Labor, Race, and the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, 1945–1972
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POLICING POLITICS Labor, Race, and the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, 1945–1972 Michael J. Lansing On June 10, 1949, just days before the mayor. In a story published on all shaped an emerging political iden- the upcoming mayoral election, Min- the front page of the Minneapolis Star, tity for Minneapolis policemen. Like neapolis mayor Eric Hoyer fired the Joyce noted that any time policemen other public sector workers around city’s police chief, Glenn MacLean. “attempt to influence government or the country agitating for labor rights, Chief MacLean had publicly declared the outcome of elections . we have members of the city’s Police Officers that the mayor’s opponent would the makings of a police state.”1 Federation began directly participat- “be a greater guarantee that we will In the decades that followed, the ing in municipal politics.2 continue to have proper police admin- Police Officers Federation rejected While the federation advocated istration and law enforcement.” Hoyer that position. Far from staying out of for the city’s police officers, its rank- insisted on the chief’s departure in politics, between 1945 and 1972 the order to “prevent . any political federation became a powerful force above: In 1946, the Minneapolis Police clique or party taking control of our in Minneapolis. Postwar efforts to Department was the first force in the nation police department.” William Joyce, eliminate racial prejudice, attempts to to receive race relations training. Here, MPD president of the Police Officers Fed- professionalize policing, and an ongo- candidates show their stuff on the Memorial eration of Minneapolis, agreed with ing struggle for better compensation Stadium gridiron, 1947. 226 MINNESOTA HISTORY and- file members enforced racial a human relations advisory commit- hierarchies in Minneapolis. By the tee made up of prominent citizens. mid- 1960s, when civil rights orga- Humphrey hoped the committee nizations successfully challenged would mitigate the city’s reputation racist policing as a long- standing for racial and religious discrimina- problem in Minneapolis, the Police tion. Besides unfair employment Officers Federation began obstructing and housing practices, the city’s new attempts to reform the Minneapolis human relations committee also took Police Department (MPD). Deny- on racial bias in the almost entirely ing charges of police brutality and white police force.4 bias, the Police Officers Federation In March 1946, Humphrey deployed its newly earned political announced that the MPD would power to protect the interests of the be the first force in the nation to mostly white rank and file serving on receive race relations training. That the city’s force.3 training— proffered by a former Labor advocacy proved to be a Milwaukee police chief— proceeded potent way to defend racialized polic- from the principle that “fair [law] ing. The combination fostered the enforcement is merely applying good racial tumult that shook Minneap- sound public relations policies to all Minneapolis mayor Hubert H. Humphrey olis in the late 1960s, forging a base people in the community, regardless speaking in support of revisions to the city for the political career of Charles A. of race, creed, or color.” Part of a charter, the legal foundation for the organiza- Stenvig. The Police Officers Feder- broader national effort to simulta- tion of city government, 1948. ation president from 1965 to 1969, neously reform and professionalize Stenvig garnered national attention policing, such training presumed as Minneapolis’s law- and- order to suppress racial prejudice among Minneapolis Central Labor Union (the mayor in the early 1970s. Labor advo- white officers. In Minnesota, where umbrella organization for all unions cacy and racialized policing became according to a 1947 study 60 percent in the city), succeeded, but his efforts the foundation for the federation’s of whites openly favored residential to increase the number of sworn offi- widely recognized influence in city segregation, this was a tall order. cers fell short.6 politics that persists to this day. The Though a December 1948 article Brimming with energy, Humphrey Police Officers Federation conflated in the Saturday Evening Post on the used his second two- year term as workers’ rights and whiteness, which race relations effort in Minneapolis mayor to target the city’s charter, the ultimately led to decades of division, helped burnish the city’s reputation legal foundation for the organization inequity, and grief in Minneapolis. nationally, the attempt to reform of city government. The charter’s Minneapolis policing by focusing on clear limits on mayoral power meant Labor, race, policing, and poli- patrolmen’s racial bias changed little. that Minneapolis mayors— then tics converged in Minneapolis as early Indeed, just a few months later two and now— could do little more than as the mid- 1940s with the election African American teenagers found appoint the police chief and other of Hubert H. Humphrey as mayor themselves arrested by Minneapolis officials (such as city engineer or city in 1945. Humphrey pledged to root policemen without cause.5 assessor). Through referenda, voters out crime, corruption, and racism The Police Officers Federation— could change the charter. The popular in the city— goals that depended on which, though it did not possess politician began a campaign to give organized labor’s support. The city’s formal bargaining powers until 1972, the mayor more power by relegating first Democratic mayor in decades, represented officers in contract the city council to legislative duties.7 Humphrey empowered unions as well negotiations with the city— did not Though staunchly behind Hum- as the African American and Jewish formally object to Humphrey’s call for phrey, the city’s unions opposed the communities. Overhauling the MPD racial bias training. After all, the fed- effort to change Minneapolis govern- stood out among the new mayor’s ini- eration appreciated Humphrey’s other ment. They worried that corporate tiatives. He paired a “cleanup job on proposals: give officers a raise and leaders could use more mayoral underworld operations” in a city well hire more cops. The mayor’s efforts to power to undo labor’s hard- earned known for its criminal element with improve police wages, backed by the gains in what had, until recently, SPRING 2021 227 been a notoriously anti- union city in support of rank- and- file policemen, turned to “politics, behind- the- scenes which the police protected businesses Hoyer’s effort to change the city char- deals with officials, lobbying, appeals instead of workers. For their part, ter went nowhere.9 to the public, and other kinds of infor- business leaders who backed Hum- Even as Hoyer attempted to create mal activities.” This proved true for phrey in his 1947 reelection campaign tenure for the police chief, the Police the Police Officers Federation of Min- also hesitated to expand the mayor’s Officers Federation proposed a dif- neapolis, which represented police powers, fearing a challenge to their ferent charter amendment. Because officers in negotiations with city hall own. Additionally, Humphrey’s 1948 underpaid and increasingly over- but did not possess legally recognized campaign for the US Senate— which worked policemen could not legally collective bargaining privileges.11 proved successful— absorbed most of strike, police federation president Furthermore, as elected officials his attention. Consequently, the pro- Johnson argued that the city’s voters and police chiefs embraced police posed charter changes were defeated should change the charter to provide reforms in the 1950s and 1960s, at the polls that same year.8 for the “compulsory arbitration of policemen often dissented. They In 1951, Humphrey’s successor as pay and working condition disputes” looked to strengthen their own fed- mayor, Eric G. Hoyer, turned again to between the city and public safety erations and associations in response changing the city’s charter. He had a employees. Noting the growing pro- to new expectations and perceived more targeted change in mind. Hoyer fessionalization of policing— “a high restrictions in their workplace. The hoped to protect the appointed police school diploma is a prerequisite” and Minneapolis Police Officers Federa- chief regardless of who was mayor. He “we have on our force today a number tion was no exception. The push for sought a charter amendment estab- of college men”— Johnson argued public sector unionism offered a way lishing a fixed tenure of six years for that recognition of the labor rights of to do exactly that. One new expecta- appointed police chiefs. Because the police officers mattered.10 tion that strengthened police officers’ proposal focused on the police depart- Johnson’s proposal (which went resolve to unionize emerged in 1952. ment, the city’s charter commission largely unnoticed by Minneapolis MPD Chief Tom Jones announced the requested that Carl G. Johnson, the voters) reflected a national push for creation of a new “training course for new president of the Police Officers the formal recognition of organized officers” in “racial tensions” as well Federation, get involved. Johnson, a public sector workers. Throughout as the establishment of “an ‘incident’ former electrician who served as a the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, city, state, file to help control and prevent race deputy license inspector in the MPD, and federal employees across the disturbances.” Some Minneapolis conducted a ballot of the rank and file. United States advocated for the right policemen balked. Nonetheless, Chief Almost three- quarters of all police- to unionize. Public employees facing Jones insisted the two new initiatives, men opposed the idea. Without the legal limits on formal organizing gleaned from a recent seminar at the University of Chicago, would “mean improved police protection to all resi- dents” in Minneapolis.12 Though the federation did not publicly comment on the initiative, in April 1953 delegates from across the nation elected Carl Johnson vice president of the National Conference of Police Associations (NCPA).