Federal Policy and the Racial Integration of Southern Industry, 1961–1980

Journal of Policy History

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 147-178

  Minchin, Timothy J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84883914335     PISSN: 08980306     EISSN: 15284190     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0898030600003183     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. For an overview of the literature concerning the federal government's relationship with the civil rights movement, see Adam Fairclough, “Historians and the Civil Rights Movement,”Journal 0/American Studies 24 (December 1990): 387-98, esp. 395-96.
2. On the evolution and 17, 1961-1980 implementation of federal civil rights policy, Hugh Davis Graham, The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972 (New York, 1990), is indispensable. For the federal government's involvement in voting rights
3. see Steven F. Lawson, Black Ballots: VotingRights in the South, 1944-1969 (New York, 1976), esp. 342-46, and
4. In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965-1982 (New York, 1985).
5. For a critical account of the federal government's failure to act on the issue of racial violence, see Michael R. Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (Athens, Ga. 1987).
6. For the negative impact of federal agricultural and welfare policies, see James C. Cobb, ‘“Somebody Done Nailed Us on the Cross': Federal Farm and Welfare Policy and the Civil Rights Movement in the Mississippi Delta,” Journal of American History 77 (December 1990): 912-36, and
7. James C. Cobb, The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional identity (New York, 1992), esp. 230-76.
8. The federal government's failure to act on the civil rights issue is highlighted in John Dittmer, “The Politics of the Mississippi Movement, 1954-1964,” in Charles W. Eagles, ed. The Civil Rights Movement in America (Jackson, Miss. 1986), 65-93.
9. Other useful books that explore the federal government's involvement in civil rights include: Donald G. Nieman, Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present (New York, 1991), and
10. Frederick M. Wirt, “We Ain’t What We Was”: Civil Rights in the New South (Durham, N.C. 1997).
11. David Zarefsky, President Johnson's War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History (Tuscaloosa, Ala. 1986), x.
12. For the current pessimistic climate, see Hugh Davis Graham, “Race, History, and Policy: African Americans and Civil Rights Since 1964,” in Hugh Davis Graham, ed. Civil Rights in the United States (University Park, Pa. 1994), 12-39, esp. 31-35 (quotes on pp. 31 and 35).
13. Pessimistic overall assessments include Alphonso Pinkney, The Myth of Black Progress (Cambridge, 1984)
14. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago, 1987).
15. Historians have tended to concentrate on studies of civil rights protest and protest organizations, especially in the period of classic activism, 1955 to 1965. This point is explored in Robert J. Norrell, “One Thing We Did Right: Reflections on the Movement,” in Armstead L. Robinson and Patricia Sullivan, eds. New Directions in Civil Rights Studies (Charlottesville, Va. 1991), 65-80, esp. 65-67.
16. Examples of the concentration on protest are numerous, but include: Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (New York, 1987)
17. Adam Fairclough, To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens, Ga. 1987)
18. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass. 1981).
19. The neglect of the economic aspects of the civil rights era is highlighted in Gavin Wright, “Economic Consequences of the Southern Protest Movement,” in Robinson and Sullivan, New Directions, 175–83.
20. On the integration of the southern textile industry, Mary Frederickson provides a good overview in “Four Decades of Change: Black Workers in Southern Textiles, 1941-1981,” in James Green, ed. Workers' Struggles, Past and Present: A ‘Radical America’ Reader (Philadelphia, 1983), 62-82.
21. Two oral history collections also contain some excellent material on black textile workers: Victoria Byerly, Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls: Personal Histories of Womanhood and Poverty in the South (Ithaca, N.Y. 1986), 125-60
22. Mimi Conway, Rise, Gonna Rise: A Portrait of SouthernTextile Workers (Garden City, N.Y. 1979), 90-128.
23. There has been little historical writing on the paper industry, and the only study of black employment in the industry is Herbert R. Northrup, “The Negro in the Paper Industry,” in Herbert R. Northrup, Richard L. Rowan, Darold T. Barnum, and John C. Howard, Negro Employment in Southern Industry: A Study of Racial Policies in Five Industries (Philadelphia, 1970).
24. Some of the issues raised in this article are treated in greater detail in Timothy J. Minchin, Hiring the Black: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960-1980 (Chapel Hill, N.C. forthcoming).
25. “Negro Employment in the Textile Industry,” ATMI Press Release, April 1969, in Folder 39, Box 12, Wharton School Papers, held at the University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania, hereafter cited as “Wharton School Papers”
26. Defendant's Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, dated 1975, Adams v. Dan River Mills, p. 9, U.S. District Court Records held at the Federal Records Center in Philadelphia, hereafter cited as “FRC-Philadelphia”
27. Textile Hi-Lights, December 1971, 3, June 1978, 3
28. Frederickson, “Four Decades of Change,’’ 62.
29. Textile Hi-Lights, April-June 1965, 4, December 1973, 1, 3
30. “Textile Production in South Soars,” Greensboro Daily News, 17 April 1963
31. clipping in “Textile Industry Background Data,” folder, Box 7, Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union-North Carolina Joint Board Papers, held at the Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, hereafter cited as “ACTWU-NCJB Papers”
32. EEOC Press Release, 14 December 1966, copy in Series 3, Box 316, Textile Workers' Union of America (TWUA) Papers, held at the State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, hereafter cited as “TWUA Papers”
33. Phyllis A. Wallace and Maria P. Beckles, “1966 Employment Survey in the Textile Industry of the Carolinas,” EEOC Research Report 1966-11, 19 December 1966, copy in Series 3, Box 316, TWUA Papers, 1.
34. Northrup, “The Negro in the Paper Industry,” 11, 14–15, 17.
35. Adrienne Eaton and Jill Kriesky, “Collective Bargaining in the Paper Industry: Developments Since 1979,” in Paula Voos, ed. Contemporary Collective Bargaining in the Private Sector (Madison, Wis. 1994), 30-31
36. Northrup, “The Negro in the Paper Industry,” 22–25
37. James A. Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy and the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1933-1941 (Knoxville, Tenn. 1986), 32-34.
38. Richard L. Rowan, “The Negro in the Textile Industry,” in Northrup et al. Negro Employment in Southern Industry, 54.
39. Quotation comes from Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, James Leloudis, Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, Lu Ann Jones, and Christopher P. Daly, Like A Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1987), 66.
40. For the exclusion of black women from southern industries before 1965, see James C. Cobb, The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development (Baton Rouge, La.), 119.
41. Richard P. Nathan, Jobs and Civil Rights: The Role of the Federal Government tn PromotingEqual Opportunity in Employment and Training (Washington D.C. 1969), 13-16.
42. For an exploration of these differences, see Timothy J. Minchin, “‘Color Means Something’.· Black Pioneers, White Resistance, and Interracial Unionism in the Southern Textile Industry, 1957-1980,” Labor History 39 (June 1998): 143-67.
43. Leroy Hamilton interview with author on 25 July 1997 in Woodbine, Georgia. For other black workers who expressed similar views, see, for example, Deposition of Ulysses Banks, 30 June 1971
44. Boles v. Union Camp, p. 51, U.S. District Court Records held at the Federal Records Center in East Point, Georgia
45. Deposition of Edward Cox, 20 May 1977, Garrett v. Weyerhauser, pp. 17, 35, FRC-East Point. 1961-1980
46. Richard J. Butler, James J. Heckman, and Brook Payner, “The Impact of the Economy and the State on the Economic Status of Blacks: A Study of South Carolina,” in David W. Galenson, ed. Markets in History: Economic Studies of the Past (Cambridge, 1989), 231-346, esp. 239-40, 328-29.
47. Phyllis A. Wallace and Maria P. Beckles, “1966 Employment Survey in the Textile Industry of the Carolinas,” EEOC Research Report 1966-11, 19 December 1966, copy in Series 3, Box 316, TWUA Papers, pp. 13–17.
48. “The Textile Industry and Negroes in Western South Carolina,” Reel 163, Southern Regional Council Papers, p. 4, held on microfilm at the National Archives-Manuscripts Division in Washington, D.C. hereafter cited as “Southern Regional Council Papers.”
49. George C. Waldrep interview with author on 24 July 1995 in Summerfield, North Carolina; Uniroyal Plant Visit, June 1969, Folder 18, Box 13, Wharton School Papers. For other examples of the view expressed during the Uniroyal visit, see, for example, Fulton Cotton Mills Plant Visit, 3 June 1969, Folder 18, Box 13, Wharton School Papers.
50. “Textiles: Blacks in the Mills,” Newsweek, 2 November 1970, 50.
51. Trial remarks of Jim Youngdahl, 7 February 1972, Rogers v. International Paper, pp. 24- 25, FRC-Fort Worth; “3 Unions, Paper Firm Enter Landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement to Increase Negro Job Opportunities,” Labor Press Service, 12 August 1968, Folder 74, Box 19, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Papers, held at the George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Maryland, hereafter cited as “AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Papers”; G. S. Young to R. M. Hendricks, 16 December 1969, filed as Exhibit 7, Gantlin v. Westvaco, FRC-East Point.
52. Edward C. Sylvester to Ralph W. Kittle, 20 May 1968, Folder 35, Box 45, Wharton School Papers
53. Ward McCreedy to Ralph W. Kittle, 28 June 1968, Folder 35, Box 45, Wharton School Papers.
54. For evidence of companies who copied the Jackson agreement, see Deposition of Henry J. Smith, 24 January 1972, Roberts v. St Regis Paper, p. 21, FRC-East Point
55. Joint Pretrial Document, 24 October 1972, Suggs v. Container Corporation, pp. 4–5, FRC-East Point
56. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, 23 August 1979, Watkins v. Scott Paper, p. 21, FRC-East Point.
57. Cobb, The Most Southern Place on Earth, 276.
58. Several press accounts described how the opening up of textile jobs was stemming black out-migration from the Carolinas. See, for example, “Textile Plants Hiring More Blacks,” Charlotte Observer, 17 August 1969, 1, clipping in Folder 46, Box 13, Wharton School Papers
59. “Industry in South Woos Negro Labor,” New York Times, 19 May 1969, 1.
60. Reese Cleghorn, “The Mill: A Giant Step for the Southern Negro,” New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1969, 35
61. “The Mills Are Hiring More Negroes,” Winston-Salem Journal, 26 May 1968, clipping in Folder 58, Box 13, Wharton School Papers
62. Walter N. Rozelle, “The Mill and the Negro: Let's Tell It Like It Is,” Textile Industries 132:11 (November 1968): 70.
63. “Textiles: Blacks in the Mills,” Newsweek, 2 November 1970, 50–51.
64. “Outline for Meetings with Employees,” 24 August 1965, Hill v. Crown-Zellerbach, FRC- Fort Worth
65. “Outline for R. R. Ferguson for Employee Meetings,” 3 December 1965, Hill v. Crown-Zellerbach, FRC-Fort Worth
66. “Outline for R. R. Ferguson for Employee Meetings,” 23 December 1965, Hill v. Crown-Zellerbach, FRC-Fort Worth.
67. “Union Meeting with Union Camp Corporation,” 1 September 1967, Exhibit 13, Boles o. Union Camp, FRC-East Point.
68. For historical work on the way that white workers turned to Wallace, see Robert J. Norrell, “Labor Trouble: George Wallace and Union Politics in Alabama,” in Robert H. Zieger, ed. Organized Labor in the Twentieth-Century South (Knoxville, Tenn. 1991), 250-72
69. Alan Draper, Conflict of Interests: Organized Labor and the Civil Rights Movement in the South, 1954- 1968 (Ithaca, N.Y. 1994), esp. 107-21.
70. Herbert Hill, “Lichtenstein's Fictions: Meany, Reuther, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” New Politics 8 (Summer 1998): 90-91.
71. “Discrimination Suit Settled By Cannon,” Daily News Record, 13 January 1982, clipping in Hicks v Cannon Mills, FRC-East Point.
72. For the support that Nixon gave to the EEOC, see William C. Berman, America's Right Turn: From Nixon to Bush (Baltimore, 1994), 11.
73. For Nixon's broader approach to civil rights and his “Southern Strategy” to capture the support of whites alienated by integration, see Michael A. Genovese, The Nixon Presidency: Power and Politics in Turbulent Times (Westport, Conn. 1990), 81-88
74. Paul Frymer and John David Skrentny, “Coalition-Building and the Politics of Electoral Capture During the Nixon Administration: African Americans, Labor, Latinos,” Studies in American Political Development 12 (Spring 1998): 131-61
75. Dean J. Kotloski, “Nixon's Southern Strategy Revisited,” Journal of Policy History 10:2 (1998): 207-38.
76. Transcript of Trial, 17 July-15 August 1974, Gantlin v. Westvaco, pp. 1290–91, FRC- East Point
77. Deposition of Charles Munn, 19 March 1979, Munn v. Federal Paperboard, p. 79, FRC-East Point
78. Leroy Hamilton interview with author on 25 July 1997 in Woodbine, Georgia.
79. Deposition of Tony Neal Jr. 19 October 1971, Roberts v. St Regis Paper, pp. 126, 128— 29, FRC-East Point.
80. Deposition of Leroy Griffin, 6 February 1978, Garrett v. Weyerhauser, p. 26, FRC-East Point.
81. Deposition of Jason Lewis, 9 November 1983, Winfield v. St Joe Paper, p. 19, CA-Atlanta.
82. The importance of the Hall v. Werthan Bag decision is mentioned, for example, in the major textile class action of Adams v. Dan River Mills. See Plaintiffs' Reply Memorandum, 13 February 1975, Adams v. Dan River Mills, p. 3, FRC-Philadelphia.
83. On the importance of private litigation in enforcing Title VII, see Herbert Hill, “The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Twenty Years Later,” Journal of Intergroup Relations 11 (Winter 1983): 45-46.
84. The legal literature on the development and implementation of Title VII law is extensive. Some of the other more important publications are: Alfred W. Blumrosen, Modern Law: The Law Transmission System and Equal Employment Opportunity (Madison, Wis. 1993)
85. Herbert Hill, “The Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972: A Critical Analysis of the Legislative History and Administration of the Law,” Industrial Relations Law Journal 2 (Spring 1977): 1–96
86. Herbert Hill, “The New Judicial Perception of Employment Discrimination: Litigation Linder Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Colorado Law Review 43 (March 1972): 243-68.
87. “Outline of the Decree Entered by the United States District Court on June 25, 1976,” Sledge v. J. P. Stevens, FRC-East Point; Bennett Taylor interview with author on 9 February 1996 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina; Sammy Alston interview with author on 9 February 1996 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.
88. Memorandum from Project Director to TEAM Aides, 12 July 1968, Reel 163, Southern Regional Council Papers.
89. For the way that litigation led to the abandonment of many discriminatory practices and an increased amount of integration, see, for example, Trial transcript, 10 July 1975, Lewis v. J. P. Stevens, pp. 576–79, FRC-East Point
90. Deposition of Leroy Ellison, 17 August 1972, Ellison v. Rock Hill Printing and Finishing Company, p. 18, FRC-East Point
91. Hearing of 24 February 1976, Sledge v. J. P. Stevens, pp. 92–93, 114, FRC-East Point
92. Deposition of Edward Earl Benson Jr. 22 November 1977, Garrett v. Weyerhauser, p. 28, FRC-East Point
93. R. M. Hendricks to Charles E. Smith, 25 November 1969, filed as Exhibit 85, Gantlin v. Westvaco, FRC-East Point
94. Claim Form of Wilbert D. Sibley, 1 December 1981, Myers v. Gilman Paper, FRC-East Point.
95. Roy Wilkins to John P. Burke, 19 April 1960, Folder 74, Box 19, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Papers.
96. Hill, “Lichtenstein's Fictions,” 83.
97. “Fair Employment Practices in Cone Mills,” 15 May 1961, Box 638, TWUA Papers, pp. 5–6
98. “Recommendations for an Expanded Southern Organizing Program,” 4 June 1970, Box 652, TWUA Papers.
99. Historians have also noted the fact that the influx of blacks into the textile industry encouraged union sentiment. See, for example, Robert H. Zieger, “Textile Workers and Historians,” in Robert H. Zieger, ed. Organized Labor in the Twentieth-Century South (Knoxville, Tenn. 1991), 49-50
100. Mary Frederickson, “Four Decades of Change: Black Workers in Southern Textiles, 1941-1981,” in James Green, ed. Workers' Struggles, Past and Present: A “Radical America“ Reader (Philadelphia, 1983), 62-82.
101. The important work carried out by agencies such as the DSA, OFCC, and GSA is highlighted in the files of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department. These agencies played an important role in solving many complaints of racial discrimination, often pushing companies to make significant concessions in order to avoid litigation. See, for example, “Settlement Agreement,” 3 June 1970, Folder 81, Box 17, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Papers; Conciliation Agreement, 30 August 1967, Folder 59, Box 19, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Papers. For evidence that federal pressure led directly to the integration of facilities, see, for example, Deposition of Walter Russell Owens, 24 October 1977, Garrett v. Weyerhauser,pp. 37-38, FRC-East Point.
102. For both the importance of government policy and complaints of its inconsistency, see Northrup, “The Negro in the Paper Industry,” esp. 117-19.