How Black Unionists Organized the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom

[Scuba]

http://www.labornotes.org/2013/08/how-black-unionists-organized-1963-march-jobs-and-freedom

Black unionists organized through the 1950s against discrimination in hiring, on the job, and in unions. After a 1959 convention vote reaffirmed that the AFL-CIO would tolerate segregated locals, A. Philip Randolph (the “dean” of black unionists and leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) and others founded the Negro American Labor Council to organize black workers.

...

In January 1963 A. Philip Randolph asked his old friend Bayard Rustin, who was working for the left-wing War Resisters League, to prepare a proposal that could win support from civil rights and labor leaders for a “mass descent” on the nation’s capital….

Rustin delivered a three-page memorandum outlining an ambitious campaign to draw attention to “the economic subordination of the Negro,” create “more jobs for all Americans,” and advance a “broad and fundamental program for economic justice.”

Their plan centered on a massive lobbying campaign, in which 100,000 people would shut down Congress for one day while presenting legislators and the president with their legislative demands, followed the next day by a “mass protest rally.”

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[LisaLynne]

2. Very interesting!

So much of our history is glossed over and it's too bad because the details are fascinating (and extremely important).

Also, love that picture! The caption at the site says they are unionized postal workers.

[Scuba]

3. Thanks for adding that tidbit LisaLynne.

[LisaLynne]

4. My mother was a union postal worker ...

so I have a soft spot for them.

[theHandpuppet]

5. It has occurred to me from time to time...

... that one of the primary motivating factors for the demonization of unions was to destroy the power, especially organizing power, that unions provided for women and minorities. Is it little wonder why the so-called "right to work" movement is so strong in Southern states? Step by step these neoconfederate revivalists are busy resurrecting vile antebellum attitudes into policies specifically designed to return all power to their preferred tier -- conservative white males -- whether by union busting ("right-to-work&quot , denying women any reproductive choice ("pro-life&quot , or by reinstituting Jim Crow laws (preventing "voter fraud&quot . It's the same old shit, just rewrapped with a populist ribbon.

[Scuba]

6. +1

[FarCenter]

7. K&R