Steelworkers and Shipyard Workers for Equality

Last updated

Steelworkers and Shipyard Workers for Equality was a labor organization of Black workers at the Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard in Sparrows Point, Maryland. Founded in the early 1960s, the organization fought for racial equality within the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The formation of the organization was encouraged by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the CORE-affiliated Maryland Freedom Union (MFU).

History

Bethlehem Steel maintained racially discriminatory practices and segregated workplaces. Black and white workers had separate toilets and the cleaning of toilets was delegated to Black workers almost exclusively. [1] Bethlehem Steel maintained educational tests that discriminated against Black workers, while white workers did not have to take the same tests and some of the white workers were illiterate. [2]

During the 1970s, the steelworker and shop steward Lee Douglas, Jr. was one of the most active members of the organization. Douglas was the first Black shop steward at the Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard. He maintained a close relationship with Baltimore's Mayor William Donald Schaefer. [3] Francis Brown and Oscar Hoggs were other prominent activists within the organization. At the organization's peak, it maintained a membership of 2,400 dues-paying members. Marches and rallies held by the organization were usually attended by several hundred people. Only a few members of the organization signed onto Kenneth L. Johnson's lawsuit against Bethlehem Steele in 1982. Johnson and the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund filed complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Bethlehem Steel's seniority practices perpetuated discrimination against Black workers. Complaints by Black male workers were later joined by women workers alleging sex discrimination. [4]

Racial discrimination came not only from Bethlehem Steel, but also from the local branches of the United Steelworkers. Black steelworkers in Sparrows Point staged a series of protests. Freedom marches were held at Sparrows Point, and the national Bethlehem Steel headquarters in Pennsylvania, and in front of the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. These protests were supported by CORE as well as U-JOIN, an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). [5]

Related Research Articles

Racial quotas in employment and education are numerical requirements for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. Racial quotas are often established as means of diminishing racial discrimination, addressing under-representation and evident racism against those racial groups or, the opposite, against the disadvantaged majority group. Conversely, quotas have also been used historically to promote discrimination against minority groups by limiting access to influential institutions in employment and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dundalk, Maryland</span> Unincorporated community in Maryland, United States

Dundalk is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 67,796 at the 2020 census. In 1960 and 1970, Dundalk was the largest unincorporated community in Maryland. It was named after the town of Dundalk, Ireland. Dundalk is considered one of the first inner-ring suburbs of Baltimore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethlehem Steel</span> American steel company, 1857–2009

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003 it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success and productivity, the company was a symbol of American manufacturing leadership in the world, and its decline and ultimate liquidation in the late 20th century is similarly cited as an example of America's diminished manufacturing leadership. From its founding in 1857 through its 2003 dissolution, Bethlehem Steel's headquarters and primary steel mill manufacturing facilities were based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Congress of Racial Equality</span> Civil rights organization in the United States

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Murray</span> Scottish-born American labor leader (1886–1952)

Philip Murray was a Scottish-born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the first president of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation</span> 1905–1997 shipbuilding company in the United States

Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco shipyard Union Iron Works. In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited.

The Communist Party USA, ideologically committed to foster a socialist revolution in the United States, played a significant role in defending the civil rights of African Americans during its most influential years of the 1930s and 1940s. In that period, the African-American population was still concentrated in the South, where it was largely disenfranchised, excluded from the political system, and oppressed under Jim Crow laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America</span>

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States.

Maryland Steel, in Sparrows Point, Maryland, US, was founded in 1887. It was acquired by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in 1916 and renamed as the Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard. The shipyard was sold in 1997 to Baltimore Marine Industries Inc.. In 2012, it was owned by Barletta Industries, which had converted it to the Sparrows Point Shipyard and Industrial Complex. As of 2021, it is owned by Sparrows Point Terminal, LLC and has been renamed Tradepoint Atlantic.

The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO on June 7, 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America. The Steel Labor was the official paper of SWOC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maryland Route 151</span> State highway in Maryland, US, known as North Point Blvd

Maryland Route 151 (MD 151) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as North Point Boulevard, the state highway runs 10.80 miles (17.38 km) from 7th Street in Sparrows Point north to U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Baltimore. MD 151 is a four- to six-lane divided highway that connects the communities of Edgemere and Dundalk on the Patapsco River Neck peninsula of southeastern Baltimore County with industrial areas in Sparrows Point and East Baltimore. MD 151 was originally constructed in the early 1920s from Sparrows Point to Edgemere. The highway was connected to Baltimore by the Baltimore County portion of MD 20, a number also assigned to the highway from Rock Hall to Chestertown in Kent County. During World War II, MD 151 was extended north through Dundalk on a new divided highway parallel to MD 20 and through East Baltimore on an expanded Erdman Avenue to connect the Bethlehem Steel complex at Sparrows Point with MD 150 and US 40. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Interstate 695 (I-695) was constructed parallel to MD 151 between Edgemere and MD 157 in Dundalk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sparrows Point, Maryland</span> Unincorporated area in Maryland, United States

Sparrow's Point is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Dundalk. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelmaking and shipbuilding. In its heyday in the mid-20th century, it was the largest steel mill in the world. The site of the former Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard and steel mill is now renamed Tradepoint Atlantic in a revitalization program to clean up the environment and make it one of the largest ports on the East Coast of the United States. Today Sparrows Point is home to many distribution centers, fulfillment centers, training lots, storage lots, and the like, including those operated by Under Armour, Amazon, Home Depot, Volkswagen, and McCormick & Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company</span> Former marine production facility in the United States of America

The Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company (ADDSCO) located in Mobile, Alabama, was one of the largest marine production facilities in the United States during the 20th century. It began operation in 1917, and expanded dramatically during World War II; with 30,000 workers, including numerous African Americans and women, it became the largest employer in the southern part of the state. During the defense buildup, which included other shipyards, Mobile became the second-largest city in the state, after Birmingham.

United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), was a case regarding affirmative action in which the United States Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination by private employers, does not condemn all private, voluntary, race-conscious affirmative action plans. The Court's decision reversed lower courts' rulings in favor of Brian Weber whose lawsuit beginning in 1974 challenged his employer's hiring practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard</span>

The Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard of Baltimore, Maryland, was a shipyard in the United States from 1941 until 1945. Located on the south shore of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River which serves as the Baltimore Harbor, it was owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company, created by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which had operated a major waterfront steel mill outside Baltimore to the southeast at Sparrows Point, Maryland in Baltimore County since the 1880s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Steel strike</span> 1937 labor strike throughout the American steel industry

The Little Steel strike was a 1937 labor strike by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and its branch the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), against a number of smaller steel producing companies, principally Republic Steel, Inland Steel, and Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. The strike affected a total of thirty different mills belonging to the three companies, which employed 80,000 workers. The strike, which was one of the most violent labor disputes of the 1930s, ended without the strikers achieving their principal goal, recognition by the companies of the union as the bargaining agent for the workers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Congress of Industrial Organizations</span> North American federation of labor unions from 1935 to 1955

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) by John L. Lewis, a leader of the United Mine Workers (UMW), and called the Committee for Industrial Organization. Its name was changed in 1938 when it broke away from the AFL. It focused on organizing unskilled workers, who had been ignored by most of the AFL unions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America</span> Former trade union of the United States

The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA) was an American labor union which existed between 1933 and 1988. The IUMSWA was first organised at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard in Camden, New Jersey after striking in 1934 and 1935. From here it slowly spread to a number of other private shipyards in the Northeast, gaining representation at the Staten Island shipyard in 1936, the Federal Shipyard in 1937, Brooklyn and Hoboken in 1939, Baltimore and Sparrows Point in 1941, as well as a range of other smaller ship repair yards in the New York area. The IUMSWA's industrial coverage of all production workers in the shipbuilding industry brought it into conflict with established craft unions, such as the boilermakers, leading the IUMSWA to be refused an AFL charter in 1933. The IUMSWA later joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1936.

The city of Baltimore, Maryland includes a significant Appalachian population. The Appalachian community has historically been centered in the neighborhoods of Hampden, Pigtown, Remington, Woodberry, Lower Charles Village, Highlandtown, and Druid Hill Park, as well as the Baltimore inner suburbs of Dundalk, Essex, and Middle River. The culture of Baltimore has been profoundly influenced by Appalachian culture, dialect, folk traditions, and music. People of Appalachian heritage may be of any race or religion. Most Appalachian people in Baltimore are white or African-American, though some are Native American or from other ethnic backgrounds. White Appalachian people in Baltimore are typically descendants of early English, Irish, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh settlers. A migration of White Southerners from Appalachia occurred from the 1920s to the 1960s, alongside a large-scale migration of African-Americans from the Deep South and migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee. These out-migrations caused the heritage of Baltimore to be deeply influenced by Appalachian and Southern cultures.

Design 1029 ship US passenger/cargo ship design in World War I

The Design 1029 ship was a steel-hulled passenger/cargo ship designed to be converted in times of war to a troopship. design approved for production by the United States Shipping Board's Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFT) in World War I. They were referred to as the 535-type as all the ships were 535 feet overall length. A total of 11 ships were built from 1921 to 1922. Three shipyards built the ships: Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard of Baltimore, Maryland ; Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia ; and New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden, New Jersey.

References

  1. "They Acted Like Men and Were Treated Like Men". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  2. "A Day in the Life: a Union & Civil Rights Leader". Baltimore Museum of Industry. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  3. "Racism, unions and Sparrows Point". The Dundalk Eagle. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  4. Rudacille, Deborah (2010). Roots of Steel: Boom and Bust in an American Mill Town. New York City: Pantheon Books. p. 155. ISBN   978-0375423680.
  5. Levy, Peter B. (2018). The Great Uprising: Race Riots in Urban America During the 1960s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 145. ISBN   9781108397230.