First Monthly Report, July 31, 1946

July 31, 1946

FIRST MONTHLY REPORT

During the month of July, attention has been devoted to formulating a proposed program for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—Labor Department. Also, a set of operating instructions for branches is being prepared.1

Recognizing the importance of getting into the employment problems in the construction field at once, I have had a meeting with Mr. Emanuel Lerner, Labor Director of the National Housing Agency on the question of the use of the non-white labor supply in the current construction program.2 It is expected that Mr. Lerner’s office will be cooperative in handling the problems which arise but there is very little evidence of action to insure the full use of colored skilled craftsmen in this field. The States of Virginia, North Carolina, and California indicate that local offices of the United States Employment Service have numerous unfilled orders for skilled craftsmen in the building trades.3 I prepared a document showing that approximately 56,000 non-white individuals worked in the shipyards of these states during the war.4 Many of them had skills which will be useful in construction.5 Mr. Lerner agreed to have his office check on whether this labor supply has been adequately tapped by local United States Employment Service offices in meeting the needs of the housing program.

It is necessary to have some picture of projected construction programs in the various communities. This information should be made available to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People branches in order that they may prod the appropriate Government agencies into full use of the available labor supply. Mr. Lerner’s office will make this information available to me. This will include on-site construction programs and building material production programs. Another check on whether colored workers are obtaining full opportunity for employment will be furnished by the National Housing Agency listing of areas in which shortages of skilled workers develop. These same listings also contain information on areas in which surpluses of skilled craftsmen exist.

Local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will find this material useful in their operations.

We had some discussion of the Apprenticeship Training Program.6 It appears that this program is in a bad way for all individuals and the plight of colored workers is extremely obscure. I am arranging an appointment with Mr. Ansel Clearey, Assistant Director of the Apprentice Training Service Program in the Labor Department. Mr. Clearey will be expected to furnish information on the number of apprenticeship programs in which Negroes are participating; the number of programs established; and the simplest way in which an individual interested in such training can get into it.

Unfortunately, this conference may not be very productive. However, it will be followed up by a contact with Secretary [Lewis B.] Schwellenbach [secretary] of the Labor Department.7 So far, neither labor nor management in the construction industry has given dependable assurance that there will be an organized effort to keep down discrimination in employment. This, of course, is another step in our action.

For a comprehensive account of Mitchell’s work as NAACP labor secretary, see Watson, Lion in the Lobby 145–78.

MS: MP.

[1] See 7/25, 8/1, and 12/30/46; in appendix 1, vol. IV, 3/7/47.


[2] At a seminar on September 29, 1043, during the Annual Conference of the National Urban League in Chicago, Mitchell gave a fairly comprehensive presentation on his concerns about the government’s role in devising ways of providing blueprints for finding jobs in industry for African Americans and “translating” the nation’s policies into reality. Mitchell’s abstract, “Government’s Responsibility in the Present Industrial Picture,” 9/29/43, at a seminar at the National Urban League’s annual conference in Chicago, is in HqR39, Central Files of the FEPC, Memoranda, Ross, Malcolm, 1944.

With the catastrophic loss of jobs by African Americans in the postwar period, Mitchell continued to press those concerns. His focus, as he had further indicated at the FEPC during the reconversion period, was on the labor-intensive sectors of the job market, particularly where shortages of skilled construction workers were likely to occur. See his memorandum of 7/26/46 to Frank Horne, special assistant to the National Housing Agency (NHA) administrator, and Booker McGraw in which he posed a series of questions for discussion with the NHA, in NAACP II: A-662, DLC.

In a letter of September 24, 1946, to Robert Goodwin, Mitchell expressed his concern about the unavailability of information on the apparent lack of employment opportunities for minorities in construction. Recent labor market reports, he said, showed shortages of construction workers even though over fifty-six thousand of them had been employed during the war in shipbuilding in North Carolina, Virginia, and California. Recent NHA materials had shown that shortages had developed in many other areas, but there was no indication of whether minorities had been listed among those shortages.

Mitchell reported to Walter White that Jack Davis, assistant to Emanuel Lerner, director of the NHA, had told him that he had been trying to get the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers to represent important shipyards in which a considerable reduction of the workforce was expected in the near future. That effort, Mitchell said, had not yet produced anything. Davis also told him that the USES was not very cooperative. Nevertheless, Mitchell stated he was making a similar request in an attempt to get it to cooperate in finding jobs for minorities who formerly worked in shipbuilding. Mitchell’s letter to Goodwin and his memorandum of 9/28/46 to White are in NAACP II: A-662, DLC.

In a letter of September 17, 1946, a copy of which was provided to Mitchell by Marian Wynn Perry of the NAACP’s legal department, Frank Horne said: “The new ‘Push’ is on to meet the 1946 goals of the Veterans’ Emergency Housing Program.” Progress that had already been made in producing materials and in starting new home construction, he said, revealed the need for additional skilled building-trades workers. Mitchell used Horne’s letter to mobilize the “available supply of colored workers in construction field” throughout the country by sending copies to NAACP state conference presidents in areas of reported shortages. Horne to White, 9/17/46, MP.


[3] In 1942, President Roosevelt consolidated the state and territorial employment systems in one of his first wartime measures to secure the fullest possible mobilization of manpower. Consolidation was intended to accelerate the flow of labor among states to meet the shifting needs of war production. For example, eighteen thousand workers were sent from New York City to West Coast shipyards and aircraft plants. Mitchell himself also recruited workers from New York for the shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and Washington State. Other wartime functions of the USES included establishing training programs for war workers, developing lists of essential occupations, aiding the Selective Service in reclassifying draft registrants by occupation, and conducting labor recruitment programs. The USES also designated critical labor shortage areas, decreed the forty-eight-hour week for essential industry seeking manpower priorities, and administered the hiring controls necessary under the employment stabilization plan. Another USES function was conducting negotiations for the emergency use of military personnel in agriculture and canning, as well as the assignment of prisoners of war and foreign labor. In 1945, Congress transferred the USES to the Department of Labor. New York Times 11/12/46, 19.


[4] Mitchell’s 9/24/46 letter to Goodwin, attached to his 9/28/46 memorandum to White, NAACP II: A-662. See also volume II for Mitchell’s memorandum of 12/19/44 to Will Maslow, director of field operations of the FEPC, in which he mentioned a report that Hayes Beall, FEPC fair practice examiner, prepared documenting the number of nonwhites in the shipbuilding industry. Beall’s memorandum of 3/9/45 to Maslow is in HqR38, Central Files of the FEPC, Aug. 1941–Apr. 1946, Memoranda–3, Maslow, Will. See also Mitchell’s text of 7/31/46 in volume II, in which he expressed his views on the employment challenges ahead for African Americans. Harold Ickes, secretary of the interior, welcomed Truman’s proposed full employment bill because “[if its purposes] could be achieved, a great advance would be made not only in solving the Negro problem but in finding an answer to the crucial question which confronts America today—whether we can make our democracy work.” See Ickes, “To Have Jobs or To Have Not,” Negro Digest (January 1946): 73.


[5] Mitchell clearly was guided by the information the FEPC had gathered on “Postwar Opportunities by Industry” for its Final Report 89.


[6] See 8/28/45 in volume II for Mitchell’s earlier work on racial problems related to the apprentice training program for the building trades.


[7] For a background on how Mitchell involved Schwellenbach in this struggle, see Watson, Lion in the Lobby 152–56.