What strategies did realtors use to blockbust? What is the difference between buying a house with a conventional mortgage and bu
Chapter 6
1. What strategies did realtors use to blockbust?
2. What is the difference between buying a house with a conventional mortgage and buying through an installment plan or contract?
3. What evidence was used to support the claim "that integration undermined property values"?
Chapter 7
1. According to Rothstein, why should the IRS withhold tax exemptions from universities and churches?
2. What is ironic about churches and universities supporting restrictive covenants?
3. Why does reverse redlining and subprime loans hurt the African American community?
Chapter 8
1. How was the Agua Caliente housing development blocked?
2. How did the white residents of Black Jack stop the development of a racially integrated complex?
3. How did the construction of I-95 in Miami affect the African- American community?
Chapter 9
1. How did the whites respond when Wilbur Gary moved into Rollingwood in 1952?
2. How did the white neighbors respond when Bill and Daisy Myers bought a Levittown house in Bucks County?
3. How did the whites and police respond to Harvey Clark living in Cicero?
Chapter 10
1. How did the Boilermakers treat union members differently?
2. In 2015, why did NYC's sheet metal union pay out thirteen million in compensation
10 ———- —- — … – – …
SUPPRESSED INCOMES
A COMMON EXPLANATION FOR de facto segregation is that most black families could not afford to live in predominantly white middle-class communities and still are unable to do so. African American isolation, the argument goes, reflects their low incomes, not de jure segregation. Racial segregation will persist until more African Americans improve their educations and then are able to earn enough to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods.
The explanation at first seems valid. But we cannot understand the income and wealth gap that persists between African Ameri- cans and whites without examining governmental policies that pur- posely kept black incomes low throughout most of the twentiet_h century. Once government implemented these policies, econo~~c d'ff • · · ossible but 1t is 1 erences became self-perpetuating. It 1s not imp , . h rar f . . h h'gher rank in t e e or Americans black or white, to ave a 1 nat' 1 . ' h . Everyone's stan-
iona income distribution than t eir parents. indi- dard f 1 · . . eration, but an
. 0 1v1ng may grow from generation to gen . f others vidual' 1 . the incomes o . s re at1ve income-how it compares to h his or her in th k bl . ·1ar to ow e present generation-is remar a Y simi . Pare , • . h · eneratton.
nts incomes compared to others in t eir g
153
I
I 1i:
I
I
1. I
I I
w
t of de;·ure residential segregation ha . So an accoun . s to inc}
blic policy geographically separated Af . Ude 11 only how pu rtcan A 0t f
h 'tes but also how federal and state labor "lller· cans rom w I • . d .market I, . . h ndisguised racial intent, epressed African A Polj_
c1es, wit u d h Cll} . I
ddition some an per aps many local g er1can wages. n a ' ·1 h . overnrn
d Af . Americans more heav1 y t an whites. Th f ent8
taxe ncan e e f eq ment actions were compounded because neighb s of these govern . . orh00 • · ts elf imposed higher expenses on Af ncan A . d segregauon 1 . . lllerica
h hite families, even 1f their wages and tax rates had b n t an on w . een
'd · l The result: smaller disposable incomes and fewer s . 1 enuca . . . av1ngs £ black families, denying them the opportunity to accumul ror . . 'ddl ate wealth and contributing to make housing 1n m1 e-class commu- nities unaffordable.
If government purposely depressed the incomes of African Americans, with the result that they were priced out of mainstream housing markets, then these economic policies are also important parts of the architecture of de jure segregation.
I
UNTIL LONG after emancipation from slavery, most African Americans were denied access to free labor markets and were unable to save from wages. This denial of access was another badge of slav- ery that Congress was duty bound to eliminate, not to perpetuate.
Following the Civil War, and intensifying after Reconstruction, a s~arecropping system of indentured servitude perpetuated aspects of the slave system. After food and other living costs were deducted from their earnings, sharecroppers typically owed plantation own- ers more than their d L 1 · · e . wages ue. oca shenff s enforced this peonag ' preventmg sharecr f t . . oppers rom seeking work elsewhere, by arres – mg, assaultmg or m d . h b cond · .
1 ' ur enng t ose who attempted to leave, or Y
onmg v10 ence d In . perpetrate by owners. many mstances Af .
and phony off '. ncan Americans were arrested for petty enses (like va 'f ff
work), and whe h grancy 1 they came to town when o n t ey were un 61 a e to pay fines and court fees, war-
. mes sold prisoners to plantations . Jlletl . . , rn1nes and f
Jetls so Blackmon, m his book Slavery by A h' actories. las d f not er Nam . Votlg from the en o Reconstruction unt'l w, I e, est1- that . . 1 word W II
111ateS slaved m this way exceeded 100 0 M' ar , the ber en , oo. ines o 11of11 S el alone used tens of thousands of 1. . perated V S te rnpnsoned Af • bY ·. · The practice ebbed during World W II b . rican
ericans, f Ifill . ar ' ut tt Was , Afl'I that Congress u ed its Thirteenth A d n t ·1 1951 rnen rnent obi'
oJltl d explicitly outlawed the practice. 1-tion an . ga African Amencans managed to escape to th N h
SoJ11C e Ort early h twentieth century, yet others were forcibly pre d •o t e . . vente or 1
• 'd ted from domg so. But durmg World War I when• . ·0wnt a , 1mm1gra- 1 f unskilled Europeans was sharply curtailed norther tion o . , n manu-
ers sent recrmters south. They frequently traveled in di'sgu· factur . 1se, pretending, for e~ampl~, t~ be msurance salesmen, to avoid capture by sheriffs. Dunng this time, more tha~ 600,000 African Ameri- ans left the South, mostly to seek work m the North and Midwest.
~istorians call this the First Great Migration. World War II then spurred the Second Great Migration, from
1940 to 1970, when more than four million African Americans made the journey. Thus most African Americans could not begin to accu- mulate capital for home purchases until fairly recently, well after European immigrant groups were able to participate in the wage economy. And when African Americans who left the South entered a northern labor market, federal, state, and local governments col- laborated with private employers to ensure that they were paid less and treated worse than whites.
II
IN THE r93os, President Franklin D. Roosevelt could assemble the congressional majorities he needed to adopt New Deal legislati~n only by including southern Democrats, who were fiercely commit- ted to wh' · 1 s 't minimum tte supremacy. In consequence, Socia ecun Y, Wage p · · 11 excluded f rotect1on, and the recognition of labor umons a . rolll c A · predom1-overage occupations in which African mencans
'
156 • THIS ._, …, , _ _ __ — – .. w
d d mestic service. State and local . lture an o I . h govern naced: agncu_ I When for examp e, m t e mid-1930 S 'nelt
d · m1lar Y· ' f Af · s t l s behave si d hospital or ncan America · Cli' d a segregate . h. . n Pati Is
construcce . I black ule setter; w lte u nton Ill ents I · red a sing e ernbe 'a contractor 11 . fi d the contractor and announced · rs Pro.
d the city re tt Wo I tested, an fi h t employed African American lab ll d n0 e any rm t a T A) or. longer us V lley Authority ( V segregated it
The Tennessee a . s '11ork II ·n housing. At construction proJ· ect A. ers h . b as we as t s, f .
on t e JO . ned to work separately, but only 'f rican Americans were ass1g . k f 11 I enou h
d d t particular sites to ma e up u crews. If g were nee e a d · d k · 1 no1 . A ricans were eme wor entire y. No A.f . , then African me d f rican
. permitted to be promote to oreman 0 Americans were . r other . 1 in the TVA. The first national New De I supervisory ro es . d . . . a Pro. h F deral Emergency Relief A mmistrat1on, adopt d . gram, t e e . d e 1n
d. ortionately spent its fun s on unemployed '11h' 1933, 1sprop . . . ites, f I refused to permit African Americans to take any b requent y . . u1 the least skilled jobs, and even m those, paid them less than the officially stipulated wage.
Similar policies later prevailed under the National Recovery Administration (NRA), another New Deal agency established in Roosevelt's first year. It established industry-by-industry minimum wages, maximum hours, and product prices. Codes routinely with- held benefits from African Americans that white workers enjoyed. In addition to agriculture and domestic service, the NRA did no1 cover subindustries and even individual factory types in whid African Americans predominated. Canning, citrus packing, anc cotton ginning were industrial, not agricultural jobs, but worker: were usually African American, and so they were denied the NRA': wage and hours standards. The NRA took account of the lowe cost of living in the South by setting lower wages in that region In Delaware, 90 percent of fertilizer manufacturing workers weri Afr~can ~merican; thus fertilizer plants were classified as "sout~ ern, while other factories in the state that hired whites were classi fied as "northe " h ' h · · · d . rn, ~o ig er minimum wages apphe , .
~he first mdustnal code that the administration negotiated w1tl business leaders in 1933 increased minimum wages in the cottoi
. d try, resulting in price increases through h ·t in us ·1 1 h' t e produc itt e . . ncluding reta1 c ot mg. But the agree b –
te hatJl, 1 . . . ment ypassed •ofl c h' h African Americans predominated· cl .
ti . 11 1c . • eaners, outside )·obs l d yardmen. Of the 14,000 African Americans in th . d
an f h . b 1 'fi e in us-crews, held one o t ese JO c assi cations. The NAACP 0 000 k h N com-trY, I ' "for these wor ers t e RA meant increases of f
· ed f h' rom 10 Platll ' nt in the cost o everyt mg they had to buy · . h ,~~a to 4° P y in increased wages." . le penn . C
s1Il}he Civilian Conservation orps. (~CC) not only segregated . l camps but allowed local policies that did not permi't Af • ·denua . n-
res1 ericans to enroll or restricted them to menial jobs in which can Arn Id not develop the higher skills that the corps was meant to they cou h .
'd Florida announced t at it would not accept African Amer-rovt e. . " . . 5 while Texas officials declared that this work is for whites
ican ' h d 1 · · 1· f 1 " Many other states a ong wa1tmg ists o eligible African
:;ricans because localities refused to allow the CCC to establish camps to lodge them. Where the army set up segregated camps, it did not permit African Americans to lead the units, assigning white commanders instead. CCC sites usually had educational programs, but army officers often refused to hire black teachers, leaving "edu- cational adviser" positions vacant.
African American corps members were also rarely allowed to upgrade to better-paying jobs like machine operators or clerks, even if they'd had experience as civilians. The painter Jacob Lawrence worked as a youth at Breeze Hill, a segregated camp for African Americans about seventy miles northwest of New York City, where 1 ,400 young men shoveled mud for a flood control project. Not one
could he promoted to a higher classification. My father-in-law told how, in a white CCC camp, he claimed to
know how to type (although his skills were minimal), then quickly learned t d f · · · h' 1 k' . 0 0 so a ter persuading a supervisor to give im a c er s !06· Be was then able to send a few dollars back to his parents, help- 1ng to k h . . f 1. h . eep t em and his younger brothers and sister rom oSmg t e1r ho Af . k h t me. rican American youths who already new ow to Ype (o · · A r Were equally capable of faking it) had no such opportunities.
I necdot 1 · k f . h 1 t es 1 e these, multiplied tens of thousands o times, e P 0
l
…. ::.
1 . h different African American and whit
exp ain t e . e ec0 . . d ·ng the Depression and afterward. nolllic uons uri · c0 tlq· l,
III
I 5 President Roosevelt signed the National L b N 193 , . . a orb
A anting unions at construction sites .and fact . -lelatj
ct, gr 'f h . or1es th %8 bargain with management i t e unions were su e rii>h to . . PPort d t
maJ·ority of workers. Labor organizations that gained h' e by a . h t is offi
ertification could negotiate contracts t at covered all ciaJ c . d . of a fi e mployees The original bill, propose by Senator Rob rn1_i8 . . . enw
of New York, had prohibited government certification of u a?ner that did not grant African Americans membership and
010 ns . Workpl
rights. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) lobbied W: ace to remove the claus~, and h_e did so. The enactment of the ~~'. ner Act was accomplished with the knowledge that it sancti' d g . one an unconstitutional policy of legally empowenng unions that refused to admit African Americans. For at least the next thirty years th government protected the bargaining rights of unions that d~iJ African Americans the privileges of membership or that segregated them into janitorial and other lower-paid jobs.
ln some cases, newly certified unions used their collective bar- gaining rights to force companies to fire African Americans who had been employed before unionization, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency delegated to administer the act, did nothing in response. In New York, for example, the NLRB- certified Building Service Employees Union forced Manhattan hotels, restaurants, and of fices to fire African American elevator operators and restaurant workers and then give the jobs to whites.
IV A eri·
TH~ GOVERN~ENT's participation in blocking Africa~ jf,ct cans wage-earnmg opportunities had its most devastating
,,:i· r
r Suppressed Incomes • 159 '"' rid War II, when black workers . . wo migrated ·
JtJrlpg d ction in search of jobs. The Roo l to centers of ro u seve t ad min. . .
1ar P d f ctories to convert from civilian t .1. 1strat1on
· e a O m1 1tary d ,eqiur and navy effectively operated shipbu'ld' pro Uction. h arJ1lY · f d 1 tng yards • f e kers and aircra t an tank manufacture Yi f ' muni- . os ma , d d d . . rs. et ederal age
ttO h tolerate an supporte Joint managem . n- . bot . ent-union I' .
c1es African Americans from doing any but th po ic1es kept e most p l that · defense plants. 00r Y id tasks in .
pa ts in the San Francisco Bay Area, where All . d Even _ . en an Frank
on sought work dunng the war, were typical Th . . Stevens . . . . · e region
h largest center of war-related sh1pbu1lding 10 the t' Th was t e . . na ion. e . Laborers Union, which had seven members in 1Jarine . 1941, grew Ore than 30,000 dunng the next few years. The Steamfi to Ill . tters
union membership soared from 400 to 17,000. Unions like these had NLRB-certified agreement_s that companies could not hire without a union referral, and the unions would not refer African Americans.
From 1941 to 1943, the Henry J. Kaiser Company built four shipyards in Richmond with a capacity for 115,000 jobs. It could not recruit enough white men for all of them, so it began to take on white women. By 1944, women made up 27 percent of Kaiser's Richmond workforce. Then, with the supply of white women also exhausted, Kaiser sent agents to the South to seek African Ameri- can men. By war's end, still short of workers, defense industries opened some industrial jobs to African American women, who were previously employed only as janitors, cafeteria workers, and restroom attendants.
After four years of fierce conflict with union activists, Ford Motor finally recognized the UAW as its workers' representative in 1 941. Faced with a labor shortage that threatened its military con-
tracts, the company hired African Americans like Frank Stevenson. Initially, Ford would not permit them to work in the higher-~aid paint department, or as foremen, electricians, or in other skilled ;rafts, hut as the union got stronger, activists like Ben Gross pressed 0rd
to open more classifications to African Americans. 'fhe UAW 1 · · Congress of I was part of the new more ega 1tanan
ndustrial o • . . ' k h er were mostly rganizations. Shipyard wor ers, owev ,
I I
COLU-'-' vr .&..,J.W ";; Tfl :E ' 160 •
servative AFL. So while the S ore con b A teve
d by the rn d d union mem ers, FL unio tls% Presente f 11 fle ge . . T ns 1ll re became u – . Americans to JOtn. here w ostly
brothers . African b . ere a f Id ot permit f he Shipyard La orers union Wa ,. . e~ wou n ent o t · h 1 s '"'-fr
·ons-90 perc nted workers in t e owest-p 'd lean exceptl it represe . h. h . a1 0 American because·n d maintenance, in w ic whites Were r eeu,
·ons like unskt e . in the industry, the International b arey pau , I est union oro h f nd. But the arg I on Shipbuilders and Helpers of ,._ -ou •1 makers, r • '"'-fller erhood of Bo1 er rcent of all shipyard workers) had . . lea
· about 7° pe h · b 'Id 81gned (represenung . h K • ser and other s 1p u1 ers providin h ct wit at · 1 g t at
a 1940 contra b uld work. The Bo1 ermakers' constit . ion mem ers co 11 · . Utton
only un . A ericans from enro 1ng. Under Its NLRB h 'b. ted Af ncan m Id –
pro 1 1
h Kaiser Company cou recruit nonmemb ertified contract, t e d b r. . ers c . . 1. ts had been exhauste . But erore going on th only 1£ the umon is . e job, these hires had to join the u~1on. . .
Unable to supply enough white workers, ~ut unwilling to admit African Americans, the Boilermakers established segregated auxil- iary union chapters. In 1943, their fi~st yea: of ~peration, the aux- iliaries placed 10,000 African Americans in shipyards and other industries where the Boilermakers controlled jobs. Auxiliary mem- bers had to pay dues to the white local but were not permitted to file grievances or vote in union elections. They received fringe benefits worth about half what white members received. The union did not assist black workers in advancing to better-paid jobs, and African Americans could not promote to foreman if the role involved super- vi~ing whites. Even if fully qualified African Americans performed skilled work, the shipyards classified and paid them as trainees One Kaiser worker w · · 1 • f h e . . ent to a c1vi nghts meeting in protest o t es pohc1es; the company fired h. f .
The NAACP fil im or attending. – tices· the ag . ~d. an NLRB complaint regarding these pracd
· ' ency criticized th B · i · ine its certificatio f h . e 01 ermakers' policy but mainta .
n o t e whit 1 nine other national u • . h es-on Y union. At least twenty-_ I n1ons eit er 1 d . nure Y or restricted th exc u ed African Americans e em to second 1
In the postwar y -c ass auxiliaries. l _ ·1 ears, sorne . vo un
tari Y, but federal . unions began to desegregate . 5 agencies contid d un10I1
· nue to recognize segregate
suppressed Incomes • 161
""'ent itself until 1962, when President Kenned o"ern1•• y
1.·o the g ·ce Nonetheless, the Post Office's National Asso- it1'1 h practt . . . . . .
1 ed t e Carriers did not permit Afncan Amencans to J'oin biflJ1 f Letter f . . . •oo o til the 1970s. A ncan Amencan mailmen could c1at1 reas un . d . . oflle a_ s to protest mistreatment an instead had to join ill s ievance . A . .
t 6le gr •zation for Afncan mencans, the National Alli- 110 ll organ1 . .
catcha l Employees, a umon mostly serving truck drivers, a f p0 sta l 'd . b . aoce o d miscellaneous ower-pai JO categones. The alliance, 50
rters, an later recalled, "didn't have the clout with the [local] mernber C · d'd" Af ·
011e he way the Letter arners i , so ncan Americans master t . . 'd . post likely to receive promotions, consi erauon of vacation re less h . b . h we f nces and ot er JO ng ts . . e pre ere , . . .
t1!11 struction trades contmued to exclude Af ncan Amen cans Thecon . . the home and highway construction booms of the postwar
dunngso black workers did not share with whites the substantial !ears, gains that blue collar workers realized in the two big wage income . . .
owth periods of the mid-twentieth century-war production and gr . . Af. A . . h subsequent suburbanization. ncan mencans were neit er per- mitted to live in the new suburbs nor, for the most part, to boost their incomes by participating in suburban construction.
In 1964 the NLRB finally refused to certify whites-only unions. Although the policy was now changed, the agency offered Afri- can Americans no remedy for decades of income suppression that flowed from its unconstitutional embrace of segregation. Still another decade passed before African Americans were admitted to most AFL craft unions, but seniority rules meant it would take many more years for them to achieve incomes in these trades that were comparable to whites'. Racial income inequality by then was firmly established, and suburban segregation was mostly complete.
V h~ 1941 A Ph· . carp ' · ihp Randolph, national president of the Pullman
0 rters' · demand h union, organized a civil rights march on Washington to
t at Presid R · d 1 · ent oosevelt ban the segregation an exc us1on
11
I
. d fense industries. The presid · ns in e . • ent f African Arne_nca to convince civil nghts leaders to call st,11,i 0
ths trying k before it was scheduled h 0ff t~ for mon ' han a wee . . , e Pers e h but less t d monstratton m return for an lladed mare , el the e . b . elCec .
dolph to cane . I discrimination y unions and man llt1 ye Ran .. • rac1a • Wh'l ageln
d Proh1b1ung ll d war industnes. 1 e some fi ent or er contro e rrns co in government- 1· was toothless. tn,
Po icy 1. d the new p 1e ,
d · ·1 · ht leader First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt supporte civz rig s . d A. Philip Randolph's demand that war industries be requzr~ to hire black workers. She was his emissary to her hus~an ' but also her husband's emissary to Randolph, urging him to call off the threatened June 1941 march on Washington.
. ornmittee The order created a Fair Employment Pracuces C cts ~FEPC) that could recommend cancellation of defense co~;pC m cases of persistent discrimination but at the West Coastd fbe offi f , a e.
ce, or example, no such recommendation was ever Ill
,. I
d . urisdiction over any firm that was 1 C ha J ·1· h . I re ated to th atP h as nonm1 itary osp1ta s that might b 1 e War i sue . v h e ca led u effort, ded soldiers. 1et t e San Francisco FEPC . P0 n to
woun F · , d' director treat et San ranc1sco s me 1cal centers t d . Was I to g o a mtt Af · t1!1ab physicians. rican Af11eric_adn t Roosevelt ensured the agency's weak b .
P esi en ness y nam r h idge publisher of the Louisville Courier-] l ing k f,t r ' . ourna ' as the
JJar . 's first chairman. In a speech following his . J1l 1ttee . . appointment
coJl'I 'd praised segregation m defense plants. A publ. ' ,; hrt ge . b h . tc uproar yt d h's resignauon, ut e remamed as an FEPC me b f ce l • • . f m er, stat-or h nondiscnmmation was a ederal order "in the Naz· d' . t at 1 1ctator 111g " h h · d · ,, and not even t e mec amze armies of the earth All' d attern, , 1e P ,. is … could now force the Southern white people to give u th or flx . . ,, . . . p e
. 'ple of social segregation m war mdustnes.::• prtOCl .
FEPC accomplishments were small. On one occasion, two skilled African American steam~tters in the Richmond shipyards filed a complaint with the committee over their relegation to the auxiliary local; the union agreed to create an exception for these two, pro- vided that its policy covering all others would be unchanged. On another occasion, an African American was refused work at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company in San Francisco because the Machinists Union would not admit African Americans to mem- bership; the FEPC called the union leaders to a hearing, but they ignored the invitation and no further action was taken.
Like cities nationwide, San Francisco pr·acticed discrimination in public employment and in its public utilities, such as telephone
• Thirteen years later, Mark Ethridge was still publisher of his Louisville newspaper when Andrew Wade attempted to occupy the home he had bought from Carl and Anne Braden. As violence flared at the Wade residence, the Courier-Journal published an editorial urging the mob to use "proper legal procedures" to evict the Wades even though these events occurred six years af~er the Supreme Court had f~und that no such legal procedures were per- mi~s!hle. Ethridge's editorial stated, "The real fault of judgment, in our 0P1?10n, lies with Mr. and Mrs. Carl Braden …. [Their white neighbors] are entirely w"th' h • . . . h f ty in their subd' .. 1 mt e1r nghts … m protestmg the pure ase o proper h .
ivision by Negroes … [and] there is no use denying that the value oft eir property . 11 d wi ecrease as a result of the sale." I
·II·':!
u
164 OLOR OF LAW • TfIE C
Joseph James, leader of African American shipyard workers in the San Francisco Bay Area, singing the national anthem at a launching in 1943. Yet his union denied him the chance for promotion, and he received few fringe benefits.
. . 1 d because compames, which at the time were very heavily regu ate e th ey had local monopolies. Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, 0~
1 f h · ' I k erator, 1 0
• t e reg'.on s argest firms, did not have a single blac_ op .)eve! hired African Americans only as 1· anitors or for similar low –
k d · . state wor 'an It even refused an FEPC request that it issue a
r J
ing it would comply with th . t saY . , e preside ,
,,ie~ order, The city s streetcar system f . nt s nondiscr· . ol1 .
1 M re used h. . un1-
J1~t1 . ans unu 1942. aya Angelou wh 1· to ire Afri ..,.,eric , . b , o ted ab can f.w nductor s JO as a teenager was out her age
ta co bl ·1 b'l , one of the fi to ge h considera e ava1 a I ity of qualifi d . rst. lndicat- . g t e A . h. e African A 1J1
5 in the Bay rea, wit 1n two years f h merican
rker f o t e new 1 · ~o O
black plat orm operators when th h po 'tcy there re 7° ere ad b
~e inning of the war. een none at the beg M . h' .
I 1943 at the anns 1p yard m Sausalito wh
11 • • 11 . , ere workers' d .. . had been umntent1ona y mtegrated afte . . orm1-
tofles d b r recruits arrived t 'dly to be separate y race, half of the African A .
00
rap1 h mencan workers fu
ed to pay dues to t e segregated branch of the B ·1 k re s . . . o1 erma ers. The . 011
then demanded that Mannship dismiss the deli'n Af . uni . . quent ncan A
..,ericans, and the shipyard complied. The California atto 11• • • rney gen-
eral and the navy admiral in_ charge of the area's shipbuilding pressed the workers to abandon their protest and rejoin the segregated aux- iliary, but when they refused, the officials urged Marinship, without success, to cancel the layoffs.
At an FEPC hearing, the union argued that it was in full com- pliance with the president's order because no African American was denied work if he paid his dues, the same requirement that applied to whites. The FEPC rejected this claim but suspended the ruling pending a company appeal. The black Marinship work- ers then sued, but a federal judge concluded that the workers had no relevant rights under the "federal constitution or any federal . statutes."
The African Americans then took their case to California state courts, where a judge suspended the firings, pending a company appeal. Eventually, in 1945, the California Supreme Co~rt ~p~eld t~e order, stating in unprecedented language that racial discnmm~- tion is "contrary to the public policy of the United States and
th1 s
state " Th . . . h d · · but they had · e Boilermakers complied with t e ec1s10ns, . come too late. At the time of the California Supreme Court ruling, 25 oo Af · . h' ds but the war
' 0 ncan Americans worked 1n area s ipyar ' Was d' h d d ped to 12,000,
en mg. Eight months later, the number a rop
t
I
I I :1: . ,, ii I
h the shipyards shut down and . . e mont s, V1rt d in another nin . 1 . d off, llalJy
an . were a1 . 1 h 11 .ts employees . .1 ly ineffective e sew ere. Lockh a 1 s simt ar . eed
The FEPC wa . . • n Los Angeles and Boeing in Se 1
and . Av1auon t att eo I
North American . s as janitors; when labor shortages f n y . American h . ore d h. red Af ncan to open ot er categories, the co e
t ntractors . Illpan· these defense co t' on and job rights to the black w k ies
1 compensa t d h or ers denied equa d d Steel responde to t e FEPC by . · c· Stan ar say,n In Kansas ity, Ne ro working in twenty-five years and g, "We have not had a g do
"We Fight for the Right to Work as well as Die for Victory for the United Nations." In 1942, demonstrators proteSt t~e refusal of the St. Louis Small Arms Ammunition Plant to hire black wo
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