To March for Others. Lauren Araiza
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reflects the complicated nature of the civil rights movement’s relationship with organized labor. Civil rights and labor activism shared many commonalities, especially in terms of organizing and protest strategies, guiding ethos, government response, and violent opposition. At a conference of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), Congress of Racial Equality executive director James Farmer pointed out that those opposed to civil rights were also in favor of “right-to-work” laws, which greatly limited the power of unions. Moreover, some union members viewed the achievement of racial equality as “a necessary precondition for economic and political equality.” Many labor unions were therefore supportive of the civil rights movement. Unions frequently staged sympathy protests around the country in response to civil rights demonstrations in the South, including one organized by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in San Francisco that drew around 30,000 people in solidarity with the protestors who had been blasted with fire hoses in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Unions also frequently donated money to civil rights organizations, including SNCC. For example, the AFL-CIO funded SNCC’s founding meeting in April 1960 and issued public statements in support of Mississippi Freedom Summer. The ILWU, Packinghouse Workers, United Electrical Workers (UE), and other unions made financial contributions to several SNCC projects. SNCC organizer Ekwueme Michael Thelwell recalled after receiving a significant donation from representatives of the UE, “Two class-conscious workers—and a strong union—are worth a thousand students.”9
Labor’s support of the civil rights movement came only from northern unions, however. Southern unions did not offer support to SNCC or other civil rights organizations and occasionally donated to segregationist organizations instead. Numerous polls confirmed that southern white workers overwhelmingly did not support the struggle for black equality. In addition to their antagonistic relationship with southern unions, many in SNCC were wary of the compromises that came with northern unions’ support. For example, in October 1960 SNCC held a second conference in Atlanta, partly funded by a grant from the UPWA, to establish itself as a permanent organization. The union threatened to withhold the money unless Bayard Rustin, a noted civil rights activist and advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., was disinvited as a keynote speaker. Rustin had formerly been a member of the American Communist Party, and therefore the UPWA—reflecting the liberal anticommunism of organized labor during the Cold War and attempting to distance themselves from the historical communist influence within the union—believed he was an “inappropriate” choice. SNCC field secretary Cleveland Sellers wrote in his autobiography that “the students decided that they needed the Packinghouse Workers’ grant more than they needed to hear Bayard Rustin.” Although SNCC acceded to the union’s demand and disinvited Rustin, Sellers noted that many conference participants later regretted this decision. This event also planted the seed of distrust for organized labor among those in SNCC, despite the Packinghouse Workers’ continued donations of bail money, food, and even college scholarships. James Forman, who later became SNCC’s executive secretary, reflected in his autobiography that the Packinghouse Workers’ “success in preventing Rustin from speaking must have suggested that it was indeed possible to influence if not control the student movement.”10
Forman’s reservations about organized labor were reflected in his perceptions of the March on Washington in August 1963. The march was originally conceived of by black trade unionists and coordinated by Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, to draw attention to the economic inequality experienced by African Americans, particularly in rates of unemployment, and its connection to racial discrimination. Despite the fact that unions took the lead in providing logistical and financial support for the march, Forman remained deeply suspicious of the involvement of organized labor. He recalled, “Everywhere there were large groups from labor unions and especially the United Automobile Workers, all with prominent signs. We had asked them for financial help and they refused. We felt that not only the UAW, but many other so-called liberal forces were shamming and this was just another march.” Forman was particularly wary of UAW president Walter Reuther, who had helped convince organizers not to incorporate direct action protests into the march and who later joined the planning committee mere weeks before the march occurred. But for many civil rights activists, Reuther’s participation was less troubling than AFL-CIO president George Meany’s refusal to endorse the march at all. Meany did not support it both because he was concerned that such a demonstration would lead to additional charges of communist influence in the labor movement and, as a member of an all-white plumber’s union, he opposed “any hiring preferences for blacks that might undermine union seniority systems.”11
SNCC’s relationship with organized labor was further strained during the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) attempt to unseat their state’s regular delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City in
1964. The MFDP was formed during Freedom Summer and represented an alternative to the segregationist Mississippi Democrats, who systematically disenfranchised black voters. According to historian Clayborne Carson, “The hopes of the MFDP delegation were based on the belief that they, rather than the regular, all-white delegation, represented the expressed principles of the national Democratic party.” Moreover, the MFDP supported the election of Lyndon Johnson, as opposed to the regular Mississippi Democratic Party, who actually supported Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. Regardless, Johnson was determined to not alienate white southern Democrats and thus did not want the MFDP to be seated. Johnson’s forces therefore offered the MFDP two at-large seats, with the rest of the delegation as “guests” of the convention. The MFDP refused the compromise and viewed the entire situation as a betrayal by the Democratic Party leadership, including its allies in organized labor, especially those who had originally supported seating the MFDP and then urged them to accept the compromise. Stokely Carmichael later reflected,
The lesson, in fact, was clear at Atlantic City. The major moral of that experience was not merely that the national conscience was unreliable but that, very specifically, black people in Mississippi and throughout this country could not rely on their so-called allies. Many labor, liberal and civil rights leaders deserted the MFDP because of closer ties to the national Democratic party.
Following the convention, SNCC began to question the wisdom of working with the Democratic Party, which was not seen as representing the interests of African Americans. By extension, organized labor was increasingly not viewed as sincere in its support of the civil rights movement.12
Thus by the time that SNCC formed an alliance with the NFWA in 1965, the civil rights organization was already becoming disenchanted with labor unions. It was therefore due to the pioneering work of SNCC field secretaries like Mike Miller and George Ballis, whose ties to organized labor predated their civil rights activism, that the alliance with the farmworkers even occurred. Miller later explained,
I grew up with the idea that unions were a good thing. Nothing in my college education or the student movement persuaded me otherwise. At the same time, as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (and I) learned in the civil rights movement, most of organized labor was deeply intertwined with the Democratic Party’s established leadership.
Miller therefore believed that a careful “balancing act” was required in working with organized labor, but that doing so was worthwhile. The NFWA also alleviated SNCC’s reservations about organized labor by having conceptualized itself as a movement connected to other crusades for social change, making it far more palatable to SNCC than a union.13
The NFWA’s identity as both a union and a social movement caused considerable tension among members, supporters, growers, and fellow unions. In response to writer Eugene Nelson’s question about whether the NFWA strike was a civil rights issue, a volunteer explained, “Of course it’s a civil rights issue. Civil rights means equality of opportunity. . . . And farm workers don’t have equality of opportunity.” It was that line of reasoning that caused activists of the New Left to flock to support the NFWA. But this identity also caused problems for the farmworkers. White officials in AWOC at first resisted working with the NFWA because of its movement-centered identity and links to civil rights organizations. Chavez explained, “They just couldn’t make us out. . . . The NFWA didn’t speak the proper language, you know, worker solidarity, the union above all.” The Teamsters felt justified