Monthly Report of Labor Secretary, October 31, 1946

MONTHLY REPORT OF LABOR SECRETARY

October 31, 1946

MEETING OF LABOR COMMITTEE

The first meeting of the National Labor Committee was held on October 24 in New York. Some of the important items discussed were full utilization of colored persons in industry, cooperation between labor and the NAACP on legislative programs of mutual interest, and NAACP labor cooperation in education programs. The Committee decided to meet quarterly and expects to convene again in January.1

AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY

The Labor Department has requested the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to establish a national policy providing for non-discriminatory hiring. As evidence of good faith, the Company is asked to take steps to ensure the hiring of colored operators in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Prior to the closing of the FEPC, there were a number of unresolved cases in these areas and many of the complaints had been filed by branches of the NAACP.2

USES REPLIES FROM GOVERNORS

The Labor Department has communicated with the governors of thirty-nine states asking that standards against discrimination be adopted when the employment service is returned to the states on November 15. To date, we have received replies from sixteen governors and acknowledgments from three. Although most of these replies contain general statements against discrimination, there is every indication that the failure of the United States Department of Labor to adopt adequate safeguards has left the door open for considerable discrimination in the states.3

CONSTRUCTION EMPLOYMENT

The branches of the NAACP have been requested to take specific action in locating colored veterans who have construction skills. Our local offices are asked to urge these people to register for employment in the veterans housing program.4 We have also outlined specific action for branches in obtaining the full use of skills of colored persons in this field. Suggestions were also made on getting applicants into the apprenticeship training.5

TWO INDIVIDUAL CASES

The first case is that of a colored man who went with his wife to Montana for a job as a teacher in the Indian Service.6 On arriving, he was not given the employment, and, according to his story, was told that the Indians would object to a colored teacher. Although the Indian Service stated that the man left voluntarily, it was agreed that he was entitled to employment. He has been offered another job beginning January 1. He did not wish to begin duties earlier because he had enrolled for additional graduate training after his experience in Montana. The Indian Service also is sending out a policy statement to all of its offices indicating that there shall be no discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin.

The complainant in this case had resigned a position in Tennessee and was without funds to return from Montana to Tennessee. A representative of the Indian Service gave him $300 to make the return trip. According to the complainant this money was a gift, but the representative of the Service said it was a loan. In explaining the policy of the Indian Service, Dr. Willard Beatty stated that Indians on some reservations objected to colored persons. One such tribe is at Fort Apache, Arizona according to Dr. Beatty. This tribe is prejudiced against colored people, he stated, because two colored regiments were stationed at the post in the area at one time and the members of these regiments were guilty of considerable misconduct against the Indians. I have checked this statement with the War Department and found no verification of it. This information has been forwarded to the Indian Service with the suggestion that it be used in exploding the alleged basis for prejudices against colored persons in that area.

The second case involves two train porters on the Illinois Central Railroad. One of these men has written to the NAACP stating that he was beaten by a conductor and dismissed by the Company on the grounds of advocating social equality. He reports that the other person was shot in Mississippi by a conductor. The second man is supposed to have tried to keep colored passengers from being segregated. Both of these cases are in the hands of the Department of Justice for investigation. If it can be found that the conductors have police powers from states in which the incidents occurred, the Department of Justice expects to be able to act on the matter.7

CALIFORNIA FEPC

We have received a very encouraging letter from the California League of Women Voters indicating their organization’s wholehearted support of the proposed FEPC legislation.

SPEECHES

During the month, I made one speech at a mass meeting in Baltimore for Isaac Woodard.8 The branch had requested that Mr. Woodard and I be the main speakers. Approximately 2,000 persons attended in spite of an all day rain. Nearly $400 came in response to an appeal for Mr. Woodard. Other speaking engagements in Cincinnati and Portsmouth were cancelled by the branches because of conflicts with other local programs.

MS: NAACP II: A-341, DLC.

[1] NAACP labor secretary’s news release, 10/25/46, announcing that joint NAACP and labor action was one of the NAACP labor committee’s key goals. The news release, based on the committee’s meeting on October 24, said the committee would follow the seven-point program Mitchell had proposed to accomplish the department’s objectives (see NAACP Labor Department Objectives, July 25, 1946, in this volume).

The committee voted to take action to prevent discrimination against minority workers in the Employment Service when it was returned to the states on November 15, and it discussed plans for the full utilization of African American building construction workers in the veterans’ housing program. It also discussed ways of implementing a resolution adopted by the 1946 NAACP National Convention calling for support of the AFL and CIO drives in the South.

Additionally, Mitchell announced that the members of the labor committee were: Frank Fenton, AFL director of organization; Boris Shishkin, AFL economist; Nelson Cruikshank, AFL director of social insurance; Walter Reuther, UAW-CIO president; George L. P. Weaver, director of the CIO Committee against Discrimination; Willard S. Townsend, president of the United Transport Service Employees, CIO; Rev. Francis J. Gilligan, St. Paul, Minnesota; Alfred Baker Lewis, Greenwich, Connecticut; Palmer Weber, research director, Political Action Committee, CIO, New York City; Eleanor Roosevelt; and Charles Houston, Washington, D.C. NAACP II: A-662, DLC.


[2] For background on Mitchell’s struggles against discrimination beyond this area, see, for example, his memorandum of 12/2/44 on “Committee Cases against Telephone Companies” and the headnote on the Telephone Industry in volume I.


[3] Mitchell did not send letters to the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia for the simple reason that he knew what the answers would be. Mitchell memorandum to Gloster B. Current, director of NAACP branches, 10/4/46, and other materials in NAACP II: A-653, DLC.


[4] Under the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1044 (the GI Bill), the VA was directed to establish a program of guaranteed loans provided by private lenders to World War II veterans for the purchase, construction, and improvement of homes, farms, and businesses. Congress and the Nation 471.


[5] The three issues mentioned here under “Construction Employment” were covered in NAACP Labor Department Objectives, July 25, 1946.


[6] The couple was Toussaint L. Jones and his wife. Mitchell’s memorandum, 10/17/46, to White, and his letter, 10/16/46, confirming the agreement to Lawrence N. Stevens, administrative analyst, Office of Indian Affairs, are both in NAACP II: A-591, DLC.


[7] For legal and historical background, see Steele v. Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company 323 U.S. 192; Houston, “Foul Employment Practice on the Rails,” Crisis 56 (October 1949): 269–71, 284–85; and Watson, Lion in the Lobby 132, 141. See also 11/30/46.


[8] In February 1946, Isaac Woodard, a newly released World War II veteran, was blinded by police in Batesburg, South Carolina, after he got into an altercation with the driver of the Greyhound bus he had boarded in Atlanta, Georgia, en route to Winsboro, South Carolina. His case became a cause célèbre in the NAACP’s protest against mob violence. “Southern Schrecklichkeit,” Crisis 53 (September 1946): 276.