{"id":29114,"date":"2019-01-21T11:00:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=29114"},"modified":"2022-03-16T09:46:52","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T13:46:52","slug":"martin-luther-king-jr-and-his-support-of-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/martin-luther-king-jr-and-his-support-of-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther King Jr. and His Support of Unions"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he\u2019d probably tell people to join unions.<\/p>\n

King understood racial equality was inextricably linked to economics. He asked, \u201cWhat good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can\u2019t buy a hamburger?\u201d<\/p>\n

Those disadvantages have persisted. Today, for instance, the wealth of the average white family is more than 20 times that of a black one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s solution was unionism.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The union newspaper reported that King appealed in his Sept. 21, 1967 address to Local 10 \u2018for unity between the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement.\u2019<\/span>
\nThe Dispatcher archives, ILWU<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Convergence of needs<\/h2>\n

In 1961, King spoke before the AFL-CIO<\/a>, the nation\u2019s largest and most powerful labor organization, to explain why he felt unions were essential to civil rights progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cNegroes are almost entirely a working people,\u201d he said. \u201cOur needs are identical with labor\u2019s needs \u2013 decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

My new book, \u201cDockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area<\/a>,\u201d chronicles King\u2019s relationship with a labor union that was, perhaps, the most racially progressive in the country. That was Local 10 of the International Longshoremen\u2019s and Warehousemen\u2019s Union, or ILWU.<\/p>\n

ILWU Local 10 represented workers who loaded and unloaded cargo from ships throughout San Francisco Bay\u2019s waterfront. Its members\u2019 commitment to racial equality may be as surprising as it is unknown.<\/p>\n

In 1967, the year before his murder, King visited ILWU Local 10 to see what interracial unionism looked like. King met with these unionists at their hall in a then-thriving, portside neighborhood \u2013 now a gentrified<\/a> tourist area best known for Fisherman\u2019s Wharf, Pier 39.<\/p>\n

While King knew about this union, ILWU history isn\u2019t widely known off the waterfront.<\/p>\n

Civil rights on the waterfront<\/h2>\n

Dockworkers had suffered for decades<\/a> from a hiring system compared to a \u201cslave auction.\u201d Once hired, they routinely worked 24 to 36 hour shifts, experienced among the highest rates of injury and death of any job, and endured abusive bosses. And they did so for incredibly low wages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Marching in the San Francisco Waterfront Strike of 1934.<\/span>
\nSan Francisco Public Library<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1934, San Francisco longshoremen \u2013 who were non-union since employers had crushed their union in 1919 \u2013 reorganized and led a coast-wide \u201cBig Strike<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the throes of the Great Depression, these increasingly militant and radicalized dockworkers walked off the job. After 83 days on strike, they won a huge victory: wage increases, a coast-wide contract and union-controlled hiring halls.<\/p>\n

Soon, these \u201cwharf rats,\u201d among the region\u2019s poorest and most exploited workers, became \u201clords of the docks,\u201d commanding the highest wages and best conditions of any blue-collar worker in the region.<\/p>\n

At its inception, Local 10\u2019s membership was 99 percent white. But Harry Bridges<\/a>, the union\u2019s charismatic leader, joined with fellow union radicals to commit to racial equality in its ranks.<\/p>\n

Originally from Australia, Bridges started working on the San Francisco waterfront in the early 1920s. It was during the Big Strike that he emerged as a leader.<\/p>\n

Bridges coordinated during the strike with C.L. Dellums<\/a>, the leading black unionist in the Bay Area, and made sure the handful of black dockworkers would not cross picket lines as replacement workers. Bridges promised they would get a fair deal in the new union. One of the union\u2019s first moves after the strike was integrating work gangs that previously had been segregated.<\/p>\n

Local 10 overcame pervasive discrimination<\/h2>\n

Cleophas Williams, a black man originally from Arkansas, was among those who got into Local 10 in 1944. He belonged to a wave of African-Americans who, due to the massive labor shortage caused by World War II, fled the racism and discriminatory laws of the Jim Crow South for better lives \u2013 and better jobs \u2013 outside of it. Hundreds of thousands of blacks moved to the Bay Area, and tens of thousands found jobs in the booming shipbuilding industry.<\/p>\n

Black workers in shipbuilding experienced pervasive discrimination<\/a>. Employers shunted them off into less attractive jobs and paid them less. Similarly, the main shipbuilders\u2019 union proved hostile to black workers who, when allowed in, were placed in segregated locals.<\/p>\n

A few thousand black men, including Williams, were hired as longshoremen during the war. He later recalled to historian Harvey Schwartz<\/a>: \u201cWhen I first came on the waterfront, many black workers felt that Local 10 was a utopia.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the war, when white foremen and military officers hurled racist epithets at black longshoremen, this union defended them. Black members received equal pay and were dispatched the same as all others.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A gang of welders at the Marinship yard, Sausalito, California, in around 1943.<\/span>
\nNational Park Service<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Williams, this union was a revelation. Literally the first white people he ever met who opposed white supremacy belonged to Local 10. These longshoremen were not simply anti-racists, they were communists and socialists.<\/p>\n

Leftist unions like the ILWU embraced black workers because, reflecting their ideology, they contended workers were stronger when united. They also knew that, countless times, employers had broken strikes and destroyed unions by playing workers of different ethnicities, genders, nationalities and races against each other. For instance, when 350,000 workers went out during the mammoth Steel Strike of 1919<\/a>, employers brought in tens of thousands of African-Americans to work as replacements.<\/p>\n

Some black dockworkers also were socialists. Paul Robeson<\/a>, the globally famous singer, actor and left-wing activist had several friends, fellow socialists, in Local 10. Robeson was made an honorary ILWU member during WWII.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
King speaks at Local 10 in San Francisco, September 1967.<\/span>
\nILWU Archives<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Martin Luther King, union member<\/h2>\n

In 1967, King walked in Robeson\u2019s footsteps when he was inducted into Local 10 as an honorary member, the same year Williams became the first black person elected president of Local 10. By that year, roughly half of its members were African-American.<\/p>\n

King addressed these dockworkers, declaring, \u201cI don\u2019t feel like a stranger here in the midst of the ILWU. We have been strengthened and energized by the support you have given to our struggles. \u2026 We\u2019ve learned from labor the meaning of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many years later, Williams discussed King\u2019s speech with me: \u201cHe talked about the economics of discrimination. \u2026 What he said is what Bridges had been saying all along,\u201d about workers benefiting by attacking racism and forming interracial unions.<\/p>\n

Eight months later, in Memphis to organize a union, King was assassinated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The day after his death, longshoremen shut down the ports of San Francisco and Oakland, as they still do when one of their own dies on the job. Nine ILWU members attended King\u2019s funeral in Atlanta, including Bridges and Williams, honoring the man who called unions \u201cthe first anti-poverty program<\/a>.\u201d\"The<\/p>\n

Author: <\/strong>Peter Cole<\/span><\/a>, Professor of History, Western Illinois University<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he\u2019d probably tell people to join unions. King understood racial equality was inextricably linked to economics. He asked, \u201cWhat good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can\u2019t buy a hamburger?\u201d Those disadvantages have persisted. Today, for instance, the wealth of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":29117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[645,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discourse","category-student-advocacy","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Peter Cole","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/peter-cole\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he\u2019d probably tell people to join unions. King understood racial equality was inextricably linked to economics. He asked, \u201cWhat good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can\u2019t buy a hamburger?\u201d Those disadvantages have persisted. Today, for instance, the wealth of…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Union-together.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}