McLaurin Oral History Interview with John L. LeFlore
[The following transcription was made from taped interviews with John L. LeFlore, 1970-1972. The tapes are part of the Melton McLaurin Collection at The McCall Library.]
Dr. McLaurin: This particular recording session is dated August 7, 1970. Students listening to the tape might refer to the document in the NAACP papers dated May 25, 1940, for the subject matter of this tape.
Ms. LaVorne: Mr. Leflore, today we would like you to discuss efforts, especially during the World War II years, to upgrade employment opportunities for blacks in the Mobile area. We understand that significant steps toward this goal were taken in several areas including railway, ship-lines, the shipyard, and vocational schools. Could you possibly begin your comments with the Eddie Teague case and other railway cases.
Mr. Leflore: Thank you Miss LaVorne. Before making commentary about the Teague case, perhaps I should attempt to give you a background that led up to the Eddie Teague case. Up until World War I, when the federal government took over the railroads, there was very substantial wage differential between black and white firemen, as an example, black and white brakemen, and in other bi-racial categories in the operating department of the railroads. That was South-wide, and of course most of the employment on the railroads for blacks was in the South. The railroads perhaps made substantial profits at the expense of black workers because they were lower paid for the same work. During World War I, the federal government took over the railroads. President Wilson appointed his son-in-law at that time, William Gibb Macadoo, as director general of the railroads. Of course the federal authorities could not very well say it was palatable to have a differential in the wage scales of white and black workers doing the same work. So, the federal government equalized the wages of white and black firemen, white and black brakemen.
Now it is interesting to note that up until this was done and for a few years afterwards,
white locomotive fireman 鈥� and you had steam locomotives in that day 鈥� and man had
to use shovels in order to, well we won't say stroke coal, in order to put coal into
the firebox of the locomotive, and it was rather back bending work, it was a laborious
job, so very few white men wanted that kind of work. In order to appeal to the ego
of whites doing that sort of labor, and at the same time to give them a chance for
advancement, they were known, a white fireman was known as an apprentice engineman,
which meant that they would step up to the position of engineer. But black firemen
were forever circumscribed to the back bending work of putting coal, shoveling coal
into the boiler of the locomotive. White brakemen were known as apprentice conductors.
So there was a differential in the wage scale, and the railroads found it of course
more convenient to use a large number of blacks than whites. However, with the change
brought on by the federal government, in 1918, I think it was, either 1917 or '18,
at the time the federal government had control of the railroads, whereby that the
wage structure was equalized. It appears that the railroads lost interest in the protection
of black workers in these jobs. During the post World War I period, the Brotherhood
of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, which is still a very powerful labor organization,
and the railroads in the South, apparently conspired to have what was known as the
South-Eastern Carriers Agreement. This agreement between the railroads and the Brotherhood
of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (and incidentally, this particular union at that
time catered primarily to white firemen), the agreement was that 51 percent of the
men on each division would be white, thereby giving the whites the voting power to
direct the employment policies of the railroads in whatever direction and toward whatever
objective they saw fit. And of course the objective was, it was later revealed, to
run the blacks off the roads.
The salaries were decent, perhaps they were about the best paying jobs that the ordinary black man could secure back in that day. And a systematic effort was devised by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen to have the railroads, in the operating departments especially, and in the skilled job areas, strictly white. The campaign was very successfully carried out. There was terror, there was violence involved, especially in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana [where] black firemen were shot down at night whenever the locomotives would stop at water spouts, as they called them (that was a colloquial expression)鈥�. It was necessary for the fireman in that day to crawl on the back of his tank and with the use of a light to put the spout over the opening in the tank, and of course, for the purpose of filling the tank with water. Any number of black firemen were shot down as they went through this performance of their responsibilities. Many of them died. It is a part, as we said, of a reign of terror correlated with the overall conspiracy to drive black men from the railroads. The railroads of course did give their support to what the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was doing. They began disregarding the seniority of black firemen and black brakemen, and the situation became so tragic for the black man that very few of the railroads had black men in regular trained operations positions at the time that the Ed Teague case was developed.
It was a matter of desperation that drove the black firemen together and they formed an organization in Jackson, Tennessee, for the purpose of fighting this sort of thing, realizing they had nothing to lose and all to gain. They came down to Mobile, Alabama, to confer with those of us who were heading the NAACP at that time. It so happened that we attempted to get a conference with the person who is now president of the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad, Mr. G.P. Brock, who was at that time in charge of operations for the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad. Of course, subsequent to this occasion, the Gulf, Mobile and Northern and the Mobile and Ohio merged to form what is now known as the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Mr. Brock refused to grant the conference on the grounds that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen represented the firemen although no black fireman could join the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, and it was the union that was driving the black firemen, black men, off the railroads. An appeal was directed to the then president of the GM&N, Mr. I.W Tigret, at Jackson, Tennessee, which was Mr. Tigret's headquarters. Mr. Tigret directed Mr. Brock to hold the conference with the representatives of the black union at that time, and those of us who represented the NAACP. No satisfactory solution was found [or] was offered by the railroad to the plight of black firemen, and it was decided by the firemen and us to go to court. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York was then a part of the overall NAACP. A very brilliant constitutional lawyer, Charles H. Houston, headed the battery of able attorneys who were going to challenge, who did challenge the right of the railroad and the white union to run blacks off the roads without any regard for their seniority or their right to work. During the process of preparing the hearing it was decided to change cases and the Ed Teague case was dropped and instead the case of a black fireman connected with the Norfolk and Southern Railway by the name of Tunstall was substituted. And this case was styled as Tunstall v. Norfolk and Southern Railway.
This particular case went to the United States Supreme Court, and the court, in a landmark ruling, decreed that Negro or black firemen seniority was inviolable, that the railroads had no right to disregard the seniority, that these men were entitled to jobs on the basis of the number of years they had been in the employ of the carrier, of a particular carrier, and that no agreement made between a given railroad and the union could supersede the railroad's responsibility to respect the seniority of its employees regardless of race, color, or creed. It was a most significant victory, and it was one which enabled black men to regain their seniority and permitted others to become employees of the railroads. This sort of program continued effective until there were new avenues of employment opening to blacks and a decline in the interest of blacks to become connected with the various rail carriers in the South, and of course in view of a change because of new laws, we would say throughout the nation. Blacks today do not hold, it appears in the employment, that blacks today have the same desire to become employees of railroads as they did a decade or so ago. As we have mentioned, this is due primarily to the fact that there are other avenues of employment to blacks that would equal or surpass the wage opportunity, of the wage potential, that one would find with the railroads.
There was still a new discrimination in the matter of employment opportunity for blacks in recent years. As an example, a black train porter by the name of Eugene Johnson of Montgomery was recently put into a job as a bridge tender, the first of his race, because of efforts on our part in view of the fact that this man was completely cut out of service when the railroads began cutting back on passenger trains a few years ago and the porters were the first terminated. There was no substitute job offered to porters by the railroads. In most every other category of employment, when employees were cut out of their jobs because of a cut back in service, there were new jobs opened for them on a basis of seniority. But this was not true of the train porters and Eugene Johnson was left on the streets of Montgomery without employment despite more than twenty years of service with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. We urged him to apply for a brakeman's position with the L&N and this was done, and it was quite obvious that Mr. Johnson was overlooked primarily because of race or color. In view of that particular circumstance, we filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging this carrier with racial discrimination and violation of Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In addition to that we filed a complaint with the proper federal authorities in connection with contract compliance and we charged this carrier with violating executive order 11246. The matter was finally settled and Eugene Johnson became the first bridge tender in the employment of the L&N Railroad in at least the last forty or fifty years.
It was because of this and other cases that we, and perhaps some other people may have, presented to proper federal authorities that the railroads in this section have begun to open new employment opportunities to blacks, primarily young and middle class blacks. As an example, it was found in [a] conference held the other day with proper federal authorities, that nine of fourteen switchmen employed during a given period by a certain rail carrier in this area happened to be black. Other carriers have called on our office and other offices for black employees. There remains and continues a steady decline in the [number] of blacks who have regular runs on the railroads operating in and out of this area. The same holds true, we understand, in other sections of the South. Young blacks today are not as inclined, they're not as enchanted, with railroad employment as their forbearers were of thirty or forty of fifty years ago. Of course, you know, it is well known that the legendary song of 鈥淐asey Jones鈥� involves a black firemen in that particular wreck. Today only a few black firemen remain on the railroads. This is not so much because of rigid barriers that may be found against their employment today, but is because very few blacks have a desire to become railroad employees in the operating department of the various rail carriers in the Deep South.
Ms. LaVorne: In relation to Thurgood Marshall's telegram of May 26, 1943, would you like to discuss efforts to obtain better positions for blacks in the shipyard at Brookley, as the war industry became a major part of the Mobile economy. You may wish to refer to the riot of May 25, 1943.
Mr. Leflore: Thank you Ms. LaVorne. I remember quite vividly the situation which produced that riot. The vast majority of the white employees of the shipyard came from the rural areas of Alabama and Mississippi. And the people were very definitely of a type who lived under the influence of the Dred Scott decision of 1857, that black people had no right which whites were bound to respect. It was their intention to keep blacks in the most menial jobs possible at the shipyard. At that time, the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company here was building a number of ships for the federal government. In addition, the company maintained its repair yard. Employment at this shipyard at one time totaled more than 26,000 we understand. It was actually the major industry of the Mobile area. The whites, as we mentioned, who were in employment there, desired that blacks would hold the most menial jobs. As a consequence, when we were able to get what was then the War Manpower Commission to put a welding school at the foot of Government Street for the purpose of training black men for welding jobs, there was strong opposition to the effort. We pushed it, we persevered, and the school was finally located there. Many of the men who finished the welding course went to work at the Sun Shipbuilding Company at Chester, Pennsylvania, and we sought employment for, and did finally get approval through the Fair Employment Practices Committee, for blacks to go into Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company in skilled capacities