meany has failed to place “the moral weight of his office” behind the federation’s Civil Rights Committee and Dept. of Civil Rights, the report declares “this is simply not true,” citing the numerous awards from Negro and other groups, statements, speeches and activities by the federation president.
To charges that the federation has not effectively mobilized for civil rights and that there has been a loss of faith in labor by Negro community, the report replies:
“The record shows that when false charges and unwarranted attacks have been leveled against the AFL-CIO, untruthfully accusing it of weakness in the pursuit of civil rights, these charges and attacks have been met with silence from Mr. Randolph. This silence and tacit consent on Mr. Randolph as a vice president of the AFL-CIO have lent plausibility to these charges and attacks in the eyes of the Negro community . . . the major share of the responsibility for the ‘gap’ that has developed between organized labor and the Negro community, therefore falls upon Mr. Randolph himself.”
To Randolph’s recommendations for a national conference of union presidents and creation of civil rights committees and departments in affiliated unions, the report details actions already taken in this area. To the complaint that not enough unions elect Negro delegates to their conventions or the AFL-CIO convention, the report notes that democratic practice provides for free choice, not directions or suggestions from “the top.”
The report defends the competence of the director of the AFL-CIO Dept. of Civil Rights in reply to Randolph’s demand that the department be headed by a Negro, and it cites also the need for professional knowledge. It defends the AFL-CIO’s educational and publications program on civil rights and objects strongly to Randolph’s target date approach to compliance, with expulsion as the remedy. It reviews a charge brought against the Molders union, noting an intensive investigation by Meany that showed no evidence of discrimination.
Finally the report analyzes the role of the Negro American Labor Council, concluding that it has “neither offered nor given any cooperation” to the AFL-CIO civil rights program and that its record is one of “words rather than action.”
AFL-CIO press release, October 13, 1961. Copy in possession of the editors.
27. ALONG THE N.A.A.C.P. BATTLEFRONT
NAACP Decries Randolph Censure
Content removed at rightsholder’s request.
The Crisis, 68 (November, 1961):566.
28. “TAKE WHAT’S YOURS—AND KEEP IT!”—RANDOLPH
‘You May Look and Think Free’
Content removed at rightsholder’s request.
New York Amsterdam News, January 6, 1962.
29. AFL-CIO RESOLUTION ON NEGRO CIVIL RIGHTS-LABOR ALLIANCE, 1965
RESOLUTION NO. 120—By Delegates A. Philip Randolph and C. L. Dellums, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
WHEREAS, The alliance between labor and the civil rights movement was a major force, together with the church forces and the great legislative genius of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, in winning the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and
WHEREAS, The enemies of civil rights, namely, the John Birch Society, Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Council, and a growing group of reactionary rightist forces are also the enemies of the trade union movement, led by the AFL-CIO; therefore, be it
RESOLVED: That this Sixth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO go on record to support a Negro-labor alliance and that it be expanded and strengthened as a basis of a broad coalition of conscience composed by the three faiths, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant, to fight for labor’s rights such as the repeal of Section 14 (b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, higher minimum wages and extended coverage, and the implementation of civil rights legislation.
COMMITTEE SECRETARY ABEL: Mr. Chairman, the Committee on Resolutions moves the adoption of this resolution, and I so move.
. . . The motion was seconded.
PRESIDENT MEANY: You have heard the report of the Committee on Resolutions on Resolution 167, Civil Rights. The Chair recognizes Vice President Randolph.
VICE PRESIDENT A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: President Meany, fellow delegates to this convention: It has been two years since I last stood before this convention. These have been eventful and dramatic years for the civil rights revolution. Indeed, the social and political landscape of the entire country has been changed.
We have won the passage of two historic pieces of legislation—the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Thus, after centuries of slavery, segregation and discrimination, the American people have spoken out unequivocally—not merely on behalf of the Negro but in the name of democracy itself. For when men are denied, on grounds of race, the elementary rights of due process and the right to vote, the moral foundations of that society are in doubt.
These victories are, first and foremost, the fruits of the struggle of the Negro people themselves. History will record that our gains, like those of labor, were not handed down from above but were wrested from reluctant hands through courage and sacrifice, often to limb and life.
Medgar Evers, William Moore, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Lemuel Penn, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Mrs. Liuzzo, Reverend James Reeb, Jonathan Daniels, the four young girls of Birmingham—these are but some of those—black and white; Catholic, Protestant and Jewish—who have made the ultimate sacrifice, in the cause of freedom. President Meany, I request that this convention rise for a moment of silent tribute to the memory of these freedom fighters. . . .
Brothers and sisters, we know that more than courage and determination were required to secure the civil rights legislation. Mass action had to be mobilized. The great Selma-to-Montgomery March, which captured the conscience of the nation and the attention of the world, generated the dynamism behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I am proud to tell you, brothers and sisters, that perhaps no single group was so distinctively and honorably present on that occasion as the representatives of the labor movement. President Meany sent Don Slaiman, director of our Civil Rights Department, with a delegation that included, among others, Dave Sullivan, Robert Powell and Charles Zimmerman.
And so, on the very steps of the capitol of Alabama, labor’s voice was raised high and clear in the name of freedom. President Meany, I participated in that historic event, and I can tell you that nothing so inspired the embattled Negroes of Alabama with courage and confidence as the visible and dramatic support of the labor movement in those glorious days.
Not only in Alabama but in Washington, the political power and skill of the Negro’s allies were indispensable. The fact of the matter is, brothers and sisters, that the AFL-CIO—under the able and forthright leadership of President Meany, Brother Reuther and the Executive Council—did a yeoman’s job of lining up congressional support for the civil rights legislation of the past two years.
Special recognition is due to Andrew Biemiller who, working side by side with Clarence Mitchell, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Joseph Rauh, Jr. of the Industrial Union Department, coordinated labor’s lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Without their tireless efforts, we might not have won the battle. Let these hard facts be properly noted by the hostile critics of the labor movement who profess sympathy for the cause of racial equality.66
Brothers and sisters, the Resolution on Civil Rights which is before you is a commendable document which reaffirms labor’s commitment to racial justice and equality. It emphasizes what labor knows from experience—that the passage of good laws is not sufficient, that the laws must be vigorously and effectively enforced. The agencies responsible for administering the laws must be given the resources to discharge their responsibilities firmly. Where necessary, the laws must be strengthened through amendment.
But we also know that the work of the civil rights movement has just begun. We rightly demand of the government that every barrier to the Negro’s full participation in the nation’s political life be struck down. Once those barriers have fallen, however, it is our task to mobilize the masses of Negroes at the ballot box.
This is labor’s task as well. For when the full political potential of the Southern Negro is realized, the face of Congress will be radically changed. The Dixiecrat politicians who have joined with conservative Republicans in opposition to Labor’s legislative demands will have to sing a different tune—or find other jobs. Moreover, brothers and sisters, I submit to you that the continuation and expansion of the Negro voter registration campaign in the South lays the foundation for labor’s drive to organize the unorganized in the South.
The last two years have plainly demonstrated that the Negro-labor alliance is not a one-way street. Virtually the entire national Negro leadership has put its weight heavily behind the congressional campaign for repeal of 14(b), for a 2-dollar minimum wage, for extension of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and for other labor demands. They have testified before congressional committees and their testimonies have been published and widely distributed by the Randolph Institute.
When the Negro leadership speaks out for labor’s demands, they are not merely making a gesture in return for labor’s support of civil rights. Rather we are bound together in a coalition of mutual interest.
Negro workers need and demand the repeal of 14(b) now! And they know why they want it. They know that repeal of 14(b) helps clear the way for unionization of the South. They know that repeal of 14(b) is a step toward economic security and better living standards. They know that repeal of 14(b) means greater dignity on the job—freedom from exploitation and intimidation.
And they know full well where the die-hard resistance to repeal of 14(b) is coming from. It is coming from the greedy profiteers and the reactionary politicians who have tried to block the Negro’s advance every step of the way. That is why, in Oklahoma and other states, the Negro vote was decisive in defeating so-called right to work laws. And I can promise you, brothers and sisters, that throughout this land, the Negro revolution will join hands with labor in saying to the next Congress: Repeal 14(b) now!
And we say, too, that if there is any single step that will raise Negroes out of poverty, it is labor’s demand for a national 2-dollar minimum wage. In this land of affluence, in the year 1965, two out of every three Negro families live in poverty and deprivation. In part, this fact reflects the astronomically high unemployment rates in the Negro community. But in most cases, the head of the Negro family is working—forty hard hours a week. He does not need to be lectured about self-help. Give him a decent wage, and he will be able to help himself. He will be able to keep his family together, to educate his children, to contribute to the well-being of the community. And he will be in a stronger position to struggle effectively for the dignity and the rights which he has been denied.
A national 2-dollar minimum wage, extended to millions now uncovered, would redress a shame of the nation. It would mean a revolution in southern racial and economic relations. It would weaken the position of runaway plants that locate in the South in order to escape unionism and exploit a cheap labor market. In many southern towns and cities, such companies become entrenched in the local power structures and fiercely resist civil rights efforts to change the status quo. The impact of a 2-dollar minimum wage on the ghetto-entrapped Negroes of the North would be no less revolutionary.
In short: if the civil rights revolution is to have meaning outside of the South—in the teeming slums of the cities, in the industrial centers of the nation—the needs of the dispossessed Negro masses must be hitched to the economic demands of labor.
More and more, the Negro leadership recognizes that of all the mass institutions in the nation, the labor movement holds out the greatest hope for progress in the daily conditions of life in the Negro community. Yet they do not forget for one moment that labor’s own house is not yet entirely in order, that segregated locals and discriminatory practices still exist in some unions. The eradication of these conditions, noted in the resolution before you, must be high on your priority list in the coming year. We must not permit the existence of any barriers to expanded cooperation between labor and the civil rights movement; and we must not give any ammunition to labor’s enemies.
The Civil Rights Department is to be congratulated for the vigor and effectiveness with which it has labored to eliminate the remaining discrimination in our ranks. Even before Title VII, the fair employment section of the Civil Rights Act, went into effect, the department was hard at work preparing international unions to cooperate in obtaining compliance with the law. At the same time, the AFL-CIO has called for a strengthening of the enforcement machinery of Title VII.
But more than your congratulations, Don Slaiman and the Civil Rights Department need your active support. Union locals must be encouraged to utilize the valuable technical assistance the department can provide.
Brothers and sisters, two years ago when I stood before you, I spoke of the impact of the technological revolution and its economic dislocations on the Negro community. I said then that large sections of the community, unskilled and uneducated, were being rendered economically obsolete and deprived of social dignity. I spoke of a growing underclass, lacking hope and leadership, bereft of any sense of a stake in the total society. And I said then that, if we listened carefully, we could hear the rumblings of that underclass.
I do not need to tell you that in these two years those rumblings are exploded into thunderous and wildly destructive violence, from the tenements of Harlem to the slums of Watts. That violence cannot be excused or defended, for it took a larger toll in life and limb than has the nonviolent movement in the South—and with less to show for it. But it serves no purpose simply to denounce the riots without trying to understand their causes. For, of this much we can be certain: if those causes are not identified and uprooted, radically and finally, we will be courting disaster.
Let me say that I have been greatly encouraged by President Johnson’s speech at Howard University and by the Department of Labor’s study on the Negro family. Both move in the right direction of pinpointing the social and economic roots of the Negro’s discontent. To further explore these roots, the President has, as you know, scheduled a special White House Conference, of which I have the privilege of serving as honorary chairman.
This conference will give special attention to the problem of Negro family instability. This, brothers and sisters, is a major problem with deep historical roots. Under two centuries of slavery, the Negro family was systematically destroyed. The right of Negroes to marry is barely one hundred years old. Following slavery, a system of segregation was introduced which denied the Negro family, particularly the Negro male, even the rudiments of economic security. To this very day, many of our welfare laws encourage family desertion by Negro males.
I do not have to tell you how family breakups encourage delinquency, crime, school drop-outs, and many forms of destructive, anti-social behavior. But when all of this is said, the question remains: How do we strengthen the Negro family and the fabric of the Negro community?
Here again, I think the labor movement knows the answer at least as well as the sociologists and psychologists and other experts. The answer is jobs—decent jobs at decent wages. We know that when the Negro unemployment rate dropped during World War II, so did the Negro rate of divorce, of illegitimacy, and other indications of family instability. And so, brothers and sisters, the answer to Negro family instability and to Watts is the enactment of labor’s programs for full and fair employment.
The record of the last ten years will show that we cannot look to the private sector of the economy to achieve the goal of full employment. But we can meet that goal through expansion of the public sector—through meeting the vast unmet social needs of the country. We can put the unemployed back to work by clearing our slums and rebuilding our cities, by building schools and hospitals, by modernizing and expanding mass transit facilities, by investing in flood control and by combating air pollution. We can open new jobs for the poor by expanding our social services.
We can achieve full employment by tearing down the physical environment of poverty and building a great society in its place. It was with this concept in mind that I proposed, at the planning session of the White House Conference, a national freedom budget of 100 billion dollars. This is a feasible and realistic budget, which has the support of leading labor economists. We have the means; we lack only the social imagination and the political will.
This is, above all, an imperative budget if we are serious about building the Great Society. As President Meany has said, “We must not let money stand in the way.” Either we decide upon massive social investments now, or we face the incalculably more costly alternative of social disintegration and violence. In the long run, it is the budget-balancers and the tight-money boys who will prove to be the most impractical. Let me say right here that the recent action of the Federal Reserve Board may do more to dry up job opportunities for Negroes—not to mention whites—than the most overtly racist discrimination.
Brothers and sisters, I cannot close without commenting on a great danger that may lie ahead. In times of war or international crisis, as you know, there is a tendency to divert attention away from crying domestic needs and problems. Even now there are those who would exploit the perilous situation in Viet Nam for their own narrow political purposes. Already we have heard the reactionary voices of Senators Stennis and Russell and other segregationists. They call for a cutback in the war on poverty; they would push the struggle for racial equality off the stage of history; they feel strengthened in their opposition to labor’s struggle for industrial democracy.67
These tendencies must be vigorously fought. As President Meany has said, our efforts to resist Communist totalitarianism will require sacrifices and impose burdens. But those sacrifices and burdens must be evenly distributed. We must not place the heaviest loads on those least able to bear them—the poor and dispossessed, black and white. We must not now dash their new hopes for a place in the sun. We must press forward the struggle for justice and democracy at home while we pursue it abroad.
In recent weeks, the Negro leadership has gathered together to discuss the objectives and directions of the civil rights movement during this difficult period of transition. They have concluded that we need to press forward on three major fronts. First is to achieve economic security for the Negro family through full and fair employment. Second is to see to it that the civil rights legislation is vigorously implemented. Third is to secure full protection of individuals in the exercise of the constitutionally-guaranteed rights. There must be an immediate end to the brutalization and murder of civil rights workers, and to a discriminatory jury system which makes a mockery of justice.
President Meany, the resolution before us speaks forthrightly and directly to these concerns of the Negro leadership. Not coincidentally, but by indisputable social logic, the forces of labor and civil rights again find themselves on the same side of the struggle for justice.
Brothers and sister, I urge the adoption of the Resolution on Civil Rights.
Thank you.
PRESIDENT MEANY: Thank you, Brother Randolph, for a clear statement of position supporting the AFL-CIO.
Is there further discussion? Those who favor the motion to adopt, signify aye. Contrary? It is carried and so ordered.
Proceedings of the Sixth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, San Francisco, Calif., December 9–15, 1965, Vol. I, pp. 213–20.
30. A “FREEDOM BUDGET” FOR ALL AMERICANS
Prepared by the A. Philip Randolph Institute
Foreword
After many years of intense struggle in the courts, in legislative halls, and on the streets, we have achieved a number of important victories. We have come far in our quest for respect and dignity. But we have far to go.
The long journey ahead requires that we emphasize the needs of all America’s poor, for there is no way merely to find work, or adequate housing, or quality-integrated schools for Negroes alone. We shall eliminate slums for Negroes when we destroy ghettos and build new cities for all. We shall eliminate unemployment for Negroes when we demand full and fair employment for all. We shall produce an educated and skilled Negro mass when we achieve a twentieth century educational system for all.
This human rights emphasis is an integral part of the Freedom Budget and sets, I believe, a new and creative tone for the great challenge we yet face.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference fully endorses the Freedom Budget and plans to expend great energy and time in working for its implementation.
It is not enough to project the Freedom Budget. We must dedicate ourselves to the legislative task to see that it is immediately and fully achieved. I pledge myself to this task and will urge all others to do likewise. The Freedom Budget is essential if the Negro people are to make further progress. It is essential if we are to maintain social peace. It is a political necessity. It is a moral commitment to the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded.
October 26, 1966
Martin Luther King
Introduction
The “Freedom Budget” spells out a specific and factual course of action, step by step, to start in early 1967 toward the practical liquidation of poverty in the United States by 1975. The programs urged in the “Freedom Budget” attack all of the major causes of poverty—unemployment and underemployment; substandard pay; inadequate social insurance and welfare payments to those who cannot or should not be employed; bad housing; deficiencies in health services, education, and training; and fiscal and monetary policies which tend to redistribute income regressively rather than progressively. The “Freedom Budget” leaves no room for discrimination in any form, because its programs are addressed to all who need more opportunity and improved incomes and living standards—not just to some of them.
The “Freedom Budget” differs from previous worthy efforts to set forth similar goals because it fuses general aspirations with quantitative content, and imposes time schedules. It deals not only with where we must go, but also with how fast and in what proportions. It measures costs against resources, and thus determines feasible priorities. It is not only a call to action, but also a schedule for action.
The “Freedom Budget,” however, is not self-executing. It defines programs around which can be rallied all those individuals and groups who favor these programs and their objectives. But even with this convergence of forces, these individuals and groups will need to assume the political task of impressing upon their Government the obligation to undertake promptly the needed legislative and Executive programs. As is stressed throughout, improved operations under the Employment Act of 1946, commencing at once, must be the first focal point of the implementation process. The “Freedom Budget” is thus an imperative call to national action—now.
Why do we call this a “Freedom Budget?”
The language evokes the struggle of the civil rights movement, its vision of social justice and equality, its militant determination that these goals be rapidly and forthrightly achieved. This is the vision and determination that underlies the “Freedom Budget” and must propel any genuine war on poverty. The moral issues in this war are no less compelling than those of the battle against racism.
We call this a “Freedom Budget” in recognition that poverty and deprivation, as surely as denial of the right to vote, are erosive of human freedom and of democracy. In our affluent nation, even more than in the rest of the world, economic misery breeds the most galling discontent, mocking and undermining faith in political and civil rights. Here in these United States, where there can be no economic nor technological excuse for it, poverty is not only a private tragedy but in a sense a public crime. It is above all a challenge to our morality.
We call this a “Freedom Budget” because it embodies programs which are essential to the Negro and other minority groups striving for dignity and economic security in our society. But their legitimate aspirations cannot be fulfilled in isolation. The abolition of poverty (almost three-quarters of whose U.S. victims are white) can be accomplished only through action which embraces the totality of the victims of poverty, neglect, and injustice. Nor can the goals be won by segmental or ad hoc programs alone; there is need for welding such programs into a unified and consistent program.
The main beneficiaries will be the poor themselves. But in the process everyone will benefit, for poverty is not an isolated circumstance affecting only those entrapped by it. It reflects—and affects—the performance of our national economy, our rate of economic growth, our ability to produce and consume, the condition of our cities, the levels of our social services and needs, the very quality of our lives. Materially as well as spiritually, a society afflicted by poverty deprives all of its citizens of security and well-being.
In this war, too, we encounter the pessimists and the tokenists, those who counsel “gradualism” and those who urge piecemeal and haphazard remedies for deep-rooted and persistent evils. Here again, “gradualism” becomes an excuse for not beginning or for beginning on a base too small to support the task, and for not setting goals; and the scattered, fragmented remedies, lacking priorities and coordination, often work at cross purposes.
In the economic and social realm, no less than in the political, justice too long delayed is justice denied. We propose and insist that poverty in America can and therefore must be abolished within ten years.
The means toward this end are spelled out in the following pages, prepared in cooperation with some of the nation’s outstanding experts. There may be minor disagreements with regard to statistical data, analysis, and policy proposals, even among those endorsing the “Freedom Budget” in this publication. These individuals subscribe only to the broad directions of the “Freedom Budget,” and are too imbued with a sense of urgency to cavil about the details. But this limitation is not intended to imply lukewarmness in terms of urgency, nor to question that in its major aspects the “Freedom Budget” is essentially sound and imperative.
The “Freedom Budget” contends that this nation has the resources to abolish poverty, for the first time in human history, and to do so within a decade. Indeed, the very process of abolishing poverty will add enormously to our resources, raising the living standard of Americans at all income levels. By serving our unmet social needs—in slum clearance and housing, education and training, health, agriculture, natural resources and regional development, social insurance and welfare programs—we can achieve and sustain a full employment economy (itself the greatest single force against poverty) and a higher rate of economic growth, while simultaneously tearing down the environment of poverty. All of these problems interact, whether viewed as causes or results, and they are in truth both.
Only such a massive and sustained program—which sees poverty in terms of the national economy, and not only in terms of the personal characteristics of the poor—can bring success. Goals must be set, along with timetables for achieving them. We must plan the allocation of our resources in accord with our priorities as a nation and a people.
The economic impact of the war in Vietnam and the attendant question of inflation are discussed subsequently and need not be taken up here, except to point out that the “Freedom Budget” is not predicated on cutbacks in national defense nor on one or another position regarding the Vietnam conflict, which is basically a thorny question to be viewed in its own terms. The fundamental proposition is that the broad approaches of the “Freedom Budget” can and should be implemented, whether or not an early termination of the Vietnam conflict is achieved, or even were there to be substantial increase in its economic and financial burdens.
Clearly, however, there are those who would use the Vietnam war and the issue of inflation as sharp weapons to force cut-backs or dangerous slowdowns in the needed rate of expansion of domestic social spending. Their cries might attract more notice had they not, in too many instances, been vociferous opponents of Great Society programs prior to the stepped-up American involvement in Vietnam. And as for the problem of inflation, to the extent it augments, the Federal Government has at its command selective measures to combat it which do not require impairment of Great Society programs of needed magnitudes. If the progress of inflationary pressures should indicate that we are trying to do more than our rapidly-advancing productive resources will support, then a legitimate effort against inflation means cut-backs of the relatively nonessential, not of the vital. A simulated campaign against inflation which punishes those who need help most reveals the crocodile tears of those who bewail how inflation hurts the unfortunate. It is important that thinking Americans recognize the selfish character of any assault on needed domestic programs.
As we reject these selfish pleas, so must we reject another argument emanating from different quarters, to the effect that the termination of the Vietnam conflict is the prerequisite for acceleration of domestic social programs. We all desire that termination, on safe and honorable terms; nonetheless, the argument just cited, no less than that of economic conservatives, would hitch the aspirations and long-denied needs of the poor to the outcome of the Vietnam war—a dependency which, we repeat, is neither economically necessary nor morally defensible.
Those drafting this “Freedom Budget” have sought to outline, objectively and fully, the steps required for the abolition of poverty in America. It may be argued that the “Freedom Budget” is too ambitious to be “politically feasible.” We contend that the proper question is whether the persistence of poverty is any longer feasible. Can we afford another Watts, and what has happened since? How many examples of seething discontent do we need before we move earnestly to provide jobs for all, clear the slums, rebuild our cities, overcome the shortages of schools and hospitals, and reverse the neglect of our other social needs?
Who, only a few short years ago, would have acknowledged the “political feasibility” of the tremendous legislative victories of the civil rights movement in our own day?
These breakthroughs were not won by those who thought narrowly of what was “politically feasible,” but by those who placed the moral issues squarely before the American people. Having stated the issues clearly, they forged a mighty coalition among the civil rights and labor movements, liberal and religious forces, students and intellectuals—the coalition expressed in the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Social progress is always the trusteeship of those battling constantly to lift the level of “political feasibility.” A nation can decay, as all history shows, if the level of “feasibility” is kept too far below what is required to survive and advance. We must ask, not only what is feasible by whom, but also what is needed by whom.
To the full goals of the 1963 March the “Freedom Budget” is dedicated. Within this coalition of conscience the strength must be mobilized for the implementation of this “Freedom Budget” for all Americans.
A. Philip Randolph
I. The “Freedom Budget” In Brief
Basic principles
The “Freedom Budget” stems from seven basic principles:
(1) Freedom on the American scene must include what Franklin D. Roosevelt called “freedom from want.” This can be achieved, not by the power of any one group, but by the power of a fully-employed U.S. economy plus the power of the aroused conscience of the American people;
(2) “Freedom from want” for an increasing majority of our citizens is not good enough; it must embrace all. Our economy is rich enough, and should be just enough, to reject as intolerable the ghetto within stone’s throw of the duplex apartment; the alien worlds of slums and suburbs; the unemployment rate four times as high in some localities as in the nation at large; the millions receiving substandard wages despite many thousands of millionaires; the low-income farmers despite luxury restaurants; the poverty among 34 million and the deprivation among another 28 million, in a land where median family income is now close to $7,000, and where the families in the top income fifth have eight times as much income as the families in the lowest income fifth. We have already received tragic warning that there is no prospect for domestic tranquility in a nation divided between the affluent and the desperately poor;
(3) The U.S. economy has the productive power to abolish “freedom from want” by 1975, not by pulling down those at the top but by lifting those at the bottom, if we start now and do our best. What we have the power to do, we will in fact do, if we care enough about doing it. The real issue is neither economic nor financial, but moral;
(4) Our economy is now too abundant for the poverty or deprivation still afflicting almost a third of a nation to be explained mainly by the personal characteristics of the victims. True, personal deficiencies have a bearing upon the economic condition of many individuals. But it is even more true that deficiencies in nationwide policies and programs, evidencing a default in the national conscience, spawn and perpetuate these personal deficiencies. Just as malaria has been stamped out more by clearing swamps than by injecting quinine, the main attack upon poverty and deprivation must deal more with the nationwide environment than with the individual. Beyond this, the modern technology has advanced to the point where every American should enjoy “freedom from want,” regardless of personal characteristics;
(5) While “freedom from want” by 1975 will require action at all levels, private and public, the leadership role must be taken by our Federal Government. It alone represents all the people. Its policies and programs exert the most powerful single influence upon economic performance and social thinking. We accept this principle without question during a total war against external enemies. A “war against poverty” establishes the same principle on the domestic front;
(6) A war against want cannot be won with declarations of intent. It cannot be won with token or inadequate programs which identify areas of need, but apply policies and programs which only scratch the surface. It demands specific quantitative goals, fully responsive to the need, and commitment to their attainment;
(7) This war against want must be color blind. Negroes will benefit most relative to their numbers because, for reasons not of their making, want is most heavily concentrated among them. But in absolute numbers, the vast majority of those yearning for release from want are white. And those already free from want, both white and nonwhite, cannot enjoy fully the benefits of economic progress and the blessings of democracy until “freedom from want” becomes universal throughout the land.
Basic objectives
Founded upon these principles, the seven basic objectives of the “Freedom Budget” are these:
(1) To restore full employment as rapidly as possible, and to maintain it thereafter, for all able and willing to work, and for all whom adequate training and education would make able and willing. This means an unemployment rate below 3 percent by early 1968, and preferably 2 percent. Full 40 percent of all U.S. poverty is due directly to inadequate employment opportunity, and involuntary unemployment is corrosive to the human spirit;
(2) To assure adequate incomes for those employed. About 20 percent of all U.S. poverty is among the working poor (including their dependents) who receive substandard wages. In addition, millions of farm families and others in rural areas have substandard incomes. Treatment of these problems depends primarily upon Federal legislation;
(3) To guarantee a minimum adequacy level of income to all those who cannot or should not be gainfully employed. About 40 percent of all U.S. poverty is among those who cannot or should not work because of age or other disabling factors. More than 13 percent of all U.S. poverty is among families headed by women who should not work. Until, under Federal auspices, we achieve such a guaranteed income, there should be immediate and vast improvements in all Social Security and welfare programs, with much larger Federal participation;
(4) To wipe out the slum ghettos, and provide a decent home for every American family, within a decade. Foul housing is both cause and consequence of poverty. It breeds resentment and unrest. Housing and urban renewal, on a scale matching the need, would also make the largest single contribution to job creation in the face of job displacement by technological trends elsewhere in the economy. It would accent the types of jobs most suitable for absorbing those now most vulnerable to unemployment;
(5) To provide, for all Americans, modern medical care and educational opportunity up to the limits of their abilities and ambitions, at costs within their means. The shortage of personnel and facilities upon enactment of Medicare (which helps only the aged portion of the population) speaks for itself. Many schools in our great cities are a shambles;
(6) To overcome other manifestations of neglect in the public sector, by purifying our airs and waters, and bringing our transportation systems and natural resource development into line with the needs of a growing population and an expanding economy. This, too, would provide the types of jobs most suited to reducing unemployment. Along with housing and urban renewal, it would immensely improve the living conditions even of those who already enjoy “freedom from want” in a more limited sense;
(7) To unite sustained full employment with sustained full production and high economic growth. This is essential, in order that “freedom from want” may be achieved, not by robbing Peter to pay Paul, but under conditions which bring progress to all.
The key role of our Federal Government
The “Freedom Budget” sets forth the above seven basic objectives in specific and quantitative terms. It sets time schedules for their accomplishment. It establishes their feasibility by means of a balance sheet of all of our needs and resources, with due allowance for all of our other private and public undertakings and aspirations as a nation and a people.
In this way, the “Freedom Budget” is a call to action. But the response to this call must take the form of national programs and policies, with the Federal Government exercising that leadership role which is consistent with our history, our institutions, and our needs. The six prime elements in this Federal responsibility are now set forth.
(1) Beginning with 1967, the President’s Economic Reports should embody the equivalent of a “Freedom Budget.” These Reports should quantify ten-year goals for full employment and full production, for the practical liquidation of U.S. poverty by 1975, for wiping out the slum ghettos, and indeed for each of the seven basic objectives set forth in the “Freedom Budget.” With due allowance for private and public performance at other levels, but with a firm determination by our Federal Government to close the gaps, all major Federal economic, financial, and social policies—including the Federal Budget—should be geared to attainment of these ten-year goals, starting at once in realistic magnitudes;
(2) The bedrock civilized responsibility rests with our Federal Government to guarantee sustained full employment. The Government should at once and continuously lead in organizing and financing enough job-creating activities to close the gap between full employment and employment provided at other public and private levels. None of these Federally-created jobs need to be made-work, because our unmet needs in the public sector are large enough to absorb beneficially this Federal effort. Training programs, to be effective, must be synchronized with job creation;
(3) The Federal Government should exert the full weight of its authority toward immediate enactment of a Federal minimum wage of $2.00 an hour, with coverage extended to the uppermost constitutional limits of Federal power. This would be a moderate start toward eradication of substandard living standards among millions of those employed;
(4) A new farm program, with accent upon incomes rather than prices, should focus upon parity of income for farmers and liquidation of farm poverty by 1975. More than 43 percent of all farm families now live in poverty, contrasted with only 13 percent of all nonfarm families;
(5) To lift out of poverty and also above deprivation those who cannot or should not be employed, there should be a Federally-initiated and supported guaranteed annual income, to supplement rather than to supplant full-employment at decent pay. The anti-poverty goal alone involves lifting almost all multiple-person families above $3,130 by 1975. Pending this, there should be immediate and vast improvements in all Social Security and welfare programs, with greatly enlarged Federal contributions to all of them, including old-age insurance and assistance, general public assistance, special-purpose public assistance, unemployment insurance, and workmen’s compensation;
(6) Fiscal and monetary policies should be readjusted to place far more weight upon distributive justice. The massive Federal tax reductions in recent years tended to redistribute income with undue concern for those high up in the income structure, and inadequate concern for those lower down. State and local taxes and indirect taxes are so regressive—they bear with such excessive weight upon low-income people—that we should make the Federal income tax much more progressive than now. The decision to rely so heavily upon tax reduction and so little upon increased domestic spending to stimulate the economy was undesirable; it lowered our capacity to serve some of the greatest priorities of our national needs which depend upon public spending and are hardly helped by tax reduction. The current monetary policy does little to curb the excesses in the economy, and places a severe handicap upon activities of utmost urgency, especially housing. The sharply rising interest rates help those most who need help least, and hurt those most who need help most, because it is the lower income people who depend most upon borrowing. We cannot afford to neglect equity and social considerations in fiscal and monetary policies which transfer billions of dollars every year from some to others. Improved income distribution also helps the whole economy.
The “economic growth dividend” in the “Freedom Budget”: uses of this dividend
We cannot enjoy what we do not produce. The “Freedom Budget” recognizes that all of the goals which it sets must be supported by the output of the U.S. economy. This output should grow greatly from year to year, under policies designed to assure sustained maximum employment, production, and purchasing power in accord with the objectives of the Employment Act of 1946.
With such policies, our total national production (measured in 1964 dollars) should rise from about 663 billion in 1965 to 1,085–1,120 billion by 1975. This would mean, for the ten years 1966–1976 inclusive, a level of total national production averaging annually 231.5–244.2 billion dollars higher, and aggregating over the ten years 2,315–2,442 billion dollars higher, than if total production remained during these ten years at the 1965 rate. This aggregate ten-year figure of 2,315–2,442 billion dollars is the “economic growth dividend” upon which the “Freedom Budget” draws to fulfill its purposes.
The “Freedom Budget” does not contemplate that this “economic growth dividend” be achieved by revolutionary nor even drastic changes in the division of responsibility between private enterprise and government under our free institutions. To illustrate, in 1965, 63.7 percent of our total national production was in the form of private consumer outlays, 16.5 percent in the form of private investment, and 19.8 percent in the form of public outlays at all levels for goods and services. Under the “higher” goals in the “Freedom Budget,” these relationships in 1975 would be 63.5 percent, 16.9 percent, and 19.6 percent.
But while the “Freedom Budget” will not be regarded as socialistic, it is indeed socially-minded. It insists that we must make deliberate efforts to assure that, through combined private and public efforts, a large enough proportion of this “economic growth dividend” shall be directed toward the great priorities of our national needs: liquidation of private poverty, restoration of our cities, abolition of slum ghettos, improvement of rural life, and removal of the glaring deficiencies in facilities and services in “the public sector” of our economy. The “Freedom Budget” thus has moral as well as materialistic purposes.
The use of only a fair and moderate portion of this “economic growth dividend” to support the great priority purposes in the “Freedom Budget” makes it clear that even those who are already affluent or wealthy would not be penalized in any way in order to accomplish these great priority purposes. Entirely to the contrary, they would continue to enjoy what they have now, and also share largely and directly in the “economic growth dividend” itself. They would also benefit indirectly in multiple ways by the portions of the “economic growth dividend” used to support these great national priorities.
A few examples will serve to prove the point that only fair and moderate portions of the “economic growth dividend” would be used to support these great national priorities. To cite one outstanding example, based upon the deplorable conditions in our cities and the slum ghettos and rural slums, the “Freedom Budget” proposes that total private and public investment in residential structures and related community improvements (measured in 1964 dollars) average annually during the ten years 1966–1975 about 53 billion dollars, or about 530 billion in the aggregate for the ten years. On an average annual basis, this would be about 23 billion dollars higher than about 30 billion of such investment in 1965, and over the ten years it would aggregate about 230 billion dollars higher than if such investment were maintained throughout these ten years at the 1965 rate. This 230 billion dollars would be less than one-tenth of the economic growth dividend of 2,315–2,442 billion dollars. This is a very moderate share of that “economic growth dividend” to apply to a program which would come close to obliterating the slums and providing a decent home for every American family by 1975, and would make the most powerful single contribution toward the rescue of our cities and the creation of employment opportunity.
The portion of this investment in residential structures and related community improvements which would be galvanized by the public subsidies (at all levels) needed to rehouse those among the poor and deprived who live in slums would average annually during the ten years 1966–1975 about 10 billion dollars, or about 100 billion dollars in the aggregate for the ten years. On an average annual basis, this would be about 9 billion higher than about one billion of such investment in 1965, and over the ten years it would aggregate about 90 billion higher than if such investment were maintained throughout the ten years at the 1965 rate. This 90 billion dollars is in the neighborhood of one-twenty sixth of the “economic growth dividend.”
To take another very significant example, the term “transfer payments” is used to describe those programs such as Social Security and other welfare payments which are designed in the final analysis to transfer a fair portion of the national income toward those who need help most. The “Freedom Budget” proposes that these transfer payments average annually during the ten years 1966-75 close to 23.8 billion dollars higher than the 1965 rate of 38.5 billion, or aggregate during the ten years about 238 billion higher than if the 1965 rate were maintained during these ten yeras. This 238 billion dollars is only in the neighborhood of one-tenth of the “economic growth dividend.”
To take a third example, the “Freedom Budget” proposes a wide variety of programs, private and public, which would come close to the liquidation of U.S. poverty by 1975. In the final analysis, whatever means may be adopted, the liquidation of poverty depends primarily upon increasing the incomes of those who are now poor. It has been estimated reliably that the 34 million American poor would need to receive annually about 13 billion dollars more in income than they now receive to be lifted out of the poverty cellar. In the aggregate during the ten years 1966–1975, this would come to about 130 billion dollars. This 130 billion dollars is only in the neighborhood of one-eighteenth of the “economic growth dividend.”
These three illustrations make it clear that the accomplishment of these high priority goals, and the other priority goals set forth in the “Freedom Budget,” would involve so small a portion of the “economic growth dividend” that there will be room and to spare despite these priority programs for enormous progress for all. More than that, every program designed to eliminate “freedom from want,” including home construction and increasing the purchasing power of our senior citizens and of the poor generally, will contribute to economic growth and enlarge opportunities for private investment and profits.
Responsibilities of the Federal Budget
While the “Freedom Budget” is based upon combined private and public efforts, the Federal Budget is the most powerful single instrument of national economic and social policy. It profoundly influences the economic climate in which private enterprise operates. It speaks for the needs and aspirations of all the people, and identifies our great national priorities to a degree that they cannot elsewhere be identified.
The “Freedom Budget” proposes a Federal Budget which (measured in 1964 dollars) should rise from 104.045 billion dollars (112.8 billion in current dollars) as contained in the original fiscal 1967 Federal Budget (which is several billions too low) to 135 billion dollars in calendar 1970, and 155 billion in calendar 1975.
The proposals for national defense, space technology, and all international do not represent independent determinations in the “Freedom Budget,” but merely reflect the composite judgment of informed experts, and make liberal allowances for increases now in prospect. All of the other proposals are based upon determinations within the “Freedom Budget” as to what part of our “economic growth dividend” should be devoted to priorities which depend upon the Federal Budget.
Total proposed Federal outlays include a Federal contribution of one billion dollars in 1970, and two billion in 1975, to help increase benefit payments to the aged under the Old-Age, Survivors, Disability, and Health Insurance program.
The following table reveals the “Freedom Budget” proposals for the Federal Budget (measured in 1964 dollars).
The above proposals for the Federal Budget will seem excessive only to those who do not appreciate the growing productive powers of the U.S. economy, under conditions of sustained full employment and full production.
For the ten years 1966–1975 inclusive, Federal outlays as proposed in the “Freedom Budget” would average annually about 35.5 billion dollars higher, and over the ten years aggregate about 355 billion dollars higher, than if the Federal Budget remained stationary during these ten years at its 1965 size of 98.7 billion (calendar years, 1964 dollars). This 335 billion dollars would be only about one-seventh of the “economic growth dividend.”
Moreover, when the outlays for national defense, space technology, and all international are excluded from the proposed Federal Budget, the “Freedom Budget” proposals for all domestic programs in the Federal Budget would average annually only about 18.5 billion dollars higher, and over the ten years aggregate only about 185 billion dollars higher, than if Federal Budget outlays for these domestic programs remained stationary at their 1965 size of 37.7 billion. This 185 billion dollars would be only about one-thirteenth of the “economic growth dividend.”
Allowing for some proposed decreases in Budget outlays (e.g. lower interest rates), about 8 percent of the “economic growth dividend” is earmarked by the “Freedom Budget” for increases, above the 1965 level, for all programs in the Federal Budget addressed to the war against want. This is modest indeed. It should also be noted that this about 8 percent, or about 18.7 billion dollars on an annual average basis, comes to only about 2 percent of the 184.2–906.9 billion dollars which our total national production should average annually, 1966–1975. What could better illustrate that the whole question of whether we “can afford” the “Freedom Budget” is a moral question and not an economic issue?
The proposed Federal Budget would be only 15.38–15.51 percent of the total national production in calendar 1970, and only 13.84-14.29 percent in calendar 1975, contrasted with an average of 16.16 percent during the fiscal years 1954–1967. Thus, the size of the Federal Budget relative to the size of the total economy would tend to decline somewhat. However, Budget outlays for all domestic programs would rise from 5.65 percent of total national production in 1954–1967 to 6.55–6.61 percent in 1970 and 6.03–6.22 percent in 1975.
In short, the Federal Budget as proposed in the “Freedom Budget” would not at all distort our traditional concepts of the appropriate relationships among Federal public outlays at State and local levels, and private outlays. It would not distort our traditional concepts of a “mixed economy,” based upon responsible free government and responsible free enterprise. It would merely use the Federal Budget as a primary instrument toward balanced economic growth and improved social justice.
Looked at even more broadly, the whole program set forth in the “Freedom Budget” would not subtract from the income of anyone. It would facilitate progress for practically all, but with accent upon the dictates of the social conscience that those at the bottom of the heap should make relatively the most progress.
Specific full employment goals
The first imperative step toward utilizing in full our productive potentials is to restore full employment by early 1968 at the latest, and to sustain it thereafter. This must take care of population growth. It must deal not only with full–time and officially-recorded employment, but also with the full-time equivalent of part-time unemployment and the concealed unemployment which results from those who are not participating in the labor force (and who therefore are not counted as unemployed) because of scarcity of job opportunity. For example, in late 1966, full-time unemployment of about 4 percent meant a true level of unemployment of about 5%-6 percent. This means that, compared with 1965, total employment (measured in its full-time equivalent) must be about 4.6 million higher in 1967, 9.3 million higher in 1970, and 16.6 million higher in 1975. The total number of new jobs which must be created is much greater, to allow also for those who will be displaced from old jobs by technological changes.
Specific goals for liquidation of U.S. poverty
Designating the benefits of sustained full employment and full production as a means towards all other objectives, the first end priority in the “Freedom Budget” is the practical liquidation of U.S. poverty. Moving adequately toward this goal in every year beginning now, the poverty of about 34 million people in 1964 can and therefore should be reduced to only slightly more than 2 million in 1975. The rest of the goal can be achieved shortly thereafter.
The anti-poverty program, stemming from the Office of Economic Opportunity, should be improved qualitatively and greatly augmented quantitatively. But at best, this program touches only one small aspect of the poverty problem as a whole, which requires for its solution the coordinated utilization of all major national economic policies. This is true both with respect to a full-scale war against poverty in the form of enlarging the private incomes of the poor, and a full-scale war against poverty in the form of programs in the public sector.
Programs designed to improve income distribution are vital to the liquidation of poverty. From the purely economic viewpoint, full resource use cannot be sustained if the situation persists as it was in 1964, when the highest income fifth of all U.S. multiple-person families received 41 percent of total multiple-person family income, and the highest two-fifths 65 percent, while the lowest fifth received only 5 percent and the lowest two-fifths only 17 percent. In terms of social justice, such maldistribution is intolerable. Practically all major national economic policies affect income distribution, and should be used to affect it progressively, not regressively.
Specific goals for wiping out the slum ghettos
The most fundamental approach to “freedom from want” is guaranteed full employment, plus guaranteed annual incomes for those who cannot be employed. But other efforts in the war against want are essential.
The first of these is to wipe out the slum ghettos which are both the roots and offshoots of poverty, while their replacement would also make the largest single contribution to sustained full employment and the rescue of the urban environment from deterioration and decay.
Traditionally-financed private housing for middle-income and high-income families should average about 1.3 million a year. But we should start moving upward now toward about 400,000 starts of lower-middle income housing in 1968, and about 500,000 in 1970 and on through 1975. This calls for large increases in public outlays for land acquisition and some other purposes, use of Federal loans or credit and other action to drive interest rates downward, and a long-range planned program. Above all, housing starts for low-income families, with annual subsidies to bridge the difference between the annual cost of what these families can afford to pay without excessive strains upon their overall budgets and what decent housing costs, should be lifted year by year to at least 400,000 in 1968, and 500,000 in 1970 and on through 1975, compared with less than one-tenth this amount in most recent years. With about 21 million new homes, 1966–1975 (inclusive), almost all American families should enjoy decent homes by 1975. Allowing for feasible increases in State and local efforts, the basic thrust in this connection must come from Federal financial assistance.
Investment in health services, education, and training
Public responsibility, especially at the Federal level, must move immediately and at an accelerating rate toward increased investment in our human resources in the form of health services, education, and training.
Granted the advance represented by Medicare, we need approximately to double within ten years the annual rate of outlays for hospital construction, and to increase at least 50 percent by 1975 the annual number of physician graduates. Seriously inadequate medical care, due to the cost factor, still handicaps about 40 percent of our population. The battle should now be resumed for a nationwide system of health insurance.
For at least six years ahead, we need a construction program very conservatively estimated at more than 100,000 public school classrooms (with related facilities) a year, requiring outlays of about 27 billion dollars. We need about 100,000 new teachers a year in the public schools. We need vast enlargements in facilities and also in teachers at higher levels, accompanied by public financial aid to hundreds of thousands of young people who possess every innate endowment to go to college but lack the means.
Many types of training programs, including vocational, should also be expanded greatly. But we have learned from World War II experience, and experience during other periods of full employment, that the problem of training is reduced to manageable proportions when job opportunities are not lacking. Moreover, a ten-year projection of the volume and structure of full-employment requirements would show us better what to train people for. Training them for jobs which do not materialize adds to frustration and discontent.
Lifting our welfare services to meet the need
This summary cannot detail all of the deficiencies in the nationwide medley of welfare services. Many of them are both inadequate and degrading. They institutionalize poverty instead of fighting it. The largest group of those dependent upon organized public payments are our senior citizens. About two-thirds of them live in poverty, and receive benefit payments (upon which most of them depend almost entirely for their livelihoods) averaging somewhere between one-third and one-half of the income required to lift them above poverty.
With large Federal contributions to offset in part the undesirable features of payroll taxes which take away with one hand in order to give with the other, the average old-age insurance benefits should be approximately doubled within five years. Other types of welfare payments should be increased in similar manner. As already indicated, we should start working now toward replacing this medley of inadequate efforts with a more universal and unified system of guaranteed incomes for those who cannot or should not be gainfully employed.
Improving rural life
The extraordinary concentration of poverty in rural America, the economic disenfranchisement of a majority of our farm people, and the lag in public services in rural areas even relative to the gross deficiencies in urban areas, call for both general and specialized approaches. Most of these point ultimately to Federal responsibility, both in the form of a drastically reconstructed national farm policy and Federal equalization policies designed to help the poorer areas of the nation serve public needs. Underemployment is rife in agriculture. Hired farm workers, especially migratory, are among the most neglected and exploited people in America.
How to contain inflation
The “Freedom Budget” is not neglectful of the problem of inflation. Its attainment would not generate the classical type of inflation which results from attempting to do more than our productive resources can support, because the “Freedom Budget” goals for economic growth are based upon reasonably conservative estimates of the growth in the civilian labor force and in productivity. The high degree of price stability 1961–1965, compared with recurrent inflationary trends during 1953–1961, indicates that an adequate rate of economic growth is more conducive to price stability than an inadequate rate of economic growth punctuated by recessions. The reappearance of considerable price inflation 1965–1966, at a time when the real rate of economic growth was beginning to slow down, and when idleness of manpower and other productive resources was still too high, indicates in the main that the selective price inflation during this period was not due to excessive pressure upon our productive resources but rather to business decisions to increase prices which were not justified in view of very high profit levels. Indeed, some of these price increases may have reflected the desire of some industries to “get while the getting was good” in the face of some important signs of economic softening. The remedy for this type of selective inflation is to take selective measures to curb it, not to abandon the essential goal of adequate economic growth and full employment and production.
But even if this analysis is not entirely correct, this would not negate the urgency of achieving all of the great priority programs quantified in the “Freedom Budget.” It would simply mean that we should use tax policy and other measures to restrain marginal enjoyments instead of sacrificing what we need most. There is plenty of room in the U.S. economy for social justice; and if the total productive powers of the economy are hard-pressed, that is all the more reason to put first things first. We did not starve munition production to fight inflation during World War II; we should not dull the weapons in the war against want if we need to fight inflation now.
The challenge, 1966–1975
If the “Freedom Budget” becomes the living law of our national economic and social goals, policies, and programs, we can convert an abundance which already exceeds the most fanciful expectations of a decade ago into an America by 1975 where poverty has come close to total abolition; where every American enjoys a decent home in a suitable living environment; where our cities have become places in which to live instead of places to move out of as rapidly as possible; in which the educational and health services enjoyed by all of the people will be abreast of the advances in knowledge and science; in which the poisons will have been extracted from our airs and waters; in which our natural resources and means of transportation will be conserved and replenished; and in which the incomes of all, while by no means equal, will be equal to the requirements for living without want or economic fear, by virtue of employment for those willing and able, and by other appropriate methods for those not able to be employed.
Most Important of all, we shall have recognized that the foundation of a Great Society is a Just Society. The “Freedom Budget” does not ask for the moon, but only for justice here on earth, in a land so well able to afford it.
II. Why We Need A “Freedom Budget”
Identity of our domestic and international purposes
The American people today are torn by two seemingly conflicting purposes. On the one hand, they have been stirred to their depths by the “war against poverty” and by other splendid goals of the Great Society. They want to move forward toward these goals, and regard this properly as an essential economic and social follow-through on recent progress toward civil rights in racial relations. On the other hand, many of them believe that we must slow down instead of speed up the practical pursuit of these objectives, because of the war in Vietnam and the rising costs of national defense and related activities. Current national policies and programs, in the main, embody this viewpoint. So long as this seeming conflict is not resolved, we the American people remain divided among ourselves.
A. Philip Randolph Institute, A “Freedom Budget” For All Americans: Budgeting Our Resources, 1966–1975 To Achieve “Freedom From Want” (New York, 1966), pp. 1–24.
A. Philip Randolph Institute National Executive Board Meeting Monday, September 19, 1966 Hotel Roosevelt New York City
| Present: | A. Philip Randolph, presiding; David Bazelon; Irving Bluestone; Robert Gilmore; Ralph Helstein; Vivian Henderson; Norman Hill; Rachelle Horowitz; Tom Kahn; Leon Keyserling; Isaiah Minkoff; Eleanor H. Norton; L. D. Reddick; Bayard Rustin; Donald P. Slaiman and Whitney Young |
I. Discussion: Crisis in the Civil Rights Movement
The opening discussion was on the nature of the civil rights movement and its effects on the work of the Institute. Commentary among the group was, in essence, as follows:
Irving Bluestone felt that the emergence of the black power concept and the failure of society to meet the needs of the Negro people has created a crisis of strategy and tactics. At the present time the coalition has essentially fallen apart. We are concerned with helping to develop the talents of young people. It is imperative for the Institute to establish a concrete program on which all groups can cooperate, i.e., the Freedom Budget.
Vivian Henderson agreed that we do have a crisis and ought to recognize it. There is an absence of program which creates a vacuum. He is not convinced that the local political leadership has a program. The mayor of Atlanta did not address himself to the program and conditions that led to violence. We must get programs not only at the federal level, but also at the local level.
Don Slaiman said that the civil rights movement has to move from protest to politics and work for implementation of existing legislation. Unless the federal government moves, there is going to be less done by private groups. There has to be increased attention paid to continuing and expanding the job of implementation on the federal level and the grass roots level. He raised the question of how to revitalize the coalition between labor, liberals and civil rights.
Ralph Helstein stated that we need local grievance committees to work at the implementation of civil rights legislation. The Freedom Budget is essential, but there is another question. What do you do at the local level, in terms of organizing the communities? The Freedom Budget is not enough; there must be something more. Civil rights leaders need to look at themselves and ask themselves if they are doing the kind of job that needs to be done in mass movements. At a meeting in Chicago on fair housing, no effort was made to reach people on a logical basis.
Irving Bluestone raised several questions: Where do you go from here? The ability to get finances is receding and it takes money to run a revolution. How do you mobilize broad organizational support? Is the Freedom Budget and the approach beyond the intellectual reach of the average person? He felt that people are getting scared and disaffected and, as a result, money is drying up. The Institute should call a meeting to discuss ways and means of rallying around the Freedom Budget.
Bayard Rustin said that along with implementation we must also fight for new legislation.
II. Annual Report
Mr. Rustin continued with a report of the activities of the Institute during the past year, including meetings and consultations held, publications prepared and issued, and statements drafted.
He reported that the Institute has prepared and published testimony on behalf of the $2.00 minimum wage, extended unemployment benefits, Repeal of 14B, and the 1966 Civil Rights Act. More than 150,000 copies of the joint testimony has been distributed to labor unions and civil rights organizations.
The Institute conducted a week-long workshop for 500 students going into the south to work on voter registration.
The Institute mobilized both Negro rank-and-file and leadership in support of the labor movement in Atlanta during the Scripto strike, in New York during the Taxi Workers organizing drive and the Welfare strike, in Philadelphia in behalf of the AFT organizing drive, and in behalf of the grape workers strike in Delano. It advocated a Negro-labor alliance in speeches before countless religious, liberal, community and student groups. The staff addressed a number of international union conventions and prepared papers advocating the alliance for the White House Conference on Civil Rights and for the John LaFarge Institute, and at off-the-record meetings of civil rights leaders. It also brought civil rights people and trade unionists together to map out joint programs.
The Institute has cooperated with the Urban League and the Workers Defense League in getting Negro and Puerto Rican youth into Apprenticeship Training Programs and has met with Brennan, VanArsdale and vocational counselors as well as civil rights people. It has advised unions organizing Negro and Puerto Rican workers.
The Institute found 300 jobs for youth in Harlem who stopped in the office, helped about 25 return to school, and referred 150 more to Workers Defense League programs.
Robert Gilmore, Treasurer, then presented the Financial Report and spoke of the budget for next year.
It was moved and seconded that the report of the Treasurer be adopted. The motion was passed unanimously.
III. Freedom Budget
The predominant issue of the Freedom Budget was next discussed as follows:
Leon Keyserling began by discussing the need for the Freedom Budget. The Budget stems from the idea that at some time it will become apparent that the civil rights movement will have to be implemented in ridding a large part of the population from want. The Freedom Budget is based on the idea that when you develop a program you must get action; to get action you must get legislation; to get legislation you must have education. The Budget is to educate the thousands who are badly lacking in program. He said that he and others have been working a long time on the Budget and it is now ready to go to the printer. This raises several questions: How many are going to be printed? Who are they going to be sent to, and how? How are the leadership people going to be brought together to find out what they are prepared to do? Schools, libraries, economists, the Congress, are all good sources for the distribution of the Budget.
Don Slaiman expressed the feeling that the Budget should be published when more sponsors are obtained among the civil rights, labor and liberal leaders. The consensus, however, was that the Budget should be published as soon as possible.
Bayard Rustin suggested that the day the Freedom Budget is published there should be a coalition of leaders in Washington, D.C. to (1) take the first copy to the President; (2) call on Senators Kennedy and Javits to present Mr. Randolph to the Senate to explain the significance of the Freedom Budget; and (3) hold a press conference. The economists who worked on the Budget should hold a press briefing to inform the press of the contents of the Budget. The Budget should go to the NAACP, Urban League and other civil rights organizations, church leaders, congressmen, Leadership Conference groups, heads of sociology and economics departments of colleges and universities. He also suggested that meetings explaining the Freedom Budget be held in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
A meeting will be held later this week to determine the amount of copies to be printed. The Industrial Union Department is turning over the plates of a simplified version of the Budget to the Institute. The IUD will devote one issue of its publication, AGENDA, to the Budget. Dr. Vivian Henderson and other economists will hold conferences on the Budget at schools and universities, and a young Negro staff member of the Institute will visit campuses to get college groups in promoting the Budget.
Isaiah Minkoff said the Freedom Budget should come out with great dramatic impact, and that a large first issue should be printed.
Whitney Young said that the time for the Freedom Budget is now. The Marshall Plan for Negroes, which was a precursor of the Freedom Budget, never got off the ground, but the country is now ready for the Freedom Budget. We desperately need to put the civil rights struggle back on the offensive. The Freedom Budget will be helpful in putting the civil rights struggle back in perspective.
It was suggested that Mr. Rustin contact Whitney Young and, together, they would attempt to involve top public relations people in publicizing the Budget.
It was moved and seconded that the report of Mr. Keyserling be adopted and that Mr. Rustin be authorized, together with his committee, to publish the document for distribution. The motion was passed.
It was moved and seconded that the endorsers’ list be broadened, if possible. The motion was passed.
It was moved and seconded that appreciation be extended to Leon Keyserling, the economists, and others for the very magnificent job done on the Freedom Budget. The motion was passed.
IV. Future Program
General consensus was that it is important to have a conference of labor and Negro leaders in the South on southern politics and a conference of northern civil rights leaders to enlist support of the civil rights movement to help organize the unorganized. A conference should be held between civil rights leaders and the leaders of the building trades on how the two groups can work together for the Freedom Budget.
There being no further business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 4:50 p.m.
Minutes, A. Philip Randolph Institute National Executive Board Meeting, September 19, 1966, New York, Box 65 Committee Affiliations 1967, Whitney Young Papers, Columbia University.
By A. Philip Randolph
Content removed at rightsholder’s request.
The Crisis, 73 (January, 1966):18–23, 53.
33. COMMENTS ON A “FREEDOM BUDGET” FOR ALL AMERICANS
By Andrew F. Brimmer69
Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
The “Freedom Budget” reiterates the depressing details of poverty in America, and urges programs which will “attack all of the major causes of poverty—unemployment and under-employment; substandard pay; inadequate social insurance and welfare payments; bad housing; deficiencies in health services, education, and training; and fiscal and monetary policies which tend to redistribute income regressively rather than progressively.” The “Freedom Budget” makes the claim that it differs from previous efforts to establish social goals because it “measures costs against resources” and sets out a “schedule for action.”
The “Freedom Budget” justified its proposals and the impact of these programs on the economy on both a moral and a statistical level. The attempt to quantify our potential output and distribute the increment according to social needs is a useful approach and produces a meaningful base for testing the differential impact of alternative programs. It is probably true, that whatever the level of expenditures for Vietnam or the possible inflationary impact of the “Freedom Budget,” the programs presented could still be carried out—if the American people were willing to assign these social programs a sufficiently high priority, and forego other expenditures. But given the present demands on economic resources, it also means that we would have to assign an even more powerful role to the Federal government and intervene much more directly in the economy in terms of wage and price controls than would be necessary if the proposals were being carried out at a time when there was a large backlog of unused resources and a more stable or declining price pattern. Thus, in effect, timing considerations and the size of the program without clear priorities for its various parts, render the “Freedom Budget” more radical than many of its liberal proposals taken individually.
Misleading use of figures, some questionable economic theory, and a lack of modesty mar the presentation. For example, a questionably large increase in GNP growth over the next ten years (which probably cannot be attained without substantial inflationary pressures) is presented in such a way that it implies that these increases are somehow “new found,” and can thus be allocated to the “Freedom Budget.” Little account is taken of the fact that much of the anticipated rise in output will be absorbed just by larger population requirements and growth of current programs. The proposition that full-employment by itself promotes higher productivity increases is also debatable when experienced manpower resources are scarce and investment is being pushed beyond sustainable levels. In addition, the authors claim that it is the first attempt to measure social goals against resources overlooks several other excellent studies of this sort.
Apart from these analytical considerations, the “Freedom Budget” is disappointing as a document of persuasion. The presentation is discursive and appears unrealistic because of its wide ranging and seemingly excessive demands proposed in the present economic environment. Actually, a great many of the ideas are before Congress at the present time or have been passed into law in somewhat less bold form. For example, minimum wage legislation at $1.60 an hour by 1968 has been signed into law and will be reviewed again in a few years; a bill extending unemployment insurance coverage and higher benefits may pass; and provisions for more direct employment by the Federal government of people who cannot find private employment is in the Administration’s antipoverty bill. The Housing Act of 1965 has provisions for rent subsidies and more job training and economic opportunity could and probably would have been expanded under existing programs, if additional money were made available.
Equally disappointing is the failure of the “Freedom Budget” to live up to its promise to provide a “schedule for action.” It presents GNP forecasts for 1970 and 1975 and the percentage of GNP which should go to the “Economic Opportunity Program,” “Agriculture and Natural Resources,” “Education,” “Health Services and Research,” and “Public Assistance; Labor, Manpower, and other Welfare Services.” But these broad categories are not broken down and no specific price tags are assigned to easily identifiable programs. The projected increase of real GNP at an annual rate of over 5–6 percent per year, for the next ten years, built on top of current rates of resources use and price trends, would imply continuing intensive inflationary pressures. This problem is dismissed lightly despite the fact that a 5 percent rate of growth has over the past few years produced inflation once unutilized resources were absorbed. An annual growth rate of 4–4.5 percent over the next decade would be a much more realistic forecast for planning purposes.
Many old ideas are, of course, good ideas. But what is needed at the present time is a more objective analysis in detail as to how and when these programs might be put into action. All of us will agree with “The Freedom Budget” that we need more public housing and greater provision for moderate income homes. But just saying there is a need for so many additional units a year and citing the “seriously deficient” housing figures from the 1960 Census is not particularly helpful. We need some new approaches if we are to get the local authorities actually to build the houses for which money is voted. In a similar case, there is no discussion of specific plans which might be expected to produce a workable income maintenance scheme.
It is, thus, relatively easy to be critical of the “Freedom Budget”—because of its excessive demands, lack of priorities, statistical manipulation, lack of candor in regard to high priority competitive domestic and international requirements, and its almost complete disregard of the problem of price stability. Nevertheless, the issues presented are real—the goals of continuing full-employment, high growth rates and eradication of poverty are now largely accepted by all who are concerned. But the apparent promise of an easy solution to the poverty problem in ten years can only lead to unfilled expectations.
What is, it seems to me, now needed is a clear and realistic restatement of goals and the specific programs required to meet them which will take into account the current strained economic and military situation. Such a restatement would assure the continuation of current programs and would stress that progress will be stepped-up as resources become available in an economic framework of full-employment and stable growth. The current problem of the trade-off between low levels of employment and stable prices is a real one, and should not be dismissed casually. Otherwise much of the hoped for gains will also disappear in the winds of rising prices.
Andrew F. Brimmer to Mr. Whitney Young, January 31, 1967, Box 65 Committee Affiliations, 1967, Whitney Young Papers, Columbia University.
34. PHIL RANDOLPH, THE BEST OF MEN, TOUCHED AND CHANGED ALL OF US
AFL-CIO Sec.-Treas. Lane Kirkland delivered the following remarks at a memorial service for A. Philip Randolph at the Metropolitan African Methodist-Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.
Phil Randolph was the best of men, because he sought to make certain that no person was better than any other.
In the labor movement, we call him “our own Phil Randolph”—just as, I am sure, the civil rights movement claims him, too, for their own. In truth, he was even more than both of ours, for Phil Randolph belonged to all of us—people were his constituency.
Better, perhaps, than any other individual who ascended to a leadership position—much less the leadership of two great movements at the same time, a feat as rare as the individual himself—Phil Randolph understood, in his own words, that “social and political freedom cannot be sustained in the midst of economic insecurity and exploitation.”
He knew that the freedom he sought for blacks was, in the final analysis, freedom for whites as well. Fear and prejudice had bound his nation, and prevented it from achieving the fullest measure of its greatness for all its people.
That greatness could not occur, can not occur, with poverty and deprivation in our midst—no matter whether that human misery is caused by discrimination based on the color of a person’s skin or the color of the collar they wear to work.
In the trade union movement, Phil Randolph found a vehicle to fight racism and poverty. It was not a popular choice. Capital, in the form of the Pullman Company, fought him. Other blacks, too, opposed Randolph’s decision to work within the established trade union movement. Some because they preferred a black-only labor movement. Black newspaper publishers and academics denounced “Negro unionism,” but for a different reason: they argued that the best interests of blacks would be served by “standing with capital.”
Phil Randolph knew that both extremes were wrong. Blacks could not overcome their oppressors by either adopting their tactics or standing by their side.
And he persisted. He persisted with style. His manners have been described as Edwardian, his oratory Shakespearean, his language biblical. He was unfailingly gracious, courteous and polite. But he persisted—no one could ever mistake his civility for weakness.
For this was a strong, stubborn, tough, proud, unrelenting fighter. George Meany once called Phil Randolph a “gentleman of elegant impatience.”
Adjectives describe the person, but achievements make the man. Leadership was Phil Randolph’s crowning achievement, and he didn’t earn it by age or longevity. He earned it by leading:
By leading against Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement and against W. E. B. Du Bois’ elitist concept of the “Talented Tenth” in the early 1920s.
By leading the struggle against the Pullman Company to organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.70
By leading the fight against Communist infiltration of the National Negro Congress in the late 1930s.
By leading the 1941 March on Washington movement, which moved President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 banning discrimination in defense industries and government.71
By leading the battles against racial discrimination and segregation within the labor movement itself.
By leading the triumphant 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
And long after his death, Phil Randolph will still be leading as the A. Philip Randolph Institute carries on his work by leading successful voter registration and political education programs in the black community. And the Recruitment & Training Program continues to bring minority apprentices into the skilled trades.
Phil Randolph has left us more than memories. He left us a vision. He took a country divided by segregation and brought people together. He took a good labor movement, marred by discrimination, and made it better. He brought two movements together, overcoming the efforts of those who would keep us apart.
He touched all of us. He changed all of us—and with us, he changed history.
He was the best of men.
AFL-CIO News, June 9, 1979.
35. RANDOLPH’S VISION RECALLED TO NATION
By Rex Hardesty
President Jimmy Carter described him as a man of “dignity and tenacity.”
AFL-CIO Sec.-Treas. Lane Kirkland recalled him as a “gentleman of elegant impatience.”
And Bayard Rustin spoke of “a gentle but iron-willed radical.”
Thus was A. Philip Randolph remembered for the nation in a memorial service at the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington. Randolph, founder of the Sleeping Car Porters, longtime AFL-CIO vice president and civil rights leader for 70 years, died May 16 at the age of 90.
The national memorial service drew a standing room crowd of 3,000 to the church described by the pastor as the “church of Frederik Douglass,” the abolitionist and Negro leader who died in 1895. Metropolitan Op-Leontyne Price sang, with Miss Prices’s powerful rendition of the Lord’s Prayer provoking a standing ovation.
Similarly, Rustin’s recollections of “The Chief,” as the Pullman car porters called Randolph, brought tears, most notably to Rustin himself.
He recalled a black newspaper editor and Harlem street corner orator of pre-World War II America whose “leadership flowed from the depth of his humanity.”
“Mr. Randolph was a successful and uniquely gifted labor and civil rights activist, precisely because he was a sensitive, unselfish and dignified human being,” Rustin said. “He did not study organizational behavior, his leadership flowed from the depth of his humanity.”
Consequently, the cruelty of segregation and exploited workers set Randolph on a course from which he never varied, and President Carter likened the civil rights movement that bore fruit 50 years later to “building a nation.”
So from a loneliness of being a pacifist, a democratic socialist and integrationist before 1920, Randolph rose to national recognition by building a union. He came to global attention with his 1963 March on Washington.
But, Rustin explained, at any point along the way he would revert to the lonely agitator, because he would reject the “fads, the easy answers and the separatist illusions that had too frequently plagued movements for liberation.”
Rustin recalled Randolph urging him to aid Japanese-Americans detained during World War II or to help the refugees from Southeast Asia. One of his last expressions of concern before he died was the plight of refugees from Haiti.
“His universal moral concern compelled his resistance to any tendency anywhere in the world which defended unjust acts in the name of justice or excused wrongdoing—either by blacks or whites—because it was done in the name of some particular freedom, or in the name of democracy, or of anti-colonialism,” Rustin said.
The tax collector who visited Randolph’s apartment soon after he died found a net worth of less than $500, Rustin said. Randolph’s most valued possession was a battered watch once given him by Pullman car porters.
President Carter cautioned that, in remembering the gentility and idealism of Randolph, future Americans should not forget that “he faced down four Presidents,” in his pursuit of peace (Wilson), a national fair employment practice law (Roosevelt), integration of the armed forces (Truman) and the 1963 march (Kennedy) that helped produce the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Louisiana state legislature also honored Randolph with a joint House-Senate resolution taking note of the Sleeping Car Porters as the first all-Negro union. The resolution also cited President Johnson’s 1964 presentation to Randolph of the Medal of Freedom.
At the national memorial service, Kirkland traced the leadership of Randolph in 50 years by standing up against Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” and W. E. B. DuBois’ “Talented Tenth” elitism of the 1920s; the Pullman Company in the 1930s; and the federal government in quest of the executive orders signed by Roosevelt and Truman in the 1940s.
“Phil Randolph has left us more than memories,” Kirkland said. “He left us a vision. He took a country divided by segregation and brought people together. He took a good labor movement, marred by discrimination, and made it better.”
AFL-CIO News, June 9, 1979.
36. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH MEMORIAL
The death of Asa Philip Randolph on May 16, 1979, is a great loss to the entire nation and the labor and civil rights movements in particular.
For more than half a century A. Philip Randolph devoted his entire energies to securing dignity and freedom for all. He believed that the “principle of social equality is the only sure guarantee of social progress.”
Against the racism of hostile employers, Randolph led and gave vitality to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—organized the industry in a racist environment and built an effective union. He worked hard and long to free the labor movement from racial discrimination, and he played a key role in achieving equality throughout our nation.
In Randolph’s unending struggle for dignity and justice for blacks and labor, he was a genuine friend to all of labor, helping workers in every trade and industry in the nation throughout the difficult early days of building unions; therefore, be it
RESOLVED: That the AFL-CIO carry forth the message and goals of America’s great civil rights and social activist, A. Philip Randolph; that the AFL-CIO work with other organizations to honor the memory of A. Philip Randolph by continuing to build a labor movement where workers of all races, struggling side by side, can achieve dignity and respect; and that Congress be urged to authorize that a medal be struck in his honor.
Proceedings of the Thirteenth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Policy Resolutions, adopted December 1979, pp. 131–32.
37. HOUSE VOTES GOLD MEDAL HONORING PHIL RANDOLPH
The House voted to issue a gold medal honoring the late A. Philip Randolph for his “lifelong advocacy of peaceful change on behalf of workers and minorities.”
It passed and sent to the Senate a bill authorizing the President to present the medal “in the name of Congress” to the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which carried on the work Randolph began in his twin role as a trade union and civil rights leader.
The bill was taken up under a no-amendment procedure which requires a two-thirds vote. Rep. John Rousselot (R-Calif.) led an effort to defeat the bill but it passed with bipartisan support on a 333-61 rollcall.72
During the debate, both Democrats and Republicans spoke in admiration of the profound impact that Randolph had on his times.
AFL-CIO News, March 22, 1980.
38. THE NAACP HAILS THE AFL-CIO MERGER
Content removed at rightsholder’s request.
The Crisis, 63 (January 1956):35.
39. RACISM WITHIN ORGANIZED LABOR: A REPORT OF FIVE YEARS OF THE AFL-CIO 1955–1960
Labor Department National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The elimination of racism within trade unions was one of the major goals for organized labor announced at the merger convention of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in December, 1955. This was welcomed by many civil rights agencies and especially by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which offered its full support to the labor movement.
Today, five years after the AFL-CIO merger, the national labor organization has failed to eliminate the broad pattern of racial discrimination and segregation in many important affiliated unions. Trade union activity in the civil rights field since the merger has not been marked by a systematic and coordinated effort by the national labor federation to eliminate discrimination and segregation within local unions. This is especially true of the craft unions in the building and construction trades where the traditional anti-Negro practices basically remain in effect.
Efforts to eliminate discriminatory practices within trade unions have been piecemeal and inadequate and usually the result of protest by civil rights agencies acting on behalf of Negro workers. The National AFL-CIO has repeatedly refused to take action on its own initiative. In too many cases years have elapsed between the filing of a complaint by an aggrieved worker and acknowledgment and investigation by the Federation, if indeed there is any action at all.
Discriminatory racial practices by trade unions are not simply isolated or occasional expressions of local bias against colored workers, but rather, as the record indicates, a continuation of the institutionalized pattern of anti-Negro employment practices that is traditional with large sections of organized labor and industrial management.
The pattern of union responsibility for job discrimination against Negroes is not limited to any one area of the country or to some few industries or union jurisdictions but involves many unions in a wide variety of occupations in manufacturing industries, skilled crafts, railroads and maritime trades as for example, the Seafarers International Union which operates union-controlled hiring halls on Great Lake ports such as Duluth, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo. As a systematic practice this union will dispatch only Negro workers for menial jobs as messmen in the galley departments of ships operating under S.I.U. collective bargaining agreements. Over the years Negro members of the Seafarers International Union have repeatedly protested this practice, but to no avail as the union continues discriminatory job assignments in its hiring halls.
On occasion one or two Negroes have been admitted into an all-white local union as token compliance with a state or municipal fair employment practice law as with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Cleveland; the Bricklayers in Milwaukee and the Railway Clerks in Minneapolis, but this is essentially a limited and strategic adjustment to community pressure and represents very dubious “progress.”
Certainly the token admission of a few Negroes into an electrical workers union in Cleveland can no more be regarded as integration than can the token admission of two or three Negro children into a southern public school. There are also many instances where unions have removed the “lily-white” exclusion clause from their constitutions as public relations gestures but continued to exclude Negroes from membership by tacit consent.
As long as union membership remains a condition of employment in the building trades, on the railroads and elsewhere and qualified Negroes are barred from union membership solely because of their color, then trade union discrimination is the decisive factor in determining whether Negro workers in a given industry shall have an opportunity to earn a living for themselves and their families. This is especially true in the construction industry where AFL-CIO building trades unions exercise a high degree of control over access to employment.
AFL-CIO affiliated unions are today guilty of discriminatory racial practices in four categories: outright exclusion of Negroes, segregated locals, separate racial seniority lines in collective bargaining agreements and exclusion of Negroes from apprenticeship training programs controlled by labor unions.
As for the Federation’s Civil Rights Department, its performance would seem to indicate that its major function is to create a “liberal” public relations image rather than to attack the broad pattern of anti-Negro practices within affiliated unions. The Civil Rights Committee of the AFL-CIO is the only standing committee in the Federation whose chairman is not a member of the Federation’s Executive Council and/or the president of an international union. The rigid protocol of the national labor federation indicates that such a person is not in a position to impose a policy upon an international or local union but must confine himself to issuing declarations and to exercising such persuasion as he can muster. More often than not, his efforts are fruitless.
Organized Labor in the South
The threat of several local unions in the South to organize a Southern Federation of Labor has clearly not materialized, however, one is forced to note that the White Citizens Councils began taking control of some local AFL-CIO affiliates soon after the Supreme Court decision of 1954 in the school segregation cases. Because the national leadership of organized labor has made it a practice to avoid as much internal conflict on racial issues as possible, the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council forces, especially in Alabama, have moved into many local unions and made them, in effect, virtual extensions of segregationist organizations.
As a result, Negro workers throughout the South are experiencing an acute sense of alienation and rejection from organized labor. This becomes increasingly evident in an analysis of Negro voting behavior in union certification elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Although it is not possible to get an official breakdown of election results by Board regions, election results are known and are discussed in union circles.
At the South Wire Company, Carrollton, Georgia, where several hundred workers were involved, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union recently lost an NLRB election by eight votes. It has been stated by the union organizers that the decisive vote was cast by the forty-five Negroes in the election who voted against the IBEW.
Early in 1960 an election was held in Aiken, South Carolina at the Savannah River Atomic Energy Project with seventeen unions of the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO seeking certification by the NLRB as bargaining agent. Thirty-one hundred workers were involved. Six hundred of these were Negroes. It was stated by union organizers that the six hundred Negroes voted almost as a solid bloc against the union and the election was lost.
The active recruitment of trade union members for White Citizens Councils, Ku Klux Klan and other segregationist organizations accounts for much of the loss of influence that the AFL-CIO has suffered among Negro workers throughout the South. News of this activity has come not alone through word of mouth but frequently from newspaper advertising in local communities plainly to be seen by Negro workers themselves.
In a number of localities such as Savannah, Georgia, public notices have appeared stating that the Ku Klux Klan or the White Citizens Council will hold a meeting in a union hall. Newspapers have also printed reports and pictures of union officials speaking at such meetings and the point has not been lost on the Negro worker. Moreover, they are aware that the National AFL-CIO has permitted its civil rights declarations to be ignored by many affiliated unions.
The correction of this mutually damaging situation would seem to demand action directly by the AFL-CIO leadership and by the international unions involved. At the very least what is required is that AFL-CIO members and local affiliates not be active participants in segregationist attacks upon the Negro’s struggle for basic citizenship rights.
Segregated Local Unions
The Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks which maintains many segregated local lodges in northern as well as southern cities is among the important international unions which maintain a broad national pattern of segregation. In the Brotherhood the existence of more than 150 segregated all-Negro locals with separate racial seniority rosters limits job mobility and violates the seniority rights of thousands of Negro union members.
This union has persisted in its racist practices despite repeated protests from Negro workers and community organizations. On April 30, 1967, the New York State Commission Against Discrimination ordered the merger of the “lily-white” George N. Harrison Lodge (783) and the all-Negro Friendship Lodge (6118). The white union refused to comply and the local lodges remain segregated to this day. Similar situations exist in Chicago where Negro workers are in segregated local lodge 6132 and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they are in local 6257. In East St. Louis and St. Louis there are 14 all-colored lodges and 14 all-white lodges which function through segregated joint councils.
The practice of segregation is so well institutionalized in this union that the designation of the Negro lodges over the country begins with the numeral “6.” It is ironic to note that the president of the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, George M. Harrison, is a member of the Civil Rights Committee of the AFL-CIO and a Federation Vice President.
The Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America maintains segregated locals in California, Florida and in many other states. Recently Negro workers filed charges jointly against this Union and the Sante Fe Railroad with the California Fair Employment Practices Commission. The Commission has announced that it will conduct a public hearing on January 9 on complaints that the company and the union have acted in collusion to discriminate against Negro workers.
In Jacksonville, Florida, Negro workers employed on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad belong to Local 690, a segregated all-Negro unit, while white workers employed on the same line hold membership in Local 509, an all-white unit of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen. In addition the white local prevents the all-colored local from participating in negotiations with management and insists that it “represents” the colored local. Similar practices occur in other cities where this union operates segregated locals.
Racially segregated locals are today characteristic of many building trades unions in the North as well as in the South. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners is quite typical of building trades unions in its treatment of the Negro worker. This union, for over a half-century has been among the most important of all the building trades unions, and, with very few exceptions, organizes Negroes and whites into separate locals insofar as it permits Negroes to join the union at all. In the South there seems to be no exception to this rule and it is most often followed in northern cities as well.
The white locals are in control of the union hiring hall and, because of frequent arrangements with municipal and county political machines, all hiring for major public as well as private construction projects is done through the “lily-white” union hiring hall. In many instances, the white local will import white workers from other cities rather than allow local Negro members to share in attractive work opportunities.
Quite frequently Negroes are excluded altogether from work in white neighborhoods. This means that Negro carpenters are restricted to marginal maintenance and repair work within the Negro community and that they seldom are permitted to work on the larger construction projects. The same practices are true for other building trades unions in many cities throughout the country.
The Hod Carriers, Building and Common Laborers Union is currently defendant in a suit brought by Negro construction workers in Chicago, charging that the Hod Carriers Union bars them from desirable jobs within this union’s jurisdiction. In other cities Negro workers charge that white locals controlling job assignments in federal construction projects refuse to accept “travelling cards” issued by colored locals.
The International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers has agreed not to issue any new charters to segregated local unions and has indicated that action will be taken to merge segregated locals wherever possible, as well as to eliminate separate racial seniority lines in collective bargaining agreements. This occurred after representatives of the NAACP appeared before the Union’s General Executive Board and made a presentation on behalf of Negro union members.
Unfortunately, the United Papermakers and Paperworkers Union refused the request of the NAACP Executive Secretary to confer with the Executive Board of the Papermakers Union regarding the matter of segregated locals and separate racial seniority lines in union contracts.
On the positive side we note that the American Federation of Musicians has merged segregated locals in some 16 cities and that the International Ladies Garment Workers Union with the requested assistance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People merged separate white and Negro sections of the Atlanta local into one unit.
Racial Exclusion Practices
Today in virtually every large urban center in the United States Negro workers are denied employment in the major industrial and residential construction projects because they are, with some few exceptions, barred from membership in the building trades craft unions. This includes the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Operating Engineers, Iron and Structural Steel Workers, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union, Plasterers and Lathers, the Sheet Metal Workers Union, the Boiler Makers, etc.
The basic fact of craft unions in the building trades industry is that they control access to employment by virtue of their rigid control of the hiring process. In this industry unions perform certain managerial functions, especially the assignment of union members to jobs. The refusal to admit Negroes into membership simply denies Negro workers opportunities to secure employment.
This is true in many cities across the country such as Terre Haute, Indiana, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Mo., Dallas, Texas, Cleveland, Ohio, East St. Louis, 111. and Dade County, Florida, etc. (Chicago, Ill., appears to be a partial exception, perhaps because of the Negro’s effective use of his growing political power). Because the National Labor Relations Board has done little to enforce the anti-closed shop provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, building trades unions affiliated to the AFL-CIO in most instances are closed unions operating closed shops.
Local 26 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Washington, D.C. is a typical example of how union power is based to completely exclude Negro workers from securing employment in vast federal construction projects. For many years Negro workers have been attempting to secure admission into Local 26, which controls all hiring for electrical installation work in the nation’s capital. They have filed complaints with the President’s Committee on Government Contracts which over three years ago brought this matter to the attention of the National AFL-CIO.
As of January 1, 1960, there were still no Negroes admitted into membership in Local 26. However, after the Justice Department threatened action and as a concession to pressure from other government agencies and to protests from Negro civil rights organizations, one Negro electrician, James Holland, was reluctantly permitted by the union to work in a government installation.
Soon after the merge in 1955 two international unions were admitted into the Federation with “lily-white” exclusion clauses in their constitutions although this action was clearly in violation of the policies announced at the time of the merger agreement between the AFL and the CIO. They were the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.
Since then the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen has removed the “Caucasian Only Clause” from its constitution but in November, 1958, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen successfully defended its exclusion of Negroes from union membership in a suit brought by Negro firemen in the Federal District Court in Cincinnati, Ohio. Despite many appeals the National AFL-CIO refused to intervene or make any public comment and this union continues to exclude all Negroes from membership.
For almost a generation qualified Negro plumbers have been attacking the racial exclusion practices of the Plumbers Union (United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO). On December 4, 1958, Frank T. Lyerson submitted an affidavit to the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department charging that Local 630 of the Plumbers Union in East St. Louis, Illinois refused membership to him and other qualified Negroes. Although Local 630 limits membership to white persons exclusively, the National AFL-CIO has not taken any action on this or on other complaints against the Plumbers Union.
The practices of other building trades unions in the St. Louis-East St. Louis area are typical of the racial exclusion practices of many old-line craft unions. At the present time qualified Negro workers are barred from securing employment in the large harbor improvement project in St. Louis as well as in the vast federally-financed construction program in East St. Louis because of the exclusionist practices of unions affiliated to the Building Trades Council of the AFL-CIO.
Local 309 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, in East St. Louis is an all-white local and has consistently refused to admit qualified Negroes, including Jethro Smith who filed an affidavit with the National AFL-CIO. Henry Densmore filed a similar affidavit against the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons Association, Local 90, which also maintains a rigid policy of excluding Negroes from membership.
Negro firemen for the first time were admitted into the International Fire Fighters Association, AFL-CIO, Local 734 in Baltimore, Maryland, during 1959. This occurred after action by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in support of Negro firemen who filed a complaint with the Baltimore Fair Employment Opportunity Commission against the union. However, Negro firemen who applied for admission into the Fire Fighters Union in Washington, D.C. during November, 1960, were refused admission into the “lily-white” Association of Fire Fighters in the nation’s capital.
At its 1958 convention, the National Transport Association amended its constitution to admit Negroes and since then has enrolled some Negro workers within its jurisdiction in several states.
Separate Racial Seniority Lines in Collective Bargaining Agreements
Many major unions affiliated to the AFL-CIO have negotiated into their collective bargaining agreements separate lines of seniority promotion. These limit Negro employment to unskilled or menial job classifications which deny Negro workers equal seniority and other rights and prevent them from developing job skills which permit employment in more desirable classifications.
Although some few isolated actions can be reported as having eliminated separate seniority lines such as that of the United Automobile Workers of America at the General Motors Fisher Body plant in St. Louis, Missouri (UAW Local 25), the action of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers at the Magnolia Refining Corp., Beaumont, Texas, and at the Phillips Petroleum Corporation in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as the limited action by the United Steelworkers of America in response to a law suit filed by Negro members at the Sheffield Steel Company in Houston, Texas, the pattern of such discrimination remains practically intact in southern industrial operations where trade unions hold collective bargaining agreements.
At present, many thousands of Negro workers who are members of AFL-CIO unions in southern paper mills, chemical plants, pulp works and oil refineries as well as steel plants and in the textile industry suffer the acute disadvantages of separate lines of progression for Negro and white workers in union contracts.
Examples of trade unions that have entered into collusion with management to deny Negro workers equal seniority rights in the paper manufacturing and pulp and sulphite industry in the South are to be found at the Union Bag-Camp Paper Corp., Savannah, Georgia, where all the Negro workers are limited to membership in two segregated locals, Local 601 and 615, affiliated to the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers.
All white workers hold membership in Local 388 and 435 of the same union and Local 408 of the United Papermakers and Paperworkers Union. Similar conditions exist at the Crown Zellerbach Corp., Bogalusa, Louisiana; Hudson Pulp and Paper Company, Palatka, Florida; and at International Paper Company plants in Mobile, Alabama; Georgetown, South Carolina; Moss Point and Natchez, Mississippi and Bastrop, Louisiana.
In these and many other paper mills throughout the South these two unions hold joint collective bargaining agreements and maintain a rigid pattern of racially segregated local unions with separate seniority lines limiting Negro employment to laborer classifications.
At the American Viscose Corporation plant in Front Royal, Virginia, where the Textile Workers Union is the collective bargaining agent, the union has approved a supplemental agreement to the contract which limits Negro employees to unskilled and menial job classifications that violate their basic seniority rights.
A similar condition exists at the Atlantic Steel Company plant in Atlanta, Georgia where after years of protest by Negro union members, the United Steelworkers Union has only partially eliminated those seniority provisions which limit Negroes, no matter how well qualified, to common laborer classifications.
A typical example of how separate seniority lines based on race in collective bargaining agreements prevent Negro workers from bidding for more desirable job occupations is to be found at the United States Phosphoric Company in Tampa, Florida. Over 200 Negro workers have repeatedly complained to the President of the International Chemical Workers Union, AFL-CIO, regarding the supplemental agreement to the union contract which contains rigid promotional lines for white and Negro workers limiting Negro workers to undesirable menial job classifications and preventing upgrading into production classifications.
The International Union of Operating Engineers, the Lake Charles, (La.) and the Galveston (Texas) AFL-CIO Metal Trades Councils hold collective bargaining agreements in several large oil refineries and chemical plants in the Gulf area. These union contracts contain provisions limiting Negro employment to some few menial jobs, a wage differential based upon race, and separate lines of seniority progression for white and colored workers.
Apprenticeship Training
The continued exclusion of Negroes from apprenticeship training is particularly disturbing because of rapid technological changes in the nation’s economy. Because of the disproportionate concentration of Negroes in the unskilled sections of the labor force there has already been a disproportionate displacement of Negroes as a result of technological change. Continued exclusion of Negro youth from major apprenticeship training programs in the North as well as in the South endangers the future economic well-being of the entire Negro community.
It is important to note that in the ten-year period from 1950–1960, in the State of New York, the increase of Negro participation in building trades apprenticeship training programs rose only from 1.5% to 2%. In most of these programs the role of the labor union is decisive because the trade union usually determines who is admitted into the training programs and, therefore, who is admitted into the union.
Recent studies clearly indicate that no large scale significant advances have been made by Negroes into those craft union apprenticeship programs which have historically excluded non-whites. The railroad craft unions as well as the railroad operating Brotherhoods remain adamant in their opposition to Negro craftsmen and bar apprenticeship opportunities to Negro youth.
Almost equally exclusive are the printing trades unions with exceptions being found in some areas of the Assistant Printing Pressmen Union and the Lithographers Union. Open access to plumbing and pipe fitting apprenticeships controlled by the Plumbers Union is a rare experience for a young Negro in the North as well as in the South. Similarly Negro youth are almost completely excluded from apprenticeship programs operated by the Sheet Metal Workers Union, the Ornamental and Structural Iron Workers, the Glass Workers, the Tile Setters, the Machinists or the Bricklayers Union.
The NAACP secured the admission of a Negro for the first time into the Sheet Metal apprenticeship training program in St. Louis, Missouri. In an unusual procedure the Association secured certification from the Bureau of Apprenticeship of the U.S. Department of Labor for a non-union firm owned by a Negro after Local 36 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association had refused to admit Negro applicants into its apprenticeship training program and had refused to permit the participation of the Negro-owned company in training programs conducted by the union. The owner of Kennedy and Sons Sheet Metal Shops offered to have his employees join Local 36 of the Sheet Metal Workers Union but the membership applications of the Negro workers were refused by the all-white local affiliate of the AFL-CIO.
Recent action by the New York State Attorney General acting at the request of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People made possible the admission of the first Negro into the apprenticeship training program operated by the Plumbers Union in the State of New York.
A sustained program of activity by the Oregon Fair Employment Practices Commission and the State Apprenticeship Council resulted in the admission of Negroes for the first time into various apprenticeship programs conducted by unions affiliated to the Oregon AFL-CIO Building Trades and the Metal Trades Councils. These isolated actions, however, are completely inadequate as they do not eliminate the broad national pattern of Negro exclusion from apprenticeship training programs.
Increasingly, apprenticeship and other forms of technical training become the heart of fair employment practices. The continued exclusion of Negro youth from such programs, especially those controlled by AFL-CIO craft unions in the printing industry, the building and metal trades and in other craft jurisdictions prevents thousands of young persons from realizing their human potential and dooms them and their families to a marginal economic existence. It is in this area that the disparity between the public relations pronouncements of the AFL-CIO on civil rights and the day-to-day reality for Negro workers is most sharply outlined.
Many traditional sources of Negro employment (the nation’s railroads and mass-production industries, for example), are rapidly drying up as a result of automation and other technological changes in the economy. Today the status of the Negro wage earner is characterized by drastic change and crisis. Thus, the virtual exclusion of Negroes from apprenticeship and other training programs forces them to remain as marginal employees in the economy. They are the ones who are hired last and who can be dispensed with easily with the added advantage that their displacement can be rationalized in terms of lower attainments in craft skills.
In addition, the appreciable lack of skilled Negro craftsmen directly affects the economic well-being of the entire Negro population as it removes potential sources of high income occupations from the group. The devices outlined briefly in this report operate effectively to concentrate Negro wage earners in those jobs which suffer the highest instances of unemployment.
The concentration of unskilled, low-paying jobs with a lack of employment stability together with other income limitations such as denial of access to union hiring halls in the building trades, and separate racial lines of seniority promotion in collective bargaining agreements all contribute to an explanation of why Negroes constitute a permanently depressed economic group in American society.
Staff report reviewing conditions previously cited by the NAACP, but summarized here at the end of five years of the merged AFL-CIO. Delivered by Herbert Hill, NAACP Labor Secretary at the Association’s Annual Meeting, January 3, 1960, New York City. Copy in possession of the editors.
By J. C. Rich
The present anti-labor campaign of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, accusing well-known labor leaders of discriminatory practices, provides Southern yahoos with absolution for their sins from an unexpected quarter. Whatever noble purpose the NAACP may have in mind, one immediate result of its actions has been to cloak racists of the stripe of Governor Ross Barnett and Senator James Eastland of Mississippi in a garment of social respectability. For how could lily-whites of the backwater South be wrong if prominent Northern labor leaders also discriminate against blacks?73
The NAACP charges have been made against such men as David Dubinsky, President of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU); David McDonald, President of the United Steelworkers; Walter Reuther, President of the United Automobile Workers; and Paul Hall, President of the Seafarers International. In at least one instance, the organization found itself so far off base that it had to beat a hasty retreat to the norms of ordinary courtesy. The NAACP stated that it had not meant to offend Reuther, and regretted that some of its labor activities had outraged him. But it has not granted the same dispensation to McDonald, and certainly not to Dubinsky.74
Yet according to newspaper speculation—possibly “leaked” speculation—Reuther has been put on notice that there is a Negro caucus within the United Auto Workers. Presumably, the NAACP believes it is entirely proper to maintain a special Negro grouping within a union, although it justifiably condemns racial segregation when practiced by whites in certain unions.
The course which the NAACP has set for itself is a tragic and self-defeating one. For the American labor movement has long worked toward the same goals as the NAACP. To be sure, some local unions and some union workers, like their non-union neighbors, have adopted the mores and habits of the communities in which they live. But the national organizations are more sophisticated and more responsive to the call of justice and social equality than their various branches in the South. Thus, building a racist—or anti-Semitic—case against the labor movement because of the actions of a particular union violates fact and verify so completely it is nothing less than a trespass on integrity.
And it is this violence to integrity, as well as the malice inherent in the NAACP assault on the labor movement, that has disturbed the labor and liberal-minded community. It is absurd to imply that Dubinsky is no better than Mississippi’s meanest bigot, and it is equally absurd to suggest that McDonald runs a Jim Crow union.
Negro steel workers labor side by side with their white shopmates; their wages, hours, seniority rights and other prerequisites are protected by the union with equal diligence. In the garment union, the administration of David Dubinsky has been notable for the degree of acceptance and affectionate regard accorded by whites to Negroes and Negroes to whites. The conflicts and antagonisms of which NAACP spokesmen have made a Federal case are never seen in the market or in the shops. Differences occur, but nobody in sound mental health thinks that one has to go to court about them.
Notice to the effect that the NAACP intended to drag unions to court came last August, when news stories quoted Herbert Hill, the Association’s labor secretary, as saying: “We will not be satisfied until discrimination is completely eliminated and we will continue to make progress in a trade-union way undeterred by outsiders.”
This statement reveals more about Herbert Hill than it does about union practices. Hill seems to believe that discrimination, or any other evil, can be “completely eliminated.” But who is to judge whether in truth there is discrimination and to what degree it prevails? Who is an “outsider” and who an insider in judgments of this sort? And by what prerogative does Hill consider himself an insider in the pursuit of justice, while relegating men like George Meany, Dubinsky and McDonald to the limbo of outsiders?
In the NAACP’s battle against labor, Hill has distinguished himself on another score as well. While on lend-lease from his organization to the House Labor and Education Committee, headed by the redoubtable Congressman Adam Clayton Powell (D.-N.Y.), Hill composed a bill of indictment against the ILGWU. The subcommittee to which the indictment was presented refused to grant it the dignity of acceptance because it lacked substantive evidence. More knowledgable specialists in this sort of infighting saw in Hill’s document a diatribe similar to those the Communists used to spread in the market against the ILGWU in the days when they were striving to capture the needle trade unions. Hill is no Communist, but unconsciously he repeated a charge originally made some 20 years ago by the labor editor of the Daily Worker. The charge was that not a single Negro member was to be found in the huge Dressmakers Local 89, managed by ILGWU Vice President Luigi Antonini.75
This was true 20 years ago, and it is still true. Yet the absence of Negro members in Local 89 has nothing to do with an anti-Negro bias or any other invidious prejudice. Local 89 is a “language” local composed of Italian dressmakers. It was originally founded with the aid of Jewish trade unionists in order to facilitate the unionization of Italian workers who were streaming into the needle trades.
The Daily Worker knew this and so, presumably, does Hill. The supporters of the NAACP might well wonder whether it was fair to slander a friend and ally in the cause of civil rights. Antonini, a bitter-end anti-fascist even in Mussolini’s heyday, certainly deserves better at the hands of libertarians than to be tarred with bigotry.
Charles Zimmerman, a leader of the ILGWU’s Dressmakers Union who has resigned from the NAACP after years of active participation in its work, pointed to still another barb in Hill’s anti-union agglomeration. “The most shocking thing in Mr. Hill’s entire statement,” Zimmerman recented declared, “is its slurring reference to the ‘ethnic composition’ of the ILGWU leadership. The NAACP . . . has now endorsed this kind of attack, and in my judgment there is no longer any place in it for anyone who believes that the struggle for equal opportunity for Negroes is part of the struggle against bigotry and discrimination in all forms and in all places.”
The “ethnic composition” in Hill’s bill of complaint is a Nice Nelly way of saying that the top leadership of the ILGWU is Jewish. Negroes may draw their own derogatory inferences from this reflection. Perhaps Dubinsky should apologize to Hill for being Jewish, and to the heads of the NAACP for being president of a union.
The charges against the ILGWU; the hearings conducted by Congressman Powell’s Congressional crony. Representative Herbert Zelenko (D.-N.Y.); the inquisition Powell himself has threatened to pursue—all at base seem to have one finding: Despite the many Negroes and Puerto Ricans among the ILGWU’s New York membership, there are no Negroes or Puerto Ricans in its top leadership.76
This too, of course, is fools’ gold when considered as evidence. The impulses that bring leadership to the fore anywhere also have their own inertial force. Congressmen dearly cherish the inertial force that propels them to office election after election. The composition of their constituencies may change, but if they are responsive to these changes they continue to retain office.
What has happened to the NAACP, it appears, is that it has not been responsive to change. Negroes have joined unions and have acquired status in many communities, but the NAACP remained its old somnolent self until it was prodded into action by its more dynamic members. What is more, new Negro organizations have arisen to challenge its exclusive holding on liberal sympathies.
The NAACP’s great achievement has been in court procedures. This was as much the achievement of Thurgood Marshall, the organization’s chief counsel for many years, as it was of the Association as a whole. Since Marshall’s judicial appointment, the NAACP has reverted to Hill’s juvenilities and the anti-union bias of some of its directors.
Ironically, in doing so the NAACP has assailed not the old-line unions which flagrantly impose Jim Crow restrictions on Negroes, but the progressive unions with a leadership famous for social insight and a sense of public decency and responsibility. The social attitudes and administrative conduct of Meany, Reuther, McDonald and Dubinsky are so well known they are part of the very air we breathe. Dubinsky has been on public view for more than 50 years. He could not, even if he wanted to, keep his behavior a secret from the liberal community which cherishes him as friend of every progressive cause.
Liberals may well therefore ask: Why vilify a man with fabrications that are as outrageous as they are preposterous? What purpose other than an appeal to the basest prejudices of Negroes is there in stating that even the most renowned whites, the most respected labor men, the most articulate spokesmen of liberalism are racist bigots at heart? Is it really a service to Negroes, really a service to the cause of civil rights to put Dubinsky et al. on a par with the white supremacists and the ILGWU with the White Citizens Council?
Scandalized and dismayed, many in the progressive trade-union community are determined to examine the liberal credentials of the NAACP anew. If the Association intends to pursue an anti-union course, it will have to do so as an open enemy of labor, not as a member of the liberal coalition. Liberals and labor unions have had long experience with open enemies and know how to deal with a new recruit to intolerance. This should be clear from George Meany’s announcement that the AFL-CIO has withdrawn its long-standing support of the NAACP.
The New Leader, 45 (November 26, 1962):20–21.
41. REFLECTIONS ON THE NEGRO AND LABOR
By Daniel Bell
Some years ago, an older friend, an official of one of the out-of-town locals of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and a Socialist, complained to me about the apathy of most of the members in his local, and, in some cases, the resentment of a minority against the union leadership. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “I work hard for them. I spend long hours negotiating for them. I don’t let the boss get away with a nickel. But they don’t appreciate it.”
I was reminded of his remarks recently on reading the charges made by Herbert Hill, the Labor Secretary of the NAACP, of racial discrimination in the Garment Workers’ Union, and the outraged rejoinders by David Dubinsky and other ILGWU officials. Like most of the young Socialists who were active in the Young People’s Socialist League in the ’30s, I have long had a warm feeling for, even an emotional identification with, the ILGWU. The union supplied us with some of the best jokes (copies supplied upon request) about the radical movement. It provided intermittent employment for many of us (I did “educational work” and editorial chores for Local 62 during my graduate-school days). Through generous contributions, it supported most of the Socialist institutions during the bleakest days of the depression and after. Its record of progressive leadership in a variety of areas is too well documented to need repetition. The idea, therefore, that the ILGWU practiced racial discrimination seemed absurd.
Hill’s statement, compiled originally for a Congressional subcommittee, stated that Negroes were excluded from the higher-paying jobs in the garment trades (specifically in the cutters’ local); that certain locals excluded Negroes; that a predominantly Negro local (composed primarily of shipping clerks) was attached to a larger local of pressers and was thus deprived of full citizenship rights in the union; and that Negroes and Puerto Ricans were under-represented in the union’s leadership, which was, and remains, predominantly Jewish.
The ILGWU’s answer, which appears in the Fall 1962 issue of New Politics, was prepared by Gus Tyler, the union’s political director. It is, I think, quite convincing as a rebuttal to the specific charges. Hill’s statement was sloppy (Local 89, accused of rebuffing Negroes, is an Italian-language local, and accepts only Italian members—a hangover from an early organizational structure), his figures were often incorrect, and his portentous social analysis (e.g., that the Jewish labor leaders have more in common with the Jewish employers than with the rank-and-file membership) was a piece of pseudo-sociology.
It also seems clear that the original occasion for the statement was unfortunate, since the Congressional hearings were being conducted, in New York rather than in Washington, during a primary campaign by a Congressman who had been denied endorsement by the ILGWU-dominated Liberal party in New York. And for anyone who knows the long devotion to liberal causes of such men as Charles Zimmerman, the manager of the union’s Dress Joint Board, the idea of their condoning overt racial discrimination, even for reasons of expediency, did not ring true.
Yet, wrong as Hill’s charges are in detail, deeper problems remain, problems that have been obscured by the stridency of charges and replies. The first is symbolized by my friend’s observations about the apathy and ingratitude within his local. But this is only part of a broader, more vexing issue: the propriety of attacking one’s friends, rather than one’s enemies, as the Negro organizations are now doing. And this, in turn, is part of a still larger question which few persons have cared to discuss openly: whether in his fight to overcome second-class status, the Negro should receive not merely equality of opportunity but, in order to establish himself as a full citizen, preferential treatment as well.
The first problem (which has been caricatured by the charge of racial discrimination) is really, in its way, the familiar family chronicle of the original generation that built an institution (or a business or a store) and won’t let go for the next one. The telling phrase in the complaint that my old Socialist friend made was the reiterated “for them.” He was doing a good job, for them. He had negotiated a good contract, for them.
But as I tried to tell him at the time, sometimes people like to do things for themselves, even if they do them less well. His reply, on reflection, was that the workers could not negotiate a contract: They did not possess the skills, the boss would outmaneuver them, they would not be too exorbitant in their demands, they did not understand the economics of the industry, etc. When I asked him if they could not learn—after all, he had come up from the shop—his answer was that they are not interested, that in his generation the talented people had gone into the shop because there was nowhere else for immigrants to go, but now the more educated ones did not go into the union, and so on.
My friend was no fool. He knew all about Robert Michel’s “iron law of oligarchy,” had read Will Herberg on union bureaucracy, was aware of the growing gulf between the leadership and the rank-and-file, and his reply reflected an awareness of being trapped in this disparity. “Besides,” he said, “I am 55 years old. Am I supposed to get out of the union now, after 30 years of service, because the new membership, which had little to do with building the union, is ethnically different from me?” He had helped build a useful social institution, and had identified himself so completely with it that he found it hard to conceive of its continuing without him, and others like him.
And in a way he is right. Once the older generation passes, the ILGWU will be a different union. The tragedy is that the change is going on now, amid circumstances of growing resentment rather than of honor. Clearly, there is no easy answer.
The other problems are of equal difficulty, going far beyond the dilemmas of the ILGWU. It is startling to realize that in the quickened pace of the Negro effort to gain higher status in this country, the liberals (Dubinsky, Walter Reuther and even George Meany), rather than the reactionaries, are the ones who find themselves under the gun in the Negro community. Why does the NAACP pick on us? a friend in the needle trades recently asked me. Why doesn’t it go after the building trades, the electrical unions (apart from Local 3 in New York) and other places where Negroes can’t even get jobs, let alone leadership positions, because of union discrimination? One reason, he said, answering his own question, is that the NAACP is itself under fire from the more militant sections of the Negro community, and to maintain its own position it picks on the liberal unions because they are more vulnerable.
Wasn’t this, I asked, exactly the reaction that the Jewish employers in the needle trades had 50 or more years ago, when the ILGWU was first trying to get a foothold in the industry? The Italian bosses ran worse sweatshops, they said, yet the unions pick on us because they can shame us in the Yiddish press. But precisely because the ILGWU was able to do so, the union succeeded in winning such victories as the establishment of arbitration councils under Louis D. Brandeis and other prominent Jewish spokesmen. Such tactics are bound to be repeated, and they are understandable.77
What is it, then, that the Negro community wants, and why so much more demandingly from its liberal friends? The fact is—and this is the “bite” in Hill’s charges—that the Negroes are underrepresented in the leadership of many of the unions where they form a significant portion of the membership. In the case of these unions, what the Negroes want is “recognition” at the level of top leadership and a growing share of the spoils of office.
Demands such as these are usually voiced behind closed doors rather than openly, because they fly in the face of the American mythos that all individuals are equal and there is no such thing as a group identity. And they usually provoke the response (which Reuther, for one, has articulated) that this is Jim Crow in reverse, that a man ought to be judged on the basis of individual merit and not for any “extraneous” capacity. Yet there is a curious paradox in this “democratic” response. For one thing, the realistic political process in the United States, at least in the northern urban centers, has been one of ethnic groups advancing themselves precisely in this fashion: by organizing on bloc lines, electing their own kind, and using the patronage system to enhance the wealth and status of their group.
A second, more complex fact is that the basic existence of the labor movement is rooted in the conception of “group” rather than individual rights. Legally, the individual’s protection on the job—where, for example, a union shop exists—is based on the “collective” contract, not on his individual right. (Thus, under an old NRLB ruling, employers are forbidden in certain circumstances to give individual workers merit wage increases on the ground that this may be a form of favoritism and would violate the group’s rights). How far down does the group right extend within the union? Often a union recognizes certain “functional” groupings (for instance, the skilled trades in the United Auto Workers) as legitimate claimants to its own rights of representation. Does the Negro community—if it so organizes itself—have a legitimate claim for representation in group terms?
This has to be answered in a still wider context, which is the unspoken premise that “equality of opportunity” is an inadequate springboard from which the deprived sections of the Negro community—that is, the overwhelming majority—can advance economically and educationally. The phrase “equality of opportunity” has meaning if the competitors are roughly equal from the start (which is why there are handicaps in a horse race). But in many instances, even if a genuine equality of opportunity—for jobs, school places and the like—prevailed, the Negro would still lose out, with harmful social consequences for the community, simply because of extra, inherited handicaps he bears.
Admission to an elite public school like New York’s Bronx High School of Science, for example, is by competitive examination, a matter purely of merit. Yet the number of Negro children in that school is scandalously low, and this failure to get on the first step of the educational escalator becomes a self-reinforcing vicious cycle as regards future opportunities. The solution is not necessarily a double standard, wherein Negro children with lesser qualifications are admitted on a quota basis; it may require the creation of special classes to coach bright but culturally deprived Negro children, in order to allow them to compete on a better footing.
But why even blink at the “double standard?” Why should intellectual merit alone be the determining basis for entry into an elite school? Ivy-league colleges such as Harvard, Yale and Columbia maintain geographical quotas in order to gain a representative national student body, on the ground that such mixtures are more valuable to the educational process than those selected by grades or college-board scores alone. On the same basis, a larger proportion of Negro children in the elite schools would both act as a spur to these children and “broaden” the experience of the other students.
All this may seem a far cry from my opening story; yet there is a consistency and a connection. The implicit demand of the Negro community is for special efforts and even special treatment in order to win basic social rights. It arises for the same reason that Tocqueville noted in all revolutionary movements: Increasingly radical demands are made not when one’s lot goes from bad to worse, but when it goes from bad to better. For what may have been formerly accepted as destined and inevitable now, with the possibility of improvement in sight, becomes intolerable; and the demand for improvement quickens.
But the demand for special treatment is nothing new in the United States. It is the very basis for existence of the labor movement. The preamble to the Wagner Act points out that equality of bargaining is a necessary aspect of social justice, and in order to redress unequal power, the workers have to be given the added protections of the law to organize, to compel the employer to bargain, and so on. Farmers receive price supports, subsidies, mortgage insurance and the like. In economic and educational opportunity, the Negro is in a position of inequality, and the government is bounden to help him move ahead. But doesn’t the trade-union movement have a special obligation to help redress the balance?
To return to my original tale, the tragedy of old institutions is that they are like Cheshire cats: The image remains after the body has disappeared. In the end, the image without the body is insubstantial, and quickly fades away. Or, to change the metaphor, and make the issue more plain: The “genius” of American democracy is that the society survived because the older ruling groups learned to share their power instead of resorting to class war, most notably in the acceptance by employers of collective bargaining in the factories. How curious that the labor leadership which benefited from that historical lesson should so plainly fail to see the virtue of applying it to its own institutions.
The New Leader, 46 (January 21, 1963):18–20.
If the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had to depend exclusively on the black public to save it from utter destruction, it would have had to hoist a black mourning flag as a symbol of its untimely demise. The NAACP chapters around the country, fell far short of raising the money needed to challenge a Mississippi court decision.
The Association has consecrated 67 years to a titantic struggle for civil rights, for elimination of restrictive covenants in home ownership, for abolition of lynching, for equal employment opportunity, for job equity, for elimination of segregation in the Armed Forces, and for desegregation of the public schools. It has won most of these battles through costly legal proceedings depleting its treasury.
The victories have helped to establish the claims of U.S. blacks to the guarantees of equality as vouchsafed by constitutional provisions. Without them, citizenship for black Americans would be devoid of substantive meaning. Without them, Lincoln’s historic emancipation of the slaves would have meaning only as an abstract document to be preserved on library bookshelves for posterity.
The 14th and 15th Amendments which struck a final blow to slavery as an American social institution, would have been useless. The NAACP fought tooth and nail to safeguard the intent, the identity as well as the application of those constitutional warrants which sustain this nation’s commitments to its black citizen and the principles of a democratic society.
Despite this long, costly and imposing history of the NAACP’s unflagging struggle for justice and equality, 25 million blacks were not moved by the threat of its dismemberment posed by a Mississippi court ruling.
On Aug. 9, a Mississippi court awarded a hardware company $1.25 million in damages against the NAACP. The ruling was on a lawsuit filed by a group of white merchants who contended that they suffered severe financial losses because of a 1966 boycott organized by the NAACP.
That 25 million blacks could not or would not raise such a comparatively small amount is cause for serious introspection. It shows a lack of social responsibility; it points to a mournful state of moral bankruptcy lessening the validity of the eternal hymn sung to black pride.
The Association had to call on the AFL-CIO, a predominantly white federation of labor to raise the sum of $800,000 dollars, the balance needed to save it from dissolution.
With that SOS call outside its own membership of nearly half a million, the NAACP loses its status as a completely independent civil rights organization. It is a quasi entity. Its souls has been mortgaged.
Pittsburgh Courier, October 26, 1976.
43. BENJAMIN HOOKS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NAACP, TO THE AFL-CIO CONVENTION, 1979
Once again it is an honor and a privilege for me to represent the NAACP at a meeting of the AFL-CIO. It is indeed a joy to be back. I was with you in your 12th Constitutional Convention at the Bonaventure two years ago at Los Angeles, and I am proud and happy to have the occasion to be with you again.
It is also a great personal pleasure to pay tribute to George Meany, your retiring President, who has given his life to the organized labor movement and who in his dedicated service to the rights of the worker has touched the hearts and improved the lives of millions.
George Meany is no ordinary man. He is a determined and vigilant fighter for the working man. He is a careful and deliberate champion of human and social justice. He is a close and dear friend of civil rights and a passionate advocate for the under class.
In history of the great men of the American scene who have shaped the world events and the national spirit, George Meany stands tall and prominent. What errors he may have made in the body politic, he has given attention to the special needs of the unionized worker. In this area he was not only always right, but he was always basically and always forthrightly right, and the best exemplification of labor leadership in my generation. In fact, his name has become synonymous with organized labor, and it is to him that we gladly extend our thanks, appreciation and congratulations. (Applause).
George Meany’s position was not, as in the case of some political leaders, vulnerable. He could and he did make tough decisions and honest choices. He has been a leading human and civil rights advocate.
Every piece of civil rights legislation in this country was enacted with the active support and leadership of George Meany and organized labor. You name it—the Civil Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and the Equal Opportunity Employment Act of 1972. None of these acts would have become law without the strong and vigorous support not only of George Meany, but of the house of organized labor. For that America will always be grateful. (Applause).
He has been a strong advocate of women’s rights, approving the addition of language in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination because of sex. He was a leader of the fight for positive equal rights amendments, and has been in the forefront of the successful struggle to extend the time for states to ratify ERA until June, 1982.
Mr. Meany, along with Walter Reuther, then President of the CIO, was among the first persons to speak out in support of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education 25 years ago, stating then that the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the basic philosophy of the American way of life, that all citizens are equal, regardless of race, creed or color. He also remarked that the decision against segregation in the public school system was a matter of simple justice.
We are grateful to the leadership of organized labor and George Meany when you backed the NAACP to survive the 1.6 million dollar judgment awarded to a group of merchants in Mississippi. And it was labor unions across the nation that helped put the word out that the threat of such court decisions, couched in the misapplication of secondary boycotts and the string of trade laws, could have a disastrous effect on organized labor’s activities, to apply economic pressures on the labor unions. It is, therefore, with great pride that we recall that organized labor was prepared to put up $800,000 to make sure that the NAACP did not go out of business.
Our relationship with the labor movement is across the board. We have been given tremendous support by the NAACP Ad Hoc Labor Committee, co-chaired by Roosevelt Watts, Secretary-Treasurer of the Transport Workers Union of America, and William Oliver, Director of the United Auto Workers Fair Practices Department. And I want to publicly express the NAACP’s deep appreciation to all the unions represented on that committee for the moral and financial support they have given NAACP.
We have also received extensive support and cooperation from the AFL-CIO Department of Civil Rights nationally and through our branches across the country. The NAACP has the good fortune to have your civil rights director, William E. Pollard, as an effective, active, elected member of our national Board of Directors.
Then I want to say a word about Lane Kirkland. I understand that you are to be the new President of AFL-CIO, and I want to congratulate you ahead of time. (Applause).
If this were an NAACP convention I would be definitely afraid to congratulate anybody until he had been elected and certified. But since you are an orderly and constructive convention and everything is in apple pie order, I have the privilege to congratulate you three days ahead of time. So, right on, Brother Kirkland, and may your tribe increase.
And to my good friend, Tom Donahue, and to the good people of the labor movement who had the good sense, intelligence and foresight to elect two of the finest men that labor has ever been able to afford to these important and prestigious jobs, we look forward to working hand in hand, heart in heart, arm in arm, to keep the cause of human progress and human rights moving forward.
Congratulations, again. I wish you well.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here because America’s position today domestically and in the foreign affairs of our world is in serious trouble. Our position abroad as a great power has been substantially weakened just as we are caught up in a domestic income struggle of life and death. The candidates for public office and incumbents have recognized that inflation is a major concern of the American public, but too many see the solution to inflation in cutbacks in federal spending in social and human services. They countenance the solution to inflation in terms of massive layoffs of public employees.
Many people have forgotten that since Proposition 13 passed in California we have lost 134,000 public service jobs. These are men and women who have lost their jobs to the tax-cutting fever that not only cuts fat but cuts bone and muscle and gristle. Unless those of us who are concerned about progress come together and exercise our muscle to stop the conservative trend in America, all of us will soon be in serious trouble. (Applause).
As I look about this country today and I see the rise of the Nazi party, when I see the Ku Klux Klan, when I see the enemies of human progress everywhere raising their ugly heads, I know that this nation is in trouble. There is a round of conservatism which threatens to undo much of the progress that has been made. We seem to be living in an age when there are a lot of people who want to get all they can, call all they get, and then sit on the can.
We must be alert to that and remind them that America was built by the struggle, the sweat, the toil and the tears of millions of people who believe that not only must they make a way for themselves but they have an obligation to reach out and help others. It is one of the enduring triumphs of the labor movement that you have been great, because not only have you worked for yourselves, but you have not forgotten the rest of America. When you work for a minimum wage law, most of organized labor is not really affected, but you are affected in the sense that you are helping millions of others who have no way to express themselves.
I want to congratulate you for this spirit. I want to congratulate you for recognizing that quite often there has been bigotry and segregation and prejudice within the house of labor as it related to blacks and Hispanics and Asian Americans, and as it related to women in the work force. I want to congratulate your leadership for moving forthrightly to try to right those wrongs, to recognize them, to speak to them and to keep working until every vestige of discrimination and segregation, prejudice and bias should be run out of the house of labor; and you will continue to move forward recognizing that every American regardless of race, color, creed, sex or previous condition of servitude must have a right to make their contributions to the wellbeing of American life.
Therefore, today I call on the American labor movement, I call on Lane Kirkland and Tom Donahue and the presidents of the 105 international unions that find their homes in labor’s house to help the NAACP to implement the full and broad meaning of the Weber decision. For in that Weber case a great union, the United Steelworkers and a company, the Kaiser Aluminum plant, forged a voluntary affirmative action plan that can bring into the mainstream of American life those who have been left out, those who have been put on the sidelines, those who have been forgotten, those who have been called unemployable, and those who have been called folk who didn’t want to work.
I believe, Lane, that in the years ahead we can forge a working relationship that can reach out our arms and our hearts and embrace into it the whole panoply of the American working force so that every man and woman, boy and girl in this nation, who wants to be employed, can have a decent job and have a chance to make a living.
This is a job that I would call upon the American labor movement. Move into the ghettos of Harlem, the central areas of Watts, look at the south and west sides of Chicago. Go down into the barrios of Los Angeles, look at the exploitation in such corporations as J. P. Stevens, and you understand that we still have a long way to go.
In the words of the poet Robert Frost, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we have miles and miles to go and promises to keep before we sleep.”
We must not let anything separate that fine historical alliance between the NAACP and organized labor. We should not forget our heritage.
You know, it is easy for a people to get a little fat and lazy. As I look around the labor movement, as I look around at some of my brothers and sisters at the NAACP conventions, they have moved from the agony to the avenue and from poverty to prosperity, from neck bones to T-bones and sometimes we forget where we come from. I would beseech, brothers and sisters of the labor movement, let’s not forget the deprivation, the trials, the bloodshed of many of our brothers and sisters who died to build the labor movement. They died believing that the labor movement one day would speak to the problems of the people. You are the heirs of the promises and you are also the keepers of the dream and generations yet unborn will look back to see whether you were faithful to the promise.
I remember in Memphis, Tennessee, seeing leaders of the labor movement being beat down in the street like wild dogs, but they would not let anybody turn them around.
I remember the boss of Memphis, Tennessee, saying that labor organizations would never come to pass in Memphis, Tennessee. He dared organized labor to come across and they had the guts to fight until victory was won, and you must not forget your history. You must not forget your heritage. You must not forget where you come from.
We must not become so lazy and indifferent to the cries of labor, the poverty-stricken and the powerless. We must not become so concerned about our own power that we forget the brothers and sisters who are still laboring in an environment where there is so little for too many. They look to us to reach down and help them.
So, today I pledge for my part, and I am sure that Lane Kirkland pledges on his part, that the NAACP and the labor movement, working together for the passage of labor law reform acts in the Congress, will succeed. (Applause).
We shall work for the implementation of the Hawkins-Humphrey bill. We shall work wherever that ugly monster raises its head to defeat the so-called right-to-work laws. We have already been to Missouri to fight it, and we are going to Louisiana to see that it is repealed because those who want to see us progress have an amazing way to get good-sounding words such as “right to work.” We know they are a damnable lie and it has to be told.
We shall work together to defeat those who would hold us back, and to march on until victory is won in the J. P. Stevens fight. We shall work to make sure that there will be no exploitation of foreign labor at the expense of American laboring men and women, to have a fair trade law that means that, and to make sure that multinational corporate interests don’t move the jobs of American working people beyond the boundaries of the Atlantic and the Pacific, in order to exploit cheap labor and bring the goods back here.
We shall work together for labor legislation; we shall work for the election of decent candidates at the local, state and national level, and then we are going to have a report card on them, to make sure that if they are elected with our support, they will vote like they promised to vote. If they don’t do it, we are going to say to them, in the language of the Old Testament, in Job, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and if we give it to you and you don’t act right, we are going to take it away from you.” (Applause).
We are tired of elected people who forget about us as soon as they get in office and I don’t care a rap whether it is a representative in a state house or the President of the United States. They have got to be responsible to the people who put them into office and do what they promised to do when they are running.
We shall work to eliminate the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan, that they will not rear their ugly heads and divert the cause of Jesus Christ and change the meaning of Judeo-Christian heritage, because we understand that those who put on night sheets and pillow cases and ride down the streets with grips and gloves and shotguns are trying to destroy the spirit of progress in America. Even though they may come after blacks in the morning, remember, they will be after labor in the afternoon.
So, they never seem to know for whom the bell tolls.
I believe that we can forge an alliance. I believe that we can build a momentum in this nation that will inexorably move forward.
I believe we are inextricably bound together and that the things that bring us together are stronger than the things that keep us apart.
So, in so many physical ways we must be prepared to move to New York and look at the beautiful Statue of Liberty that stands there in the harbor with that marvelous light beckoning to those poor and oppressed people from across the water, saying, “Give me your tired, your huddled masses, the young, to be free.” Every night we must turn that statue on a pedestal so that not only she pleads to Europe and lands across the sea, but to the barrios of California, the ghettos of Watts and Harlem, and the Appalachian foothills and wherever people are suffering for freedom. We can say to Americans of every race, color and creed, “Give me your tired, yearning to be free.” Then the day will come when from every mountainside, black and white Americans, female and male Americans, Jew and Gentile, will be able to sing, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. Of thee I sing.”
God bless you. (Applause).
Proceedings of the Thirteenth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C., November 15–20, 1979, pp. 198–203.
44. NAACP TO JOIN LABOR’S SOLIDARITY DAY PROTEST
DENVER—The NAACP voted enthusiastic endorsement of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Day demonstration and called on more than 2,200 local branches to take part in the Sept. 19 rally in Washington “for jobs, justice and equity.”
Nearly 5,000 delegates to the 72nd annual convention of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization applauded and adopted a Solidarity Day “emergency resolution” that was brought to the floor at the opening session of the convention.
Other special resolutions adopted at the same session with the support of the NAACP board sharply criticized Reagan Administration budget cuts and pressed for renewal of the Voting Rights Act. A few hours later, delegates sat politely but silently through a speech by President Reagan.
The Solidarity Day resolution and a message from AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland stressed the long and close alliance between the trade union and civil rights movements.
In endorsing Solidarity Day, the NAACP cited the attempts by the Reagan Adminstration to “diminish or destroy” programs to help “the aged, the poor and the disadvantaged.”
The resolution, adopted by voice was without dissent, welcomed the initiative taken by the AFL-CIO and the federation’s invitation to the NAACP and other concerned organizations “to participate in this timely demonstration.”
UAW President Douglas A. Fraser, one of the speakers at a labor luncheon held during the convention, said his union is going all out to make Solidarity Day a success.78
“Let’s make this the greatest demonstration since people of all walks of life and all colors marched in Washington in support of civil rights in 1963,” Fraser urged.
Kirkland’s letter to NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks expressed confidence and determination that hard-won progress will not be reversed.
He cited the “fundamental changes” that the labor and civil rights alliance helped bring about.
“We have swept away the age-old legal codes and legislative sanctions that perpetuated racial discrimination in our schools, in housing, in public accommodations and in the world of work,” Kirkland said.
Equality is closer to becoming “a fact of daily life, as well as of law,” he noted. And labor remains committed “to affirmative action programs necessary to open doors previously shut to minorities and women.”
But Kirkland voiced concern at signs of retreat. “Violations of civil rights laws that would have been unthinkable even a year ago have already begun to surface in states where our opponents eagerly anticipate the demise of the Voting Rights Act,” he warned.
And there is suffering ahead, he said, “as the Administration seeks to close one door after another in the face of those who need jobs, food, housing and the educational, medical and social services their government will no longer supply.”
The AFL-CIO is devoting its energies and resources to preserve a just society, Kirkland affirmed.
“We are heartened,” he said, “to know that the NAACP is at our side.”
AFL-CIO News, July 4, 1981.
45. ROY WILKINS PROVIDED STRENGTH DURING CRITICAL CIVIL RIGHTS ERA
By Bayard Rustin
Roy Wilkins was a gentle man with a strong will. He was a man of keen judgment and open-mindedness, a man who was willing to change his mind. In a very real sense he was the statesman of the civil rights movement.
He was not a man of charisma. He was not a speaker who could electrify crowds with his rhetoric. His strength and his lasting contribution to the civil rights movement rested in his thoroughness, his quiet determination, and his organizational talents.
It was under Roy Wilkins’ aegis that the true black Declaration of Independence was written. It was not a single document such as the one drafted by America’s founding fathers. Rather, it was the immense project of legal proceedings and test cases which were initiated by the NAACP, which included the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and which continued far beyond it.
These decisions won rights for blacks in enclave after enclave of American society.
I first directly collaborated with Roy Wilkins during the planning stages of the 1963 March on Washington, which was initiated by A. Philip Randolph, the great black labor leader.
At first, relations between us were somewhat strained because Wilkins, a cautious man by nature, was troubled by my personal history of involvement in socialist and other radical causes. Yet despite initial misunderstandings, once we had begun working together and had come to understand that our goals for the black community were similar, we formed a close bond of friendship.
Despite his initial coolness to the idea of a March on Washington for civil rights and economic justice, once Roy Wilkins was convinced of the project’s merits, he and the NAACP were to give the endeavour the strongest financial and organizational support it was to receive.
That the march was a great success was in large measure due to the organizational network Wilkins had established. And it was at Wilkins’s insistence that Martin Luther King, Jr. was chosen to be the final speaker at that march and there delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
Because Roy Wilkins had a keen sense of what blacks wanted and because of his effectiveness in expressing the needs and desires of black Americans, he was frequently vilified by a minority of black extremists who sought to arrogate for themselves the right to speak in the name of all blacks.
Wilkins played a central role in leading black community opposition to the black power and separation movements which did so much to weaken black political power and to heighten racial tensions. He was a committed integrationist and he battled all the way with such extremists as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, who today are mere footnotes in the history of black political life.
Wilkin’s contributions were great and lasting. They have survived him, above all, in the form of the NAACP, the organization which he helped build into a network of 400,000 members. His stewardship of the NAACP encompassed the period of the 1950s and early ’60s in which the civil rights movement made its greatest progress. He, likewise, led his organization in the more difficult and frequently disappointing period which was to follow.
The death of Roy Wilkins marks the final chapter in a great era in the history of the civil rights movement. It was an era of great visionaries and leaders—Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, and Roy Wilkins.
We are now, without question, firmly entrenched in a new era, an era whose outlines are not yet easy to perceive. The civil rights movement stands at the crossroads. Today, its influence is lower than at any point since its inception. It confronts the dangerous problems of a hereditary and ever-growing underclass of black poor, of economic inequality, and of an administration which is indifferent to the plight of the poor and working poor.
The civil rights movement is at a crossroads. One can only hope that new Roy Wilkinses will emerge to lead that movement down the proper path.
AFL-CIO News, September 19, 1981.
46. DELEGATES HIT REAGAN ON CIVIL RIGHTS RETREAT
Hollywood, Fla.—The AFL-CIO reaffirmed its strong commitment to ending discrimination and guaranteeing civil rights to all Americans.
The convention stressed in a resolution that the federation will continue to “vigorously oppose” attempts by the Reagan Administration to “annihilate” generations of civil rights progress.
So-called voluntary action in civil rights touted by conservatives will not work, the AFL-CIO said. The battle for equal opportunity, the resolution said, “can be won only through strong enforcement action by executive agencies and the courts.”
The Administration, the AFL-CIO charged in its Executive Council report, has supplemented its attempts to wipe civil rights laws off the books with such tactics as lagging enforcement, appointing people with anti-civil rights stands to key positions to weaken enforcement, gutting of social, educational and equal employment programs, tearing down of affirmative action programs, foot-dragging on a wide variety of anti-discrimination cases, such as in housing, as well as damaging internal reorganizations of agencies and “regulatory reform” which amounts to gutting protective provisions.
Services available
Key sections of the resolution urged AFL-CIO affiliates to use the services of the federation’s Civil Rights Committee and Dept. of Civil Rights, and to appoint union staff to work on programs to guarantee civil rights to all Americans.
The resolution called for support for “strong, viable civil rights agencies” such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Justice Dept.
The resolution affirmed the need for non-discriminatory seniority systems, coupled with the use of the collective bargaining process to “open employment doors for women and minorities.”
Employees should not be subject to discrimination or harassment in any form because of sexual orientation, the resolution said, calling for federal, state and local laws to eliminate such abridgement of civil rights.
The AFL-CIO urged affiliates to continue to support and strengthen educational programs to alert union members to the dangers posed to the labor movement and the nation by the propaganda of the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist and hate groups.
Community work
The value of the work in communities toward equal opportunity and social and economic justice by coalitions representing the interests of the labor movement and blacks, Hispanics and women was stressed in the resolution. The AFL-CIO will continue to support and work closely with the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, Frontlash and the National Council of Senior Citizens.
Although a 25-year extension of the labor-supported Voting Rights Act was signed in 1982—in spite of repeated attempts by the Administration to weaken it—there are still pockets of resistance to the law in some parts of the country. The resolution pointed out that the Justice Department must be expected to pursue strong enforcement of the civil rights law.
At the same time, the AFL-CIO said, organized labor will be pressing voter registration and “get out the vote” programs to see that all Americans take advantage of this right.
Worst record
Federation Vice President John Sweeney, president of the Service Employees, branded the Reagan White House “the most anti-minority Administration in the history of our country” in calling for adoption of the resolution.
“We in the labor movement don’t believe civil rights is a ‘special interest,’ it’s all our interest,” Sweeney said.
Fred O’Neal, an AFL-CIO vice president and head of the Actors & Artistes, urged all affiliates to work closely with the federation’s Dept. of Civil Rights and to appoint staff members within their own unions.
Delegate John Sturdivant, executive vice president of the Government Employees, told the convention the resolution was important to the morale of many dedicated government workers whose efforts to do their jobs—carrying out civil rights laws—are being hampered by the anti-civil rights attitudes of the Reagan Administration.
Also speaking in support of the resolution were Delegates Marc Stepp, vice president of the Auto Workers; William Olwell, vice president of the Food & Commerical Workers; Evelyn Dubrow, vice president of the Ladies’ Garment Workers, and Steve Edney, vice president of the Seafarers.
AFL-CIO News, October 15, 1983.
BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS SPEAK BEFORE AFL-CIO CONVENTIONS
Special Counsel, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Mr. Meany, officers and friends: On behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and those we represent, I want to say that it is more than a pleasure and a privilege to be here this afternoon. I have condensed what I want to say on paper for a very simple reason: that is the only way I know to get something over in short fashion. I hope you will bear with me in reading, because I for one consider this one of the most important periods in our lives insofar as the actual practice of the survival of democracy is concerned.
We in the NAACP salute the merged AFL and CIO as an example of further consolidation of forces seeking justice for all Americans. The additional strength from this merger will most certainly be used for the benefit of the country in general. A large measure of the success in the fight for human dignity that has come about has resulted from the recognition by organized labor of the need of extending labor’s fight from inside the plant to the community in general. So, those of us in the fight for justice for Negro Americans can now depend upon an even stronger support from this new consolidated arm of organized labor.
While great progress toward removing racial injustice from American life has been made in the past two decades, we have found that the real task is and will be the job of bringing established principles of law into everyday practice in local communities. Experience during the past two years has made it clear to everyone concerned that real opposition to law and order is being built up in areas of the South. This opposition is being built up on the local level.
In backward areas of the South, the so-called “good people” of these states have banded themselves together in organizations such as the White Citizens Councils of Mississippi and other similar organizations. These local groups have grown during the past six months into state organizations and will, in short order cross state lines. While these organizations are set up for the ostensible purpose of “using every lawful means” to preserve racial segregation and other forms of discrimination including the denial of the right to vote. In truth and in fact these organizations are creating the type of atmosphere which now makes it possible to run Negroes out of business, to discharge Negroes from employment and even to threaten and murder poor defenseless Negroes in Mississippi. Of course, the White Citizens Councils deny any responsibility for these murders. However, they cannot deny that they have created the atmosphere of disregard for the established law of the land. This atmosphere makes it possible for murderers to go free and unpunished. This atmosphere of lawlessness must be changed.
The murder of Rev. G. W. Lee in Belzoni, Miss., for insisting on his right to vote, the murder of Lamar Smith for insisting on the right to register and the unprovoked murder of little Emmett Till has focused nation and worldwide attention on Mississippi. These murders and other forms of intimidation point up but definitely the complete absence of protection of civil rights for minority groups in the South. Of course, those of us who have been in this fight for any period of time have known of this lack of protection for Negroes along with similar lack of protection of the rights of organized labor in many areas of the South. It is a sad commentary to realize that many of us require cold-blooded murders in order to rally us to action. The whole vicious program against Negroes in the South will without doubt lead to further violence and pressures against organized labor. One of the biggest jobs ahead for this consolidated bloc of labor leaders is to organize the unorganized in the South. Recent developments of lawlessness and opposition to voting and desegregation of education makes it clear that organized labor must insist not only on organizing in the South but must insist that it be done throughout the South on a completely integrated basis without any compromise in the slightest detail to the segregated policies prevalent in areas of the South.
The Negro in the South has refused to compromise on the question of racial segregation in public education and other public facilities. Organized labor must refuse to compromise in its organizing even in the South. Between the two, we can rally other good forces of the South to the end that justice will prevail.
However, the inability of the United States Department of Justice to bring to justice those guilty of denying constitutionally protected rights to Negroes in the South points up the need for adequate Federal legislation to protect all of us in the exercise of our rights throughout the South. In other words, we must have Federal protection of the right to live, to speak out, to organize, and to insist upon our constitutionally protected rights. States such as Mississippi have demonstrated their unwillingness as well as inability to protect these rights. Therefore, we must use our combined strength to secure from Congress adequate anti-lynching legislation, anti-poll tax legislation and a strengthening of the Federal Civil Rights Statutes as a bulwark against unprovoked violence in our every day work. We must, in addition, insist upon strong FEPC legislation and necessary safeguards in Federal appropriations in schools, housing and other facilities which will prevent Federal money from being used to continue segregation in opposition to the law of the land.
It should also be noted that this vicious anti-Negro program extends to white citizens who dare to speak out for justice for Negroes. It is highly significant that in many areas of the deep South organized labor is being bracketed in the same position as the Negro.
In this great expansion program of bringing great industries into the South, organized labor has a more important task than ever before in seeing to it that the plants involved are not only organized on a completely nonracial basis but that the communities surrounding these plants are run in a democratic fashion which today means, according to the law of the land, the absence of racial segregation. Anything short of this will merely mean that the expansion program in the South will become a further example of extended racial discrimination on an even larger scale. At this late date, it goes without saying that organized labor has a terrific stake in vigorously opposing racial segregation in community life whether it be in the North or South.
Despite all of the organized opposition to desegregation, it is important to remember that the solid South is broken for the first time on the question of race. As of today, twelve of the seventeen Southern states are now admitting Negroes to graduate and professional schools. Some thirty-odd private universities opened their doors to Negroes and it is just a short matter of time until all will be opened up.
It is also worthy of note that on the elementary and high school levels portions of either of the seventeen Southern states and the District of Columbia have moved toward integration of public schools and this has been accomplished in less than two years. This is the type of progress that has solidified the unreconstructed areas which are now more determined than ever to do everything possible to prevent integration of public schools.
In the latest drive toward desegregation as a result of recent Supreme Court decisions we have found that the good people of the South are either afraid or unwilling to oppose the pro-segregationist groups. We find that most of the Southern press is against integration of public schools. We find that church organizations for the most part will go no further than to merely adopt innocuous resolutions in favor of desegregation.
If the desegregation job is to be done, it will have to be done on the local level. If we are to be successful in this task we will need more than ever before the support of organizations such as those here represented who are in a position to transform resolutions into action programs on the local level.
The type of diehard opposition now being built up in the South will not disappear overnight and we cannot blow it away. It will only be removed by intelligent cooperative leadership of those Americans who have more at stake than others. Together we can do the job.
PRESIDENT MEANY: In your behalf I wish to thank Mr. Marshall for his address this afternoon and to express to him the opinion that the organized labor movement of this nation will be able to more effectively carry out its tradition of non-discrimination and of civil rights for all, and that through this merged organization we will be able to carry on the principles both organizations in the past have adhered to, and implement those principles much more effectively than we have in the past.
Proceedings of the First Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, New York, December 5–8, 1955, pp. 107–09.
48. DOCTOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
President, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
President Meany, distinguished platform associates, delegates to the Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, ladies and gentlemen:
I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be with you today. It is a privilege indeed to have the opportunity of addressing such a significant gathering. I have looked forward to being with you with great anticipation.
At one time I thought the forces of nature wouldn’t cooperate with me enough in order to be here, for I left Los Angeles early this morning. When I got to the airport, I discovered that the flight that I was to take out of Los Angeles had been canceled because of weather in Dallas and in Atlanta. But I was lucky enough to get a flight through Chicago and certainly that was a joyous moment when I heard that I could go another way and get here. Of course the flight was rather bumpy all the way from Chicago to Miami and I was very happy when we landed.
I don’t want to give you the impression that I don’t have faith in God in the air. It is just that I have more experience with him on the ground.
But it is a delightful privilege to be here and I want to express my great pleasure to President Meany and the committee for extending the invitation.
Less than a century ago the laborer had no rights, little or no respect, and led a life which was socially submerged and barren.
He was hired and fired by economic despots whose power over him decreed his life or death. The children of workers had no childhood and no future. They, too, worked for pennies an hour and by the time they reached their teens they were worn-out old men, devoid of spirit, devoid of hope and devoid of self-respect. Jack London described a child worker in these words: “He did not walk like a man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human. It was a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled like a sickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested, grotesque and terrible.” American industry organized misery into sweat shops and proclaimed the right of capital to act without restraints and without conscience.
Victor Hugo, literary genius of that day, commented bitterly that there was always more misery in the lower classes than there was humanity in the upper classes. The inspiring answer to this intolerable and dehumanizing existence was economic organization through trades unions. The worker became determined not to wait for charitable impulses to grow in his employer. He constructed the means by which a fairer sharing of the fruits of his toil had to be given to him or the wheels of industry, which he alone turned, would halt and wealth for no one would be available.
This revolution within industry was fought mercilessly by those who blindly believed their right to uncontrolled profits was a law of the universe, and that without the maintainance of the old order catastrophe faced the nation.
History is a great teacher. Now, every one knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who today attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.
Labor’s next monumental struggle emerged in the thirties when it wrote into federal law the right freely to organize and bargain collectively. It was now apparently emancipated. The days when workers were jailed for organizing, and when in the English Parliament Lord Macauley had to debate against a bill decreeing the death penalty for anyone engaging in a strike, were grim but almost forgotten memories. Yet, the Wagner Act, like any other legislation, tended merely to declare rights but did not deliver them. Labor had to bring the law to life by exercising its rights in practice over stubborn, tenacious opposition. It was warned to go slow, to be moderate, not to stir up strife. But labor knew it was always the right time to do right, and it spread its organization over the nation and achieved equality organizationally with capital. The day of economic democracy was born.
Negroes in the United States read this history of labor and find it mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us. They deplore our discontent, they resent our will to organize, so that we may guarantee that humanity will prevail and equality will be exacted. They are shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience, and protests are becoming our every day tools, just as strikes, demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the table. We want to rely upon the goodwill of those who oppose us. Indeed, we have brought forward the method of non-violence to give an example of unilaterial goodwill in an effort to evoke it in those who have not yet felt it in their hearts. But we know that if we are not simultaneously organizing our strength we will have no means to move forward. If we do not advance, the crushing burden of centuries of neglect and economic deprivation will destroy our will, our spirits and our hopes. In this way labor’s historic tradition of moving forward to create vital people as consumers and citizens has become our own tradition, and for the same reasons.
This unity of purpose is not an historical coincidence. Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires and few Negro employers. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs, decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.
The duality of interests of labor and Negroes make any crisis which lacerates you, a crisis from which we bleed. As we stand on the threshold of the second half of the twentieth century, a crisis confronts us both. Those who in the second half of the nineteenth century could not tolerate organized labor have had a rebirth of power and seek to regain the despotism of that era while retaining the wealth and privileges of the twentieth century. Whether it be the ultra right wing in the form of Birch societies or the alliance which former President Eisenhower denounced, the alliance between big military and big industry, or the coalition of southern Dixiecrats and northern reactionaries whatever the form, these menaces now threaten everything decent and fair in American life. Their target is labor, liberals, and the Negro people, not scattered “reds” or even Justice Warren, former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman and President Kennedy, who are in truth beyond the reach of their crude and vicious falsehoods.79
Labor today faces a grave crisis, perhaps the most calamitous since it began its march from the shadows of want and insecurity. In the next ten to twenty years automation will grind jobs into dust as it grinds out unbelievable volumes of production. This period is made to order for those who would seek to drive labor into impotency by viciously attacking it at every point of weakness. Hard core unemployment is now an ugly and unavoidable fact of life. Like malignant cancer, it has grown year by year and continues its spread. But automation can be used to generate an abundance of wealth for people or an abundance of poverty for millions as its human-like machines turn out human scrap along with machine scrap as a by-product of production. Our society, with its ability to perform miracles with machinery, has the capacity to make some miracles for men—if it values men as highly as it values machines.
To find a great design to solve a grave problem labor will have to intervene in the political life of the nation to chart a course which distributes the abundance to all instead of concentrating it among a few. The strength to carry through such a program requires that labor know its friends and collaborate as a friend. If all that I have said is sound, labor has no firmer friend than the 20 million Negroes whose lives will be deeply affected by the new patterns of production.
To say that we are friends would be an empty platitude if we fail to behave as friends and honestly look to weaknesses in our relationship. Unfortunately there are weaknesses. Labor has not adequately used its great power, its vision and resources to advance Negro rights. Undeniably it has done more than other forces in American society to this end. Aid from real friends in labor has often come when the flames of struggle heighten. But Negroes are a solid component within the labor movement and a reliable bulwark for labor’s whole program, and should expect more from it exactly as a member of a family expects more from his relatives than he expects from his neighbors.
Labor, which made impatience for long-delayed justice for itself a vital motive force, cannot lack understanding of the Negro’s impatience. It cannot speak with the reactionaries calm indifference, of progress around some obscure corner not yet possible even to see. There is a maxim in the law—justice too long delayed, is justice denied. When a Negro leader who has a reputation of purity and honesty which has benefitted the whole labor movement criticizes it, his motives should not be reviled nor his earnestness rebuked. Instead, the possibility that he is revealing a weakness in the labor movement which it can ill afford, should receive thoughtful examination. A man who has dedicated his long and faultless life to the labor movement cannot be raising questions harmful to it any more than a lifelong devoted parent can become the enemy of his child. The report of a committee may smother with legal constructions a list of complaints and dispose of it for the day. But if it buries a far larger truth it has disposed of nothing and made justice more elusive. Discrimination does exist in the labor movement. It is true that organized labor has taken significant steps to remove the yoke of discrimination from its own body. But in spite of this, some unions, governed by the racist ethos, have contributed to the degraded economic status of the Negro. Negroes have been barred from membership in certain unions, and denied apprenticeship training and vocational education. In every section of the country one can find local unions existing as a serious and vicious obstacle when the Negro seeks jobs or upgrading in employment. Labor must honestly admit these shameful conditions, and design the battle plan which will defeat and eliminate them. In this way, labor would be unearthing the big truth and utilizing its strength against the bleakness of injustice in the spirit of its finest traditions.
How can labor rise to the heights of its potential statesmanship and cement its bonds with Negroes to their mutual advantage?
First: Labor should accept the logic of its special position with respect to Negroes and the struggle for equality. Although organized labor has taken actions to eliminate discrimination in its ranks, the standard for the general community, your conduct should and can set an example for others, as you have done in other crusades for social justice. You should root out vigorously every manifestation of discrimination so that some internationals, central labor bodies or locals may not besmirch the positive accomplishments of labor. I am aware this is not easy nor popular—but the 8 hour day was not popular nor easy to achieve. Nor was outlawing anti-labor injunctions. But you accomplished all of these with a massive will and determination. Out of such struggle for democratic rights you won both economic gains and the respect of the country, and you will win both again if you make Negro rights a great crusade.
Second: The political strength you are going to need to prevent automation from becoming a moloch, consuming jobs and contract gains, can be multiplied if you tap the vast reservoir of Negro political power. Negroes given the vote, will vote liberal and labor because they need the same liberal legislation labor needs. To give just an example of the importance of the Negro vote to labor, I might sight the arresting fact that the only state in the South which repealed the “right-to-work” law is Louisiana. This was achieved because the Negro vote in that state grew large enough to become a balance of power, and it sent along with labor to wipe out anti-labor legislation. Thus, support to assist us in securing the vote can make the difference between success and defeat for us both. You have organizing experience we need and you have an apparatus unparalleled in the nation. You recognized five years ago a moral opportunity and responsibility when several of your leaders, including Mr. Meany, Mr. Dubinsky, Mr. Reuther and Mr. MacDonald and others, projected a two-million dollar campaign to assist the struggling Negroes fighting bitterly in handicapped circumstances in the South. A $10,000 contribution was voted by the ILGWU to begin the drive, but for reasons unknown to me, the drive was never begun. The cost to us in lack of resources during these turbulent, violent years, is hard to describe. We are mindful that many unions thought of as immorally rich, in truth have problems in meeting the budget to properly service their members. So we do not ask that you tax your treasuries. Instead, we ask that you appeal to your members for one dollar apiece to make democracy real for millions of deprived American citizens. For this you have the experience, the organization and most of all, the understanding.
If you would do these two things now in this convention—resolve to deal effectively with discrimination and provide financial aid for our struggle in the South,—this convention will have a glorious moral deed to add to an illustrous history.
The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of democracy in a South now rapidly industrializing. Together we can retool the political structure of the South, sending to Congress steadfast liberals who, joining with those from Northern industrial states, will extend the frontiers of democracy for the whole nation. Together we can bring about the day when there will be no separate identification of Negroes and labor. There is no intrinsic difference as I have tried to demonstrate. Differences have been contrived by outsiders who seek to impose disunity by dividing brothers because the color of their skin has a different shade. I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions.
This will be the day when we shall bring into full realization the American dream—a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few, a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man’s skin determined the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality—that is the dream.
And as we struggle to make racial and economic justice a reality, let us maintain faith in the future. We will confront difficulties and frustrating moments in the struggle to make justice a reality, but we must believe somehow that these problems can be solved.
There is a little song that we sing in the movement taking place in the South. It goes something like this, “We shall overcome. We shall overcome. Deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome.” And somehow all over America we must believe that we shall overcome and that these problems can be solved. They will be solved before the victory is won.
Some of us will have to be scarred up, but we shall overcome. Before the victory of justice is a reality, some may even face physical death. But if a physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children and their brothers from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more moral. Before the victory is won some more will have to go to jail. We must be willing to go to jail and transform the jails from dungeons of shame to havens of freedom and human dignity. Yes, before the victory is won, some will be misunderstood. Some will be dismissed as dangerous rabble rousers and agitators. Some will be called Reds and Communists merely because they believe in economic justice and the brotherhood of man. But we shall overcome.
I am convinced that we shall overcome because the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlisle is right when he says, “No lie can live forever.” We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right when he says, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell was right when he proclaimed; “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future.”
And so if we will go out with this faith and this determination to solve these problems, we will bring into being the new day and the new America. When that day comes, the fears of insecurity and the doubts clouding our future will be transformed into radiant confidence, into glowing excitement to reach creative goals and into an abiding moral balance where the brotherhood of man will be undergirded by a secure and expanding prosperity for all.
Yes, this will be the day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands all over this nation and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free At Last, Free At Last. Thank God Almighty We Are Free At Last.”
Thank you.
(Standing ovation).
PRESIDENT MEANY: I am sure it would be superfluous for me to tell Dr. King we appreciate his address. I am sure everyone here is moved by his splendid outline of a philosophy for human rights and human decency.
We appreciate beyond words his presence here and his most stirring address on a subject dear to our hearts. Thank you very much, Dr. King.
Proceedings of the Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Miami Beach, Fla., December 7–13, 1961, Vol. I, pp. 282–89.
Executive Director National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Thank you, George Meany, and thank you, delegates to the Convention.
I am pleased to bring greetings to the delegates to this Convention of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
I bring the thanks of our members for the clear pronouncements of President Meany and for the invaluable service of the AFL-CIO and its skilled legislative staff to the work of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Also for the support labor has given at the major political party conventions to the civil rights items in the platforms. In addition, many units of organized labor have aided campaigns on the local level involving state and municipal projects for housing, health, public education, employment and welfare. We are proud of this partnership in the civil rights field.
We join labor in its apprehension over the beginning of a trend away from liberalism. The civil rights campaigns, like those in behalf of the prime goals of organized labor, cannot make progress in an area of suppression and reaction.
We are sure you share with us an uneasiness at the racial crisis that has been presented sharply by the civil disorders and riots of the past four summers, the worst of which was the summer of 1967. Much more is at stake than a mere be-kind-and-be-just-to-the-Negro situation. The future of democratic government could well be at stake also.
This is a time, then, for plain talk—not diatribes, but truth, unpleasant though it may be.
Organized religion is facing up to the challenge. By and large, the courts are recognizing a new day. The universities are taking a fresh look. When we see that the National Association of Manufacturers, no less, is concerned about Negro unemployment and is pushing a program to open doors to Negro applicants, we realize that the business community, a large part of which hitherto has remained indifferent, is awake and stirring on wholly new paths of activity.
The executive branch of government, along with the judicial has made a definite turn. Only the legislative branch has been reluctant. On riot control it has been eager and determined, generous with appropriations, united and expeditious. On other matters in the civil rights and general welfare fields it has been slow, carping, partisan, parsimonious and hostile. One has only to examine congressional action on the education bills, anti-poverty legislation, the iniquitous Social Security Bill.
And here we have a bill that the AFL-CIO and other organizations, including my own, I am proud to state, has condemned and asked the senators to reject the conference report. In the words of your telegram from President Meany to every senator, this is a bill that ought to be rejected because the provisions in the welfare section, the provision regarding mothers, leave no alternative, as the New York Times said, to either sterilize the mothers or starve the children. We can’t have this kind of legislation in the Congress of the United States. Now, by this sort of procedure the riots and events of last summer persuaded apparently our Congress not only to deny a reward to rioting but to abdicate their proper role in the forward movement of our country. They have definitely forgotten that the rioters are but a small fringe of the country.
Each American, in this crucial time, will have to live with his conscience and the collective conscience of the organized bodies of which he is a member.
In the rapid movement of the currents of democracy, no institution is more sensitive to change than the American labor movement. Although it may choose, for reasons which seem good to it, not to act at certain times, nevertheless, it is not unaware of developments.
The crisis of our day involves the denial of equality of opportunity, citizenship and human rights to our Negro citizens more than a century after they were emancipated from slavery.
As far as the AFL-CIO is concerned, the stark, bald issue is jobs. As far as causes of riots go, the stark, bald issue is jobs.
In many cases unions control access to employment, so equal employment opportunities for Negroes falls into the AFL-CIO orbit. As we ask ourselves why we had riots in more than 50 cities and what can be done to prevent this from tearing our country apart, let us look frankly at some records of the past business-as-usual years in the job market.
At the outset I wish to state in the clearest possible terms that nothing—absolutely nothing—ever done by the NAACP is intended to be anti-labor; but it is pro-Negro. To the degree that our number of priorities are different, to that degree will there be some within organized labor who misunderstand, either honestly or otherwise, our activities on behalf of Negro wage earners.
We are, of course, aware that some progress in eliminating discriminatory practices within organized labor has taken place since the merger in 1955, but given the worsening job crisis of the Negro worker and the racial turmoil in our urban centers, we are forced to conclude that the rate of progress has been far too slow. The specifics are not cheerful items.
In Cleveland, for example, in 1966 at the end of a decade of demonstrations, the filing of complaints, of negotiations with union representatives and the attempts to secure enforcement of federal executive orders, the five major craft locals in the building trades, according to data revealed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had exactly four Negro apprentices. This is certainly, in the words of the Supreme Court, deliberate speed.
The assumption that the rate of progress is minimal in securing the admission of Negroes into skilled craft unions is further confirmed by the August 1967 report of the U.S. Department of Labor entitled “Manpower, Automation, Research Monograph No. 6,” and it contains this significant sentence:
“Indeed the 1960 census showed only 2,191 Negro apprentices in all the trades throughout the country. That figure was one more than had been recorded in the 1950 census ten years before.”
Cincinnati was the scene of racial disorders last summer. On July 24, 1967, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Local 212 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati charging them with excluding Negroes from employment. The plaintiff was Anderson L. Dobbins, a college graduate and a certified journeyman electrician. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found reasonable cause, the local union refused to admit Mr. Dobbins, and although he served as an electrician in the U.S. armed forces, and in private industry for more than ten years, he stands rejected by Local 212.
In the summer of 1963, the NAACP and other Civil Rights organizations picketed the construction site of Barringer High School in Newark, New Jersey, protesting the exclusion of Negro workers there. A year later they picketed also the Rutgers University Law School Extension construction site in Newark, and finally, the State University of New Jersey on February 9, 1965, filed formal complaints against the five locals of the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers. The local unions eventually entered into a stipulation with the commission in December of 1966 and agreed to admit Negroes for the first time into the union-controlled apprenticeship training programs.
But four years after the initial demonstrations, three years after the filing of complaints with the Division against Discrimination, and a year after a stipulation that the locals would admit Negroes, not a single Negro has been admitted into any of the five locals. Nor is there a single Negro employed within this union’s jurisdiction in the extensive public and private construction in Northern New Jersey.
We can anticipate with the new public construction beginning next year on West Market Street in Newark, and on the edge of the Negro ghetto, just what the feeling will be, and the question inevitably arises, “What did we learn from the terrible riot in Newark last year?”
The Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks had traditionally operated segregated locals in many northern as well as southern cities, but they now have changed all of that. Union agreements provided for separate racial classifications which limited Negro job mobility and the seniority of the Negro members, but in 1966, after a request and a threat of a suit, the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks abolished several segregated local lodges. But they did this by reclassifying the traditional Negro job classifications and declaring them to be within the jurisdiction of the white local. In practice this meant, for example, that Negro freight handlers were replaced by less senior white workers who had been in the all-white baggage clerks seniority line. In other words, we will abolish the segregated local but now everybody’s seniority will count, and the whites who had seniority over here in their separate local have more than Negroes that have been abolished and taken in, and they have no seniority in the white local, and therefore their jobs are out.
Another example is to be found in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. This union did not remove the provision in its constitution that banned Negroes from membership until only three years ago, 1964. But as Arthur M. Ross, Commissioner of Labor Statistics observed, and I quote:
“The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen—removed a Negro exclusion clause from its constitution in 1964, after the railroad ‘work rules’ arbitration had made it virtually certain that few, if any, additional firemen would ever be hired on American railroads.”
Other industries, of course, where unions continued over-discriminatory practices a decade after the merger were in paper and pulp manufacturing, chemicals, oil refining, skilled metal trades, and so forth.
Now, the record in Cleveland serves to point up all of this. The record of repeated efforts of Negro workers to breach the color bar in craft unions in Cleveland, Ohio, in the decade following the merger illustrates the limited nature of the progress that has been made.
In 1955 charges were filed with the Cleveland Community Relations Board against Local 38 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and this local traditionally controls all of the work, electrical work in the Cleveland area.
Although it did not agree to accept, after being ordered to admit workers, it did not agree to accept the plaintiff in the case, but it did accept some other Negroes as members of their race.
But in 1966, eleven years after the original charges were filed with the Cleveland Community Relations Board, Local 38 has admitted exactly two Negro electricians to work in Cleveland.
As a result of the mass picketing at the Cleveland Municipal Mall Construction site, an agreement was entered into on August 4, 1963, between Plumbers Local 55, the City of Cleveland, the United States Department of Labor and the United Freedom Movement, consisting of local civil rights groups. Local 55 agreed to admit Negroes and to sign labor agreements with the Negro owned contracting companies—they did admit one Negro plumbing contractor with his four journeymen but that is as far as they went. The Cleveland story was wrapped up in a hearing before the United States Commission on Civil Rights in Cleveland in April, 1966, and the lineup reads something like this:
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 38 with a total membership of 1258 had 2 Negro members.
Ironworkers Union, Local 7, with a total membership of 1786 had no Negro members.
Plumbers Union, Local 55, with a total membership of 1482 had three Negro members.
Pipefitters Union, Local 36, with a total membership of 1319 had one Negro member.
Sheet Metal Workers Union, Local 65, with a total membership of 1077 had 45 Negro members.
The Sheet Metal workers were far in advance in numbers and in proportion to the others.
Now, my friends, we find that going west might have been good for Horace Greeley but it wasn’t very good for Negroes in the labor movement.
Recent data from the Bureau of Census indicate that there are now more Negroes in the San Francisco-Oakland East Bay Area than there are in Birmingham, Alabama. The rate of long-term unemployment among Negro males in Oakland exceeds the general rate of unemployment for the entire nation during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. In every survey of the national scene, Oakland is listed as a “powder keg” city. But the November 1967, report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights details the exclusion of Negroes in union controlled employment in the federally-financed Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) construction which will employ approximately 8,000 people at peak construction times. This is a one billion dollar project. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance reports that as of May, 1967, there was not a single Negro among the 106 electricians, ironworkers and plumbers engaged on BART construction.
In the coming year more than $76.5 billion will be spent nationally for construction, much of it in the public sector. How much of this huge sum will go into the paychecks of Negro workers?
At the present time NAACP attorneys are representing Negro workers in five separate court suits in Alabama against the U.S. Steel Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America on the issue of separate racial lines of seniority and promotion. Although these cases were originally filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which found “reasonable cause” to credit the allegations in the complaints, both the company and the union have thus far failed to comply with the law in eliminating discriminatory promotion procedures based on race. After a decade of attempting to resolve this matter by fraternal discussion and negotiation, as a last resort the NAACP has had no choice but to file suit.
A similar record might be traced with other unions maintaining discriminatory classification systems involving seniority and job promotions.
An illustration that comes to mind is Crown-Silver Box in Bogalusa, Louisiana. But there has been progress.
For example, on May 18, 1966 at a meeting of the New York Furriers Union Joint Council, affiliated with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, the 40 year-old Greek Fur Workers local was dissolved. The 1500 local union members transferred to other locals affiliated to the Furriers Joint Council as a result of action by the international union to comply with Title VII, the Equal Employment Opportunity section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Other AFL-CIO locals could well imitate the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and some other labor organizations which have successfully acted to disband nationality locals.
A list of unions which have gone beyond mere ritualistic gesture on racial matters would include the American Federation of Teachers which successfully eliminated segregated locals by offering its southern locals the choice of either integrating or disaffiliating; the United Packinghouse Workers of America which even in the Deep South has carried out its commitment to racial equality at the work place as well as within the union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Also, of course, the great industrial unions whose good policies and acts serve to highlight the derelictions cited.
What is urgently needed now is not simply a repetition of previous commitments to justice, but rather a new definition, a new standard that will require a new set of enforcement procedures within affiliated unions themselves. Minimal change in labor and in American life generally will no longer suffice. What might have been regarded as progress in 1940, 1950, or even 1960, can no longer be so regarded.
For the most part voluntary compliance does not work. This is true for labor unions as it is true for industrial corporations. There now exists a comprehensive body of civil rights law relating to discrimination in employment. The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations and its affiliated international unions have a clear obligation to secure much greater compliance with this body of law than has been obtained in the past.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I lay this record in your lap because the errant children of the AFL-CIO, the international unions and their locals are your children.
They have thus far chosen to ignore the forthright resolutions of your council and of this convention. If they have not ignored what you have voted and what your chief, George Meany, repeatedly has called for, they have paid only lip service to the policy. It has been a conversation piece. It has been observed by powerful and important unions only in the breach, or, at best, with a grudging, foot-dragging tokenism. The proud policy of the AFL-CIO is not being followed.
Some of them are deliberately ignoring and some of them are ignoring it through a shoulder-shrugging gesture. But the Negro citizen and the Negro children of the country are determined that employment will be opened by massive employment activity by the government itself, but some by a change in labor practices. Negroes must have more than bread and clothing and shelter. They must have access to the comfort, the security, and even the affluence that is America. On this there is now no debate. The debating and the backing and filling days are over. The techniques of unfilled promises and of postponement are transparent and useless in today’s hard necessities.
The AFL-CIO can rise to this challenge honestly, as it has to many others. New thinking, embracing all Americans in the work force at all levels, is required.
Failure to devise a fresh formula is unthinkable; the very future of a whole people and their system of enterprise and of individual liberty rests upon a turning and upon a victory. Thank you.
(Applause).
PRESIDENT MEANY: I wish to thank the Director, Roy Wilkins, of the NAACP and to say to him that we are completely aware of the problem that he poses, that we have a civil rights department, that we have the cooperation of practically every national and international union in this field. However, you will not change conditions over night. We keep trying. And in a good many of the organizations we have a problem of securing Negro boys as apprentices to take the test that these organizations prescribe and which they have prescribed for many years.
I can say to Mr. Wilkins that we in the AFL-CIO are not satisfied with the progress that we have made. I feel we are making progress—perhaps not fast enough—but I can assure him that the AFL-CIO and its national unions will continue to apply ourselves to this problem, and I want to say to him, very frankly, that I, for one, do not resent in any way the report that he has given us today. He presents us with a challenge I think we have to meet, and we shall meet that challenge. Thank you very much.
(Applause).
Proceedings of the Seventh Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Bal Harbour, Fla., December 7–12, 1967, Vol. I, pp. 419–27.
President, Local 1199B, RWDSU
President Meany, members of the Executive Council, distinguished guests, and delegates of this great convention. First, I want to tell you how happy and proud I am to be able to speak to this great convention on behalf of the hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina.
I want to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the officers of the AFL-CIO, to the officers of our international union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, and to the leaders and members of the hundreds of international and local unions in the AFL-CIO for the moral and financial support they gave us during our great struggle in Charleston.
Hundreds of our brothers and sisters from AFL-CIO unions marched side by side with us on the picket line. AFL-CIO members in South Carolina went to jail with us. In addition, we will always remember the help and guidance we received from Brother Bill Kircher, the national organizational director of the AFL-CIO, who was with us in Charleston as the personal representative of the AFL-CIO Executive Council.
Nor will we ever forget the fact that the threat by the Longshoremen’s International Union to close down the port of Charleston in support of our fight played a very important role in helping us achieve our victory.
We won in Charleston. And we won the hard way. We were forced to strike for 100 days just for the right to have a union. We suffered and sacrified to put an end to poverty wages of $1.30 an hour. We marched and we went to jail because we were sick and tired of being sick and tired.
We, 400 hospital workers—almost all of us women, and all of us black—were compelled to go on strike so that we could win the right to be treated as human beings. In this struggle, we had to take on more than just the managements of two hospitals.
We had to fight the entire power structure of the state of South Carolina. And when I say the entire power structure, I don’t only refer to the Governor, or to Charleston’s not-so-distinguished congressman, Mendel Rivers, or that great defender of the 18th century, Senator Strom Thurmond. I’m talking about the textile bosses, the men who really run our state, as well as all of the other reactionary racist forces which have kept South Carolina as the state with the lowest literacy rate, the lowest per capita income, and the lowest percentage of unionized workers in the entire nation.
But that’s not the whole story. We had to face 1,200 national guardsmen armed with tanks and bayonets, and hundreds of state troopers. All because 400 black women dared to stand up and say we just were not going to let anybody turn us around.
And we never stopped fighting for a single day. We suffered. But we kept on marching. More than 1,000 of us went to jail. But we kept on fighting. The hospital bosses and their supporters thought we’d just die out after a day or two of marching. They thought we’d just give up and scratch our heads and shuffle back to those hospitals. They thought we’d just say, “sorry, boss,” and put those handkerchiefs back on our heads. Well, they sure were in for a big disappointment. Because we learned in the course of our struggle that only the strong survive. And we sure are strong today in Charleston.
And as a result, something new and beautiful has come to Charleston—a powerful, democratic union—Local 1199B.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to think that we did it all by ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. We received support and assistance from decent-minded people all over America. First, from our own black community—from our ministers, our students, our old people and our young people. Everyone in the black community made our cause their cause. They struggled with us and they suffered alongside us. Because like hospital workers, they, too, were sick and tired of being sick and tired. They joined us in daily marches and nightly rallies. They joined us in standing up to the tanks, to the armored vehicles, the tear gas and the mace. They did so because they shared our determination to be free. And together we faced this armed strength with our bodies, with our souls and with our hearts—unarmed in a non-violent demonstration, massively organized and militantly conceived in the true spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King.
And we could not have survived if it had not been for the wholehearted support and the brilliant leadership provided by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed by Reverend Ralph David Abernathy. Reverend Abernathy, his entire staff and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, who is the honorary chairman of our hospital organizing campaign, provided the leadership for a massive boycott in which black people refused to buy anything except food and medicine at white-owned stores. Many of our supporters refused to even buy a newspaper during the boycott. Others went without needed clothing and shoes. But they just kept on keeping on.
And we could not have survived and we could not have won if it had not been for the tremendous support given us by organized labor through the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s Charleston Strike Fund. Unions from all over America sent us contributions to help feed the strikers and help us pay the rent. You know when the announcement was made that the AFL-CIO Executive Council was setting up the Charleston Strike Fund with a startling contribution of $25,000, the South Carolina papers called you outside agitators. I want to say here what we said then. We believe from the bottom of our hearts that we hospital workers have more in common with you steel workers in Pittsburgh, with you packing house workers in Chicago, with you clothing workers in New York City, with you transport workers in Philadelphia than we have with the hospital bosses and the people who own and run the textile mills in South Carolina.
So you can see we won because we were able to forge a coalition of union power and soul power—a winning combination of organized labor and the civil rights movement.
And we won wage increases ranging from 30 to 70 cents an hour for all state workers. This adds up to $10 million in wage increases in the pockets of poor black and poor white workers all over South Carolina. We won a real grievance procedure, a credit union through which union dues will be deducted. In other words, we have won de facto union recognition. And we are building a strong, effective, democratic union. Local 1199B. And we intend to keep on fighting until we have all the same rights, the same wages, the same benefits as all other unionized workers up north.
Right now we are conducting a voter registration campaign together with the SCLC, and I am happy to report to you that since the strike we have registered more than 1,500 new voters in Charleston, South Carolina.
We suffered much. But we learned a great deal. We learned that poor people do not have to suffer endless abuse and punishment without fighting back. We learned that when we stick together, when we are united, we are somebody. We learned that when workers are ready to fight for their rights, other workers will come to their support. We learned that we have the capacity to fight, the willingness to suffer for what is right and in the course of this struggle, we have acquired the experience, the dedication to become leaders and true fighters for freedom.
We intend to continue to build our union behind the banner of the AFL-CIO. We intend to move forward to build an organization of hospital workers everywhere to follow our example of rallying poor and exploited workers everywhere to organize into unions, and to unite all workers, black and white, into one union.
A year ago, nobody ever heard of us. We were forgotten women, second class citizens. We worked as nurse’s aides. We cleaned the floors. We prepared the food in the hospitals. And if it had not been for the union, we would still be forgotten people.
Today we are somebody. Thanks to the AFL-CIO, thanks to the SCLC, thanks to the RWDSU, thanks to Local 1199, our brothers and sisters in New York City, we are not alone. And we are not afraid.
We have demonstrated to the city of Charleston, to the state of South Carolina, and to people all over America that we can and we will overcome. And nobody, just nobody, is going to turn us around. And Charleston and the rest of the south had better believe it.
PRESIDENT MEANY: May I add my appreciation for the thoughts expressed by Miss Moultrie, to all of the international unions, local and central bodies, and the state feds throughout the country, who joined with us in helping these workers achieve a trade union which will improve their conditions in the future. Thank you very much, Miss Moultrie.
Proceedings of the Eighth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Atlantic City, N.J., October 2–7, 1969, Vol. I, pp. 198–202.
Executive Director, NAACP
Thank you, Mr. Meany, for that very generous introduction. And to all of you who are gathered here today on this very momentous occasion, may I say to you as the milk cow reputedly said to the farmer on a very frigid morning back in my home state of Tennessee: “Thank you for that very warm hand.” (Laughter).
It’s a great joy to be here. I recognize that you have a lot of business to attend to; that you have been engaged in a lot of important work. Therefore, I will try not to keep you too long, although as a Baptist preacher it’s very difficult to look at an audience this large without bringing out my longest speech. But my wife reminded me before I left Memphis that one does not have to be eternal to be immortal. So, I’ll try to do my best, Mr. President, to keep these remarks within some decent time frame.
When I was on the FCC, I had some good jokes, and I’ll just tell one of them. It doesn’t fit, but I will tell it because it usually makes folks laugh and it sets the stage.
When I was regulating radio, television, and all the various things we regulate as FCC commissioners, you know, the broadcasters would complain about the fact that we were hard to get along with, difficult to deal with. In fact, they said it couldn’t be done. But I would remind them that it was possible to get along with the FCC. In fact, it wasn’t difficult at all. It was like making love to a gorilla. It could be done, but it absolutely had to be done on the gorilla’s terms. (Laughter).
It’s not difficult to get along with the labor movement so long as you do it on their terms. It’s not difficult to get along with the NAACP as long as you do it on our terms.
It is my pleasure and honor to have this opportunity to address this convention of the AFL-CIO. I’m especially grateful to greet and hail George Meany, your president and the dean of organized labor. We of the NAACP salute and congratulate George Meany for his uncompromising and fearless stands in defense of civil rights and social justice. History will record that hardly a significant advance has been made on the civil rights front without the active involvement of organized labor and the magnificant leadership of George Meany. (Applause).
We are particularly grateful to him for his unbridled tolerance. In an age when it is fashionable in politics to engage in docile talk, Mr. Meany insists on rejecting the so-called favorable theory, and he calls them like he sees them. We in the civil rights community do not take kindly to the abuse and cheap shots being hurled at this great leader by persons jealous of his stature, impatient with his cadence for justice, and frightened by his staying power. Hail George Meany and long life. And may your enemies always miss their mark. (Applause).
It is also good to be in a convention where there are so many members of the NAACP. We cherish your support and encourage you to join us. And if you’re not already NAACP members, we have folks with us who will be glad to separate you from the dollars that you have in your pocket, that you might become members of this great organization.
As the Executive Director of the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization, I bring you greetings on behalf of the more than 1,700 branches, more than 450,000 dues-paying members. Labor and the civil rights movement have had a long and marvelous involvement, and it is certainly our hope that this kind of involvement will continue and grow stronger as the days and years roll on.
In 1949 I went back to the City of Memphis, Tennessee, to practice law. I use the term “I went back” advisedly because even though I was born and raised in Memphis and had received my elementary and college education there, had been drafted into the Army, had spent almost three years in the Armed Forces, served as a combat veteran, had been decorated; when I came back to Memphis, I found the conditions almost like I left them. The great City of Memphis, the sovereign State of Tennessee did not provide any place for a black person to receive a legal education, and so I had to go to Chicago, leave my family, my friends, my acquaintances to go there to receive my education.
While I was in Chicago, I ran into many people who were friends of my family, and they advised me to stay in Chicago, and told me how well I could do. But I had made a commitment that I wanted to go back to Memphis, to a rigidly closed and segregated society; I wanted to go back to Memphis where I had seen with my own eyes in the ’30s labor organizers beat down in the streets of that city. I wanted to go back where every acre was a drop of blood and every step was a tear. I wanted to go back to do my part to help make Memphis an open society.
When I got back there, when I would go into the courtroom to practice law, I was never treated with respect. I can remember just like it was yesterday when I had the occasion to visit the jail to see my clients that I was treated like a common criminal myself.
I remember the segregated restrooms. On one particular day when I was engaged in a very heated lawsuit, I called for a recess and went into the law library, only to be informed that this law library located in the courthouse, where the guardian of justice sits on that seat supposedly with blindfolds on her eyes, that because I was black I could not use that library. And I remember asking the reason why, and the librarian in a rather shame-faced way handed me a little booklet. When I got back to the office that day I read it, and it said, “This bar association shall be open to all white lawyers practicing in the vicinity of Memphis and Shelby County.” And then they told me I could make some private arrangements to use it. But I want to say to you that I never used that library until the day came when I could walk up into it openly as a full-fledged lawyer and as a human being. (Applause).
So, I became active again in the NAACP. I joined the voter rights registration efforts, Masons, Elks, civil rights groups. We put on some gigantic voter registration drives.
Mr. Meany, I shall never forget how labor, COPE, and other groups from labor came into Memphis and helped us greatly to move the black registration from 7,000 to more than 127,000 people in our county. And I remember how we used to vote people in office and vote some out of office. We put some rascals in and we also put some rascals out. But we kept moving. Sixteen years after I went back to Memphis, Tennessee, to practice law, I remember on the first day of September that I walked into the courthouse and did not stand before the bench but went behind the bench, put on a black robe. The judge who had had that courtroom, did not even want me to practice law in his courtroom, died, and the Lord had taken him home to wherever he takes judges (Laughter), and I stood behind his bench, put on a black robe, and held up this right hand and I swore to uphold the laws of the state of Tennessee and the United States of America.
I remember even then the courthouse was lily white: All the other judges were white, the jurors were white, the baliffs, the clerks; all of the lawyers were white. In my courtroom, the only thing black was a thin row of defendants sitting in the second row with blue jail uniforms on their way to the penitentiary.
But I’m happy to report to you today when I left that courthouse five years later it was no longer lily white, but it looked like the keyboard of a piano. And I had even the staid, conservative jurors singing with me, black and white together, “We shall overcome some day.” (Applause).
It is because of this that I have faith that America can overcome these challenges. I do not stand here to recite the dreary facts and figures of segregation and discrimination and racial prejudice out of bitterness or vindictiveness or hatred, but I repeat them because it is so easy to forget where we came from. The great English historian Toynbee has said that people who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history, and I think it’s important that we remember where we have come from so as we march forward into a bright new future we can take cognizance of the many things we have already overcome and remember that while we have come a long way we still have a long way to go.
NAACP was founded in 1909 as an interracial organization. It has remained in that position. Roy Wilkins, who led this organization through some very difficult years, was criticized and called an Uncle Tom because he insisted that we should not join in the many of “hate Whitey.” We believe that you should judge a man or a woman on the content of their mind and their character rather than on their sex or the color of their hair or the texture of their skin, and we still subscribe to that belief. (Applause).
We have seen lots of changes in this country. I have been on the back end of the streetcar and the front of the train. I have been all over this country when I could not get a hotel accommodation, could not use the restroom. I’ve felt in my own body the stings of arrows, of the outrageous discrimination which was practiced. But because we have seen the changes, it gives me confidence that we can make some changes if we don’t forget where we’ve come from.
To those of you who are in the labor movement, it would be so easy for you to forget the kinds of victories that labor has already won. And I fear, Mr. President, as I move around, that many younger members of labor have forgotten the days of the lockout and the goon squads, when blood literally flowed in the street.
They’ve forgotten the gallant sacrifices of those who were fired and had to go for months without a job. They’ve forgotten about the days when you went to work it was dark and got home after it was dark. They’ve forgotten the days when they said if you don’t come to work on Sunday, don’t worry about coming to work on Monday. They’ve forgotten about the days when there was no unemployment compensation, no social security, no minimum wage.
It was organized labor that led the fight that changed the whole landscape of America, and whatever you accomplish from this go forward, remember that you stand on the shoulders of men like Gompers and Green and Lewis, who did without that you might go forward, and you will always be in their debt so long as the labor movement goes forward. (Applause).
But how quickly we can forget where we’ve come from. It was with the help of the labor movement that we were able to get in the ’60s in the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, one of the truly great presidents of our nation, those five monumental civil rights bills which were passed. It was because of the fact that this nation felt it was intolerable for a whole segment of this population to be locked out of jobs and opportunites. We had a commitment, and I can remember the days of Selma, and Birmingham, and Montgomery, when I was working with Dr. King, and I see faces here that I recognize that marched with us, that said solidarity forever, whose marching feet and thumping hearts helped to bring forth a new day in this land. And I stand here today with the pundits and the critics, and all of the members of those who would like to see both labor and the civil rights movement dead, proclaiming that the coalition has come to an end. There are those who would like to see us fall out and fight with each other.
It is true there will be some issues upon which labor and the civil rights movement do not agree. NAACP will maintain the independent status and posture. We will insist on speaking out with a loud voice on those things which affect us particularly. Likewise, we expect labor to be protected and zealous about its own interest. But in spite of whatever disagreements we may have, the things that bind us together are so much greater and so much more important than the things that will separate us, that we can say to those who would criticize the coalition and who proclaim its untimely death, like the late Mark Twain is reported to have said, the reports of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated.
I think my presence here today is eloquent testimony to the fact that we of the house of civil rights and the house of labor will continue to march together until the great American dream shall become a reality for every citizen, regardless of his race, regardless of his color, regardless of his creed, regardless of his previous background, we shall work to see that the fruits of democracy are extended equally to every American citizen. (Applause).
This is our job. This is our goal, and this is our dedication.
Now, I remind Mr. Meany, because when the fervor over busing had reached fever heat, and when emotions had overtaken much from the white community, the one consistent voice that was raised across this country in defense of quality integrated education was that of George Meany, quite often not with applause of everybody, but he had the intestinal fortitude—if you let me put it in my own language, he had the guts—to stand up for that which he believed to be right. When all the world went the other way, he was marching to the tune of a drummer who proclaimed that justice was on his side, and I think he deserves a great hand for the kinds of stands he has taken across the years in the persual of human rights and justice. (Applause).
Bill Pollard, who works with Mr. Meany, is a member of our board. There are many other members of organized labor who sat on the council of NAACP when we were having our problems in Port Gibson, Mississippi, problems which proved to be a blessing, for they tried to destroy us, and all it made us do was to live a little longer.
It was organized labor that came to our rescue. So we are indebted to you, and I just want to take this opportunity to say publicly, thank you for your support. And if we need you again, we hope you will be equally forthcoming.
We are making an appeal to the many parts of organized labor for some rather steady contributions, because somehow we find that money is the name of the game.
We need you and you need us.
We are facing, I think, a conservative era, when the forces of the new right are constantly asking what is it that blacks and labor want? But let me assure you that we shall not be deterred by the cries of our enemies. We shall work together. But I think you ought to sometimes pat yourself on the back. Perhaps there are only 15 or 16 million members of organized labor. But when you work for minimum wage, when you work for Social Security, when you work for unemployment compensation, and some decent work hours, every working man in America, every working woman in America, whether they are members of organized labor or not, benefitted from the effort you made, and we ought to remind the world that this nation is in debt to the whole forces of organized labor for making this a better place in which to live and to work. (Applause).
So, we come today saying that while the civil rights laws of the 60’s have been passed, the job now is implementation. We come seeking to extend and renew and invigorate that partnership which has been so important. We come to remind you that we face some common dangers, and some common enemies, and we come to say that we want to work together on the things that are worthwhile.
I would remind you that the NAACP has historically taken many, many positions that were favorable to the house of labor. Our Washington representative, Mr. Clarence Mitchell, testified in favor of the situs picketing bill. (Applause).
Mr. Mitchell also served as the co-chairman of the Coalition for A Fair Minimum Wage.
We have taken a position in favor of labor law reform. We share the painstaking effort that has gone into the whole question of the passage of labor laws, and the time demands our constant examination.
Mr. Mitchell also testified for the NAACP in favor of repeal of Section 14(b).
So, in so many ways we have had common goals and common objectives, and we’ve come to continue that.
And, Mr. President, and to the members who are gathered here today, we are gathered today to say that we must continue the fight for full employment in this nation. We come to reaffirm our support for the Humphrey-Hawkins bill. (Applause).
We are tired of those who have their PhD degrees, who live in two-car garage homes, who are saying that we must have an unemployment rate of six and a half percent. When you translate that into human terms, that is six and a half million people who get up every morning without a job and go to bed in hopelessness and despair. We maintain that is too many people to be without a job. We think that a more acceptable level has to be reached.
And when you talk about a six and a half percent unemployment rate in the general community, you’re talking about more than 15 percent. I am convinced today that the unemployment rate is more than six and a half percent. I would think if the truth were told, it’s closer to 10 percent, and in the black community it’s 20 percent, and among black teenagers, it’s 40 and 50 percent. This is an intolerable condition, and we must do whatever it takes to make sure that this nation is dedicated to the proposition that everybody who wants to work can have a job and will have an opportunity to work. (Applause).
We must be equally determined that those who cannot work can receive a decent welfare check; that unemployment compensation meets the level of living standards, and we must give it without sniffing down our noses or looking down at those who are blind, disabled, halt, crippled or maimed, mentally defective, or whatever it is that prevents them from working. We must give them charity with love and open arms. We must remind this nation that the woods are dark and deep, but we’ve got promises to keep and miles and miles to go before we sleep.
And I think we can count on your support for positive, affirmative action programs. The NAACP has never been in favor of rigid quotas, but we do believe in goals and timetables that will bring into the mainstream of American life those who have been artificially and systematically excluded from it.
If this nation could spend billions of dollars on a foreign Marshall Plan, somehow we can revitalize our cities and give life and hope to those who live there. And if we can revitalize our cities, we can provide the jobs that give adequate livelihood to millions of people who are now without jobs. And we understand that the best affirmative action program anybody can have is a program that will guarantee for everybody who wants to work a job, and if we have that none of us need fear about being laid off because somebody else is being hired, but there will be jobs for everybody.
I think this nation can afford it. But I don’t think we can afford not to have it.
We are concerned about a national health insurance program that will fix it so that a major illness will not be a financial catastrophe.
We are concerned about the provisions of our international law that permit dumping so that so many thousands of American working men are being laid off because of cheap imports that are uncompetitive, and because so many tax incentives have been devised to let multinational corporate entities take the work from America and land it all over the world.
We are concerned about protecting the rights of American working men to produce the kinds of goods and services that we know we can do. We will join you in that endeavor. (Applause).
We are concerned about equality for women. We are concerned about a Congress that is growing increasingly conservative. We are concerned about people that we put into office and as soon as they get there, they turn their backs on our justifiable and legitimate demands.
We would like to join you in a mammoth voter registration campaign during 1978 so that we can meet them at the voting place and to say to those who come to us pretending to be our friends and yet turn their backs when we need their help, that as Vernon said the other day, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and the blacks and labor unions can also give and we can also take away. (Applause).
These are the kinds of concerns that we have. We are concerned that we can march together to the end that men and women shall enjoy the good life.
I would like to say to you that while I can criticize America, I still recognize the goodness of this land, for in spite of all its defects, whenever I leave here, Mr. President, to go anywhere abroad, I always buy a round-trip ticket, because I recognize that only a very few times and places in history have men and women enjoyed the rights that we have.
We said in 1776 that all of us were created equal, and we have come now to demand that that promise be kept.
As black folk we tended your babies, planted your corn and picked your cotton. We fought in every war. We fell in Bunker Hill. We were with you in the War of 1812. We joined Andrew Jackson in 1835. Three hundred thousand strong we put on the blue coats of the Federal Army so that woman could write, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” We plunged with Theodore Roosevelt up the rough slopes of San Juan Hill. We died by the thousands going across France and Germany in World War I. We were faithful in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
We have got an uncashed check in our pocket. We now come to the bank of justice demanding that it be cashed, and we don’t want to hear any foolishness about insufficent funds. (Applause).
In that great and noble endeavor we solicit your support.
I recognize, Mr. President, as I close today, that sometimes labor gets a little tired of hearing evangelical exhortations of us who come asking you for more. I know there are those of you who can say, “I have lost friendships, I have lost positions, because I have spoken up for black folk.” I know some of you have been called nigger lovers. I know some of you have been run out of office and been threatened. But in spite of that, the times demand that you continue to do that which is right.
And I know that labor gets a little tired. I know you want to tell me about all the things you have done, but there are still miles and miles to go before we sleep.
It was in the dark and dreary days of World War II when Winston Churchill constantly summoned his fellow country people to greater and more enduring efforts. Time and again he got on the radio and asked them for blood and sweat and toil and tears. He asked them to fight in the cities, on the beachheads, but never to surrender. On one occasion he said to them, “I hope you will so conduct yourselves that if the beleaguered island empire of Britain should endure for 1,000 years, that historians will look back and say this was your finest hour.”
And then when the very skies of Europe were lighted up with the bodies of those who were being burned alive in the concentration camps while America stood on the sidelines vacillating as to what they should do, when it seemed that the tyranny and madness of Hitler would destroy the whole of the civilized world, once more Winston Churchill took to the airways and said, “I know I have called on you for inhuman sacrifices, for blood and sweat and toil and tears. I have called on you to fight on the beachheads and in the cities.”
And I know that labor has been called upon so many times to do the impossible, but I close today by reminding you of the stern words of Churchill at the height of the Battle of Britain as he called on the words of a great Jewish rabbi spoken hundreds of years before then, “The time is now. You are called upon to render this great expectation. And if not now, when? If not you, who?”
Peace. (Standing ovation).
PRESIDENT MEANY: May I say that it is difficult to find words to express my deep appreciation to Mr. Hooks for that very, very inspiring and intelligent approach to our problems.
We in the AFL-CIO count the NAACP among our best friends.
Mr. Hooks mentioned Clarence Mitchell. We have been with Clarence Mitchell down through the years, back in the days of the Johnson Administration on the civil rights bill. But when our building trades felt that as a matter of justice they should have the same rights as other trades to picket, in the situs picketing campaign, the bill for situs picketing, Clarence Mitchell stood by our side. In the campaign for a minimum wage, Clarence Mitchell chaired our citizens committee. Clarence Mitchell went with me to the White House to try to convince the President of the United States that his figure was too low. Well, the President didn’t come up to our figure, but he did come up, and we got the best minimum wage bill that we have ever had since the law was placed on the statute books in 1938.
Clarence Mitchell stood with us in labor law reform, acted on our committee. We stood with him back in those days when the voting rights was before the Congress.
I’m delighted to welcome Mr. Hooks here as his first appearance at an AFL-CIO Convention, with deep appreciation for the long friendship we and the NAACP enjoy.
I recognize, and I am sure he recognizes, that there are many, many, many grave problems that the American labor movement and the NAACP must face together, and I can assure him that we are going to do our best to help in the future, as we have in the past, together to solve those problems.
Thank you very much. (Applause).
Proceedings of the Twelfth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Los Angeles, Calif., December 8–13, 1977, pp. 442–51.
Executive Director, Urban League
Mr. Chairman, Escort Committee, platform guests, ladies and gentlemen: I consider it a great pleasure to be here to address my brothers and sisters in the great American labor movement.
I do think it appropriate to relate to you this one story, one story dealing with my friend to my right, Lane Kirkland. When some months ago I had a conversation with him about the future presidency of the AFL-CIO, I asked him if he would be a candidate and if he would be running and he simply responded thusly:
He said, “If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve, but if defeated, I will demand a recount.”
There is a great bit of advice being passed along to presidential candidates these days. The Urban League is a nonpartisan, non-exempt, elemosynary institution, and we don’t endorse political parties; but the following situation might be helpful to those who are seeking the presidency.
In 1964, when Lyndon Baines Johnson was opposing Barry Goldwater, Louie Martin, who now works for President Carter, then worked for President Johnson, sent some pollsters to Harlem to ascertain how the brothers and sisters were going to vote. They went to 125th Street and 7th Avenue. A brother came by, and they said, “Mister, we are pollsters and we would like to ascertain your presidential preference for the 1964 presidential campaign.”
The brother said, “Fine.”
The pollsters said, “If you had a choice between Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lyndon Baines Johnson for the presidency of the United States, for whom would you vote?”
The brother said, “That’s easy. I’d vote for Lyndon Baines Johnson.”
The pollsters said, “You mean to tell me if you had a choice between Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lyndon Baines Johnson for the highest office in the land, you would vote for Lyndon Baines Johnson?”
The brother said, “Yes.”
The pollster said, “Why?”
He said, “Number one, Jesus Christ said, ‘Seek and you shall find.’ Martin Luther King says, ‘Ask and it shall be given unto you.’ And Lyndon Baines Johnson says, ‘Stay home, boy, and I’ll send it to you.’” (Laughter and applause). So that for those who choose to either remain or to replace, they might take that into consideration.
This is an historic convention. It marks the passing of a great era in the pages of labor’s history, and the start of a new one.
As my friend George Meany steps down from his post as your President, he carries with him the fervent thanks of America’s working people, for whom he has fought so long.
And black Americans know that George Meany led the labor movement’s strong support for civil rights. His tenure was marked by strong gains in the unionization of black workers. George Meany’s voice has been raised forcefully against racism and discrimination, and against the misguided economic policies that fight inflation with mass unemployment and with greater hardship for America’s poor.
I well remember last year’s struggle to save federal social service programs that were in danger of being sacrificed to the budget-balancers. George Meany spoke up then—loud and clear. Nobody’s going to be dancing in the streets if you balance the budget, he said. But they will dance in the streets if you have full employment and a decent job for everyone who wants work.
America needed the strong voice and the strong leadership of George Meany—and it got it.
And America will continue to get that kind of forceful leadership from organized labor. Your new President, to be elected momentarily, if he can muster the necessary votes, Lane Kirkland, is an articulate spokesman for the hope and aspirations of America’s working people and her poor people.
Black Americans are especially impressed by his unswerving support for black needs and for black efforts to be full partners in this America of ours. And I want to express my personal admiration for his dedication and his long identification with the Urban League movement. Lane Kirkland serves on the board of trustees of the National Urban League and is, therefore, one of my bosses; and I hope that he will continue to be as good to me as you are going to be to him. And I know that under his leadership the AFL-CIO will be a dedicated fighter in the coalition to end poverty and discrimination.
Black people and unionists must stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight for an integrated, open, pluralistic society. The fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Great Depression is a grim reminder to us all that we can’t take economic growth for granted.
The past decade has seen rising inflation rates, permanently high unemployment, and more people thrown into poverty. Now we’re moving into another recession. And all the while, black people have been in a permanent economic Depression.
Back in the 1930s, one out of four people in the labor force could not find work. That is how the Depression is most often defined—not by the stock market crash, but the mass unemployment that reached into every corner of our stricken nation.
But today, in 1979, almost one out of every four black people who wants a job is unemployed. About half of them are officially unemployed; the government counts them as such. The other half are discouraged workers who no longer qualify as statistics, much less as recipients of unemployment compensation.
While the Depression may mean bad memories for some or a nostalgic look at the distant past for others, it is a clear and present reality for the black community.
And that same community is being whipsawed by inflation. Everyone talks about the high inflation rate. But for America’s affluent it just means that the vacation to the south of France will be a little more expensive, or that the fur coat will cost a bit more.
For the middle classes, inflation means a different kind of belt-tightening: a cheaper, less fashionable vacation resort or putting off buying a new car until next year.
But for the poor, it means hunger. I do not exaggerate. Inflation is strongest where the poor are weakest. It hits hardest in prices for housing, heating, health and food.
The poor can’t tighten their belts because they can’t afford belts at all. The poor can’t buy cheaper cuts of meat because they’re already on the way to becoming involuntary vegetarians. We’ve always eaten rice and beans, and now some of us can’t even afford that.
And the terrible Depression that hits America’s poor people hasn’t led to one tear dropped on their behalf in Washington, our Capital. In fact, the response to their plight borders on obscene callousness.
The poor are faced with the grim choice of heating or eating. And the so-called “silent majority” goes its own way, scrambling to gain advantage, retreating into selfish privatism, ignoring the life and death needs of poor people.
National policy is obsessed with the fight against inflation. This is reasonable, because inflation is devastating. But it is using methods that have been tried before, methods that invariably lead to sharply higher unemployment and tremendous suffering by poor and minority people.
Economists differ about what causes inflation, but the nation’s economic policymakers are busy penalizing poor and working people. The Federal Reserve’s tight money and tight credit policies have led to interest rates that were illegal in some states just a few years ago. We are faced with the familiar scenario of tight money, high interest rates, job layoffs, lower production, decline in housing, cuts in public services, more people on welfare rolls, and sharply lower living standards.
Then, when it’s all over, when the official announcement says the recession is over and we’re in a period of expansion, we will find a higher permanent rate of poverty and unemployment in the black community.
We can’t let the ugly scenario play itself out. We can’t let the 1980s become the decade in which the gains of the 1960s are finally wiped out.
I am here to say that if the issue of black equality was right in the 1960s, it’s right in the 1980s.
If it was a cause for national concern that black people faced discrimination and disadvantage then, it should be a cause for concern in the 1980s.
If racism was wrong then, it is wrong in the 1980s.
If equality was right then, it is right in the 1980s.
So, we have to coalesce, the labor movement and black people, in the 1980s to make it a decade in which black people finally enjoy full equality. We must organize behind an agenda for the 1980s. An agenda that includes a national full employment policy; a massive drive for affirmative action in all aspects of national life; a national youth development policy that gives hope and skills to young people denied both; a national health policy that assures high quality health care for all, and a housing program that assures a decent living environment for all. (Applause).
The black agenda for the 1980s transcends race, sex and region. It is “black” only in the sense that blacks are disproportionately poor. Our agenda is directed at helping all of America’s poor and deprived citizens—most of whom are white. It is an agenda that is in the national interest—an agenda that will make America a strong, better nation.
To that end, the black community and the labor movement must cement their alliance and stand fast as the cutting edge of America’s progressive thrust to ensure better lives and hopes.
But there is something else that the labor movement, the civil rights community and all Americans must stand fast on, and that is the situation that we face this morning in the Middle East, the situation that we face in Iran. Let me say on behalf of the black community, on behalf of the National Urban League, just this about what is happening today in Iran.
The freeing of the black and female hostages in Iran is a cynical attempt to divide the American public. (Applause).
Black Americans refuse to be pawns in the Ayatollah Khomeini’s insane game.
The black hostages were held because they are Americans, not because they are black. Black people struggling for equality resent the use of our misfortunes by a foreign dictator only concerned to embarrass the United States of America. (Applause).
We join with all Americans in demanding the release of all the hostages. We join with all Americans in demanding our government stand firm against terrorism and blackmail perpetrated by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Thank you. God bless you all. (Standing ovation).
Proceedings of the Thirteenth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C., November 15–20, 1979, pp. 273–77.