Report on Recent Discrimination against Negroes in Federal Government, October 31, 1947

Since the closing of the Fair Employment Practice Committee, discrimination in Federal employment has gone virtually unchallenged by any one within the official family of agencies.¹

The NAACP and other organizations have been at work on numerous complaints and problems. Actually, however, our combined best efforts fall far short meeting the need. Complaints involving some two hundred or more persons have been handled by the NAACP’s Labor Department during the past year with varying degrees of success. There are thousands of others on which we have taken no action because the bewildered victims of discrimination do not know where to turn for assistance.

There are listed, herewith, some examples of what colored persons face currently when they seek employment in Federal agencies. The full file on each instance cited is available for inspection. There is also included an incident involving the State Department which occurred while the writer was still attached to the staff of the FEPC. Coming at the time the agency was winding up its affairs, this occurrence might well be considered an epitaph for fair play in government.

STATE DEPARTMENT

In the closing days of the FEPC, a representative of the State Department called the personnel office and asked that persons being dropped who could work on fiscal matters be referred for interviews. The person calling specified that those should be white. In further justification of this order, the individual making the call said, “One just doesn’t think of a colored person as being able to do that kind of work no more than you would think of asking for a white janitor.”

As this statement was being prepared, the writer received a telephone call from an individual who said that a branch of the State Department had decided it would employ a colored person after being admonished about its failure to use Negroes. That branch was seeking a “highly qualified colored college graduate” for a job which was described as “responsible.” The job was a position of clerk, CAF-3. The duties included operation of a mimeograph machine.

COMMERCE DEPARTMENT 

A veteran applied for the position of weather observer in a station of the U.S. Weather Bureau in Ohio. He was informed that, following his interview, the person to whom he talked wrote “colored” in parenthesis on his application. This matter was taken up with the top officials of the Weather Bureau in Washington. They explained that the individual who interviewed the complainant was from the South and it would probably be difficult for the applicant to work with him. It was also stated by the Weather Bureau that since the position the man sought was at an airport, some of the pilots might resent getting weather information from a colored man.²

POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT

Seventeen persons, mainly veterans, brought charges against the Postmaster in New Orleans because he failed to appoint them as clerks.³ All of these persons had high averages and some had ten-point disability preference. Inspection of the certificates of appointment during a hearing before the Civil Service Board of Review showed that almost all of the white persons on the certificates listing the colored applicants were either appointed by the Postmaster or declined appointment. The names of colored men were dropped from further consideration after it was alleged that they had been considered three times. The Postmaster then appointed white persons, some of whom were not veterans and whose averages were lower. Several of those appointed had numerous demerits for infractions of Post Office rules while holding was service appointments. Other similar complaints of discrimination have come from Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee.⁴

It should be noted that employees of the Post Office Department in Washington charge that they are denied access to the cafeteria in the main Post Office building. This matter was taken up with the Acting Postmaster General [Jesse Donaldson] who denied that Negroes were excluded from the central cafeteria. The writer visited the building for lunch on two occasions with a reporter from the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper. Although no one was stationed at the door to deny colored persons admission, it was noted that all colored employees of the Post Office Department in the building ate in a small cafeteria adjoining the main eating place. We have been informed that colored employees who eat in the main dining-room are subject to reprimand by their supervisors.^5​

WAR DEPARTMENT

A complainant charged that he was employed as a stenographer by the Over-Seas Division of the War Department, but when he got to Germany he was assigned duties as a mechanic.

A white War Department employee who recently returned from duty in Germany has informed the writer that after spending a number of months in the area under American supervision, he found only a handful of colored persons employed in civilian jobs.

A veteran who complained to the NAACP about segregation in the dining- rooms at an airbase in Japan was terminated from his job as an instructor in electricity. The War Department said there was no further need for such services. On returning to this country, the complainant informed us that his separation from the base left several classes without an instructor and additional persons were being sought to do the kind of work he had performed. He stated that Japanese waiters and waitresses were used to enforce the policy of segregation on the base.⁶

Although this incident does not involve the War Department directly, it is cited because it happened at the Pentagon. A young woman who has a B. S. Degree in Home Economics answered an ad for a cafeteria supervisor. The employer was the National Foods Corporation servicing the Pentagon. She telephoned the personnel department and stated her qualifications. She was told that she was acceptable but when the person talking to her learned that she was colored, he stated it was against their policy to hire colored people for such jobs. The following day, another ad appeared in the Washington Post this time asking for a white person. After the NAACP’s intervention, the applicant was placed on the job but she was assigned to a snack bar which during the previous year had failed to pass War Department health inspection. Her immediate superior did not inform persons working under her that the new employee was a supervisor. At first these persons did not believe that the newcomer had been hired for anything other than a counter job. The colored employees are instructed to call all white supervisors Miss or Mrs. They were told they could call the colored supervisor “anything.” The War Department representative who is liaison man with the National Foods Corporation informed the NAACP the he did not know whether the contract with the Food Company carried a clause prohibiting discrimination in employment.⁷

NAVY DEPARTMENT

Veteran was referred by the Civil Service Commission to the Naval Gun Factory for a job as a clerical worker. He was first told by the Navy interviewer that he had to be a permanent status employee. When he produced papers showing he was a permanent status person, he was told the job was for a veteran. When he indicated that he was a veteran, he was told that disabled veterans were preferred. When he produced evidence of his status as a ten-point veteran, he was told that the Department had enough applicants for the openings. A check with the Civil Service Commission several days later revealed that the orders were still open.⁸

The Civil Service Commission referred a veteran to the Naval Research Laboratory for a job as junior professional assistant in mathematics. He was a former math instructor and also had passed an examination for the job. On his first visit to the Laboratory, he was told that he could not be interviewed. On the second visit, he was interviewed, but not given any promise of appointment. Miss Frances Perkins of the Civil Service Commission informed the complainant that the certificate carrying his name had been returned to the Commission with no appointments made. However, a check with the Naval Research Laboratory showed that the certificate was still in the hands of the appointing officer.

VETERANS ADMINISTRATION

In November 1946, the Oklahoma State Conference of NAACP Branches reported on a survey of offices of the Veterans Administration in that state. Out of 1400 persons employed, only seven colored persons had jobs other than janitors. Numerous qualified applicants for positions had failed to obtain them.

Charges of discrimination have been filed against the Veterans Administration Facility at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. This is a hospital which segregates Negro and white patients. Out of 724 beds, 104 are allotted to colored persons. The institution refuses to employ colored doctors on the staff.⁹

When a colored dish-washer at this facility, who was a veteran, appealed his dismissal to the Regional Office of the Civil Service Commission, the Commission ordered him reinstated. So vigorous was the Veterans Administration in seeking to oust this man that it sent three of its top Washington personnel people to press charges against him before the Civil Service Board of Review and also brought in a representative from St. Louis. During the hearing, the representatives of the Veterans Administration spent several hours discussing the intricacies of how dish-washing machines operate and whether food particles had been left on dishes because of insufficient steam.

In Washington, a number of colored employees charge that they are stationed in a file room which is on a floor below the sub-basement. All of the individuals in this section are colored with the exception of supervisors. It is poorly ventilated, and, at one time, the employees had considerable trouble battling rats.¹⁰

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

The Federal Trade Commission refused to employ colored persons who were transferred to it from the Financial Reporting Division of the Office of Price Administration. After a number of meetings involving some of the Commissioners themselves, it was agreed that the colored persons would be placed on the job. However, at first, they were refused assignments and later were terminated for various reasons. In some cases, the reasons were so flimsy that even the Civil Service Commission ordered reinstatement of these individuals.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT

The Bureau of Internal Revenue was charged with dropping numerous colored employees when it transferred its Processing Division from New York to Kansas City, Missouri. Our Kansas City branch reports that colored employees are segregated and employed in the lowest classifications. The branch also states that, while there is no written rule, supervisors have intimidated colored employees so that they are forced to use Jim-Crow drinking fountains and separate rest rooms.¹¹

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT

A colored veteran and his wife accepted positions with the Indian Service in 1946. After traveling two thousands miles to take the jobs, they were told that they could not be used because the Indians were prejudiced against colored people. The man was offered another job, after the NAACP’s intervention. Discussion with the Service revealed the fact that colored persons are sent only to certain reservations.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

As late as April 1946, the Department of Justice still retained racial specifications on its employment forms. We have no information which indicates that this requirement has been withdrawn.¹²

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

Colored employees at the Office of Dependency Benefits charged that when that agency was transferring its functions to St. Louis, Missouri, from Newark, New Jersey, the Social Security Administration interviewed a number of persons for employment, but refused to accept any of the colored applicants, some of whom were veterans. The NAACP took this matter up with Mr. Arthur Altmeyer who reported that, after an investigation, he found that there was no discrimination.

HOUSING AGENCIES

Through a series of reorganizations, agencies in the housing field were ready to drop all Racial Relations Advisors during the summer. It was only after the most strenuous protest and objections by organizations representing minority groups that these persons were retained.¹³

Clarence Mitchell
Labor Secretary, NAACP