Copyright by Rebecca Anne Montes 2005
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Copyright by Rebecca Anne Montes 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Rebecca Anne Montes certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Working for American Rights: Black, White, and Mexican American Dockworkers in Texas During the Great Depression Committee: ____________________________________ Neil Foley, Supervisor ____________________________________ Tiffany Gill ____________________________________ Gunther Peck ____________________________________ James Sidbury ____________________________________ Emilio Zamora Working for American Rights: Black, White, and Mexican American Dockworkers in Texas During the Great Depression by Rebecca Anne Montes, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2005 Working for American Rights: Black, White, and Mexican -American Dockworkers in Texas During the Great Depression Publication No. _________ Rebecca Anne Montes, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: Neil Foley In the 1930s, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in Texas, a union with black and white members organized into segregated locals, expanded to include Mexican American dockworkers. Though the racially segregated structure of the union reflected the Jim Crow norms of Texas society, and many white members of the union strongly endorsed the concept of white supremacy, the ILA also challenged segregation by acknowledging a common identity for its members across race lines. For all ILA members, the union was first and foremost an organization to defend their rights as worker -citizens. To them, citizenship was a compact; in exchange for loyalty to the country and doing their duty on the job, they were guaran teed protections that would allow them to fulfill their role as breadwinners by earning a decent wage. But iv different interpretations of worker -citizenship created conflict among dockworkers. While all ILA men and their wives shared the goal of defending their rights as workers, not all workers had the same rights to defend. The most profound differences in workers’ understandings of the labor movement developed because Mexican Americans and African Americans sought to secure many of the rights of citizen ship that white longshoremen took for granted. They saw the union as an appropriate vehicle through which to eliminate this incongruity by expanding their access to rights off the docks and actively used their segregated locals to those ends. Along with different interpretations of the union’s purpose, blacks, whites, and Mexican Americans also had different experiences of their class position. For white longshoremen, the experience of class was an isolated one in which they were alienated from whites of other classes. Mexican Americans and African Americans, on the other hand, regularly engaged in cross -class alliances and found positions of respect within their racially defined communities. Though the tension between devotion to white supremacy and multiracial unionism was never resolved, the ILA endured because all members shared a belief in the importance of the labor movement and the ability of unions to improve their lives. v Contents List of Illustrations vii Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Limits of Brotherhood 20 Chapter Two: The Fight of Breadwinners 63 Chapter Three: Off the Docks 115 Chapter Four: Men Stand Up for Their Rights 157 Chapter Five: Dissent Among the Rank and File 207 Epilogue 257 Bibliography 262 Vita 271 vi Illustrations 2.1 Maritime Commission Advertisement 100 2.2 Parading L ongshoremen 102 2.3 Joe Ryan and ILA Leaders 111 3.1 History of the Black ILA 116 3.2 “F ashion Plate” Randall 122 3.3 Freeman Everett 125 3.4 Magnolia Beer 146 4.1 John Fowlkes 183 5.1 Democracy vs. Dictatorship 207 5.2 C. H. Chambers 230 5.3 We Cooperate for Mutual Strength 233 5.4 West Coast Style 235 5.5 Anti -CIO Propaganda 247 vii Introduction Drifting Back to Slavery At the International Longshoremen’s Association’s (ILA) annual convention in 1939, Freeman Everett and Reverend Jones, both from black Houston Local 872, spoke in favor of a resolution for the union to adopt an o fficial Funeral Service. Much of the Funeral Service focused on the importance of the labor movement or “organized brotherhood,” which was “the strongest tie on which we may depend to maintain a freeman’s standard of living and to keep our civilization fr om drifting back to slavery.”1 Jones was the official chaplain for Local 872 and had a large role in composing the service. Everett was not only President of that local, the oldest local of the union in Texas, but had also emerged as a leader in the bla ck community of Houston. In the past two years he had joined the executive board of the local branch of the National 1 Proceedings of the 29 th Annual Convention of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast D istrict of the International Longshoremen’s Association, 1939, T331.88 In8, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, 102. 1 Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), had made several speeches to large crowds about the importance of unionism, and had also led the membership drive of the Young Men’s Christian Association. At this convention, Everett and Jones spoke before a crowd of representatives from most of the segregated locals of the Gulf South. The document they presented served both a cer emonial and a pedagogical purpose. When read at graveside it memorialized deceased union members. When used in its abbreviated form it educated incoming union members in the values and purposes of the ILA, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The assembled representatives voted to adopt the “Funeral Service for Local Unions,” endorsing its interpretation of the importance of the labor movement. After this point all incoming members, whether black, white, or Mexican American, would be educated with words written by African American leaders of the union. According to the Funeral Service, the recently departed would earn his eternal reward for protecting the “Rights of Man,” which are “the right to organize for our own protection and the liberty of the press and free speech. These rights are stated in the American Constitution.”2 The authors also credited unions with making “the normal life the proper standard of living and … [placing] that standard within the reach of the working man an d his family.”3 The service ends with the prayer: “Make Thou the Labor Movement Thy means to this Thine end and purpose for our troubled world and lives.”4 2 Ibid., 103. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 105. 2 The language of the Funeral Service is representative of the way that longshoremen of the ILA spoke about themselves and their union. They emphasized the importance of brotherhood in their speeches. They spoke openly and often about Christianity and Christian values. Most importantly, they saw themselves as men fighting for their constitutionally g uaranteed rights, which included access to the “normal standard of living.” Longshoremen often described themselves as family men, and the duty to provide for their families, to fulfill their role as breadwinners, drove many of their wage demands throughout the thirties. As was standard for all AFL unions in the thirties, the ILA limited its membership to American citizens. In so doing, they created a community of members who shared a common identity that potentially obscured their differences. The ILA in Texas in the 1930s was a multiracial union composed of black, white and Mexican American members organized into segregated locals, but all were citizens concerned with protecting their rights and providing for their families. These seemingly common goals could have united them had their understanding of these goals been the same. The words of the Funeral Service indicate that the union was more than a pragmatic association to fight for wages. For some it became a fictive kin network, and for most it se rved as a way to protect citizenship rights. Avowals of brotherhood and demands for civil rights were more than convention rhetoric or public relations; they motivated the actions of ILA members. But a close reading of the actions of ILA members, taken in conjunction with their words, reveals a great divide within the organization. All members attributed a greater purpose to the union, but not the same 3 greater purpose. Race shaped this divide – not simply in that white racism separated people, though it did, but on a deeper level: Men in the three racial groups lived in segregated worlds and experienced American citizenship differently. Their distinct experiences shaped separate conceptualizations of the labor movement. 5 This dissertation explores the multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings that longshoremen assigned to the labor movement. It focuses on their divergent experiences and understandings of citizenship, masculinity, and class. The ILA became an interracial organization in Texas in th e 1910s when white Local 1273 joined the black Local 872 and the two created a system to maintain their segregated locals but share all work evenly. My dissertation examines the union and its race relations twenty years later when the initial excitement of forming an interracial union had long sin ce vanished. While other authors have addressed the reasons why blacks and whites chose to work together, this study examines the shape and limitations of interracial cooperation after many years of struggling to work together. The Depression made work more scarce and amplified tensions between the races, particularly over the equitable distribution of work. At the same time, blacks and whites who had two decades of experience working side-by -side faced a new si tuation in the mid -1930s when they decided to incorporate a large number of Mexican Americans.