“A Statement on Racial Discrimination,” read by Reginald A. Johnson, executive secretary of the Atlanta Urban League, at the Hearing of the American Federation of Labor Committee of Five to Deal with Negro Problems, 1935. “…the American Federation of Labor has stood firmly behind its position that the ranks of organized labor must be open to all workers regardless of color or creed. “
Continue Reading »Article by Edward Berman, The Nation, 1935. The Pullman Porters organized and founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. The BSCP was the very first African-American labor union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S. corporation.
Continue Reading »Written by William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, 1934. “During the past five years Negro wage earners have been turning to the organized labor movement with new conviction. They are becoming responsible union members, sharing the benefits and hardships of union endeavor…These developments are evidence of substantial progress in the growing acceptance of responsibility on the part of Negro workers.”
Continue Reading »In a comparatively short period of time the slaves have become free men—free men, that is, as far as a proclamation can make them so. There now remains much work to be done to see that freedom becomes a fact and not just a promise for my people. Eleanor Roosevelt, an article in the Negro Digest, 1943.
Continue Reading »Significant straws in the wind point to social changes in Black Richmond. The findings of the Negro Welfare Survey, of which Mrs. Guild was director, the new Negro Welfare Council and the coming in of federal relief are outstanding factors in new racial attitudes in this colored city within a city. During 1928 and 1929 a Negro welfare survey was conducted in Richmond by a bi-racial committee, employing a Negro and white staff, under the auspices of the Council of Social Agencies. In itself this was an accomplishment in racial progress, if it be remembered that we are talking about the Capital of the Confederacy. The survey was not the result of sudden realization on the part of the community that almost a third of its population was miserably handicapped in every department of life and holding back the other two thirds. The survey simply represented the vision of a few social workers who needed a practical answer to a perplexing question: What are the priorities in the social problems pressing for attention in Black Richmond?
Continue Reading »Every American who is worthy of the title “citizen” has carried a deep sense of shame and a feeling of almost personal responsibility for what happened in 1943 in New York City, Los Angeles, Beaumont, Mobile, and Detroit. Those bloody and costly riots were warnings of how far this nation still has to go in order to develop the single-minded purpose and the well-disciplined unity that are needed to win this war. It is possible mathematically to calculate the loss of man-hours of labor, of war materials, and of property caused by those riots. It will never be possible, however, to calculate the more severe loss of confidence by American citizens in their government and the loss of trust and cooperation between white and Negro Americans who should be working and planning together, wholeheartedly, for victory.
Continue Reading »It is a significant fact that while there was a distinct loss in both Negro and white rural farm population during the past decade, the land operated by Negroes decreased by 31,835,050 acres, approximately 5,992 square miles (an area slightly larger than the combined land areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island), between 1920 and 1930. At the same time there was a very substantial increase of 34,743,840 acres, or approximately 54,287 square miles for white farm operators.
Continue Reading »Presentation by Professor Charles Ellwood at the National Conference Of Social Work. Dr. Ellwood was concerned that intolerance seemed to be growing in every form of American life and he concluded that intolerance was a handicap to social progress.
Continue Reading »In 1956, he took leave from the League to advise Martin Luther King on non-violent tactics during the Montgomery bus boycott. When the pacifist Rustin first met King, he slept with a pistol under his pillow and had armed guards. He who introduced him to pacifism and non-violent tactics. In 1957, he and King started to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Given his political and sexual past, other black leaders, especially Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, forced him to resign.
While Rustin did not have to resign from his role in organizing King’s 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom, A. Phillip Randolph got the up-front publicity. In putting the march together, Rustin was known for paying meticulous attention to every detail and for seeming to be everywhere at once. He was the engine that made it go.
Continue Reading »Even the briefest account of the family life of the Negro must include a consideration of the history back of the present Negro family. This history naturally divides itself into three periods: Africa, slavery, and freedom. While the African period, it must be remembered, does not claim our attention because an unbroken social tradition still affects the present formation of the Negro family -although traces of the African tradition were detected in marriage ceremonies near the opening of the present century —it is necessary to call attention to this period because of subsequent events. In Africa the Negro lived under regulated sex relations which were adapted to his social and physical environment. It was through the destruction in America of these institutionalized sex relations that slavery was able to bring about complete subordination.
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