African americans in the american west
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- BLACK PORTLAND WOMEN AND POST-WAR DISCRIMINATION
- LAS VEGAS: THE "MISSISSIPPI OF THE WEST"
- CHAPTER NINE: The Civil Rights Movement in the West
- An Early Civil Rights Victory in New Mexico
- The Katz Drug Store Sit In, 1958
- Marquette Frye: From Wyoming to Watts
- Oregonians React to the Death of Martin Luther King
- SEGREGATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE WEST, 1950
- Arizona
- Oklahoma
- Colorado California
- ADA LOIS SIPUEL FISHER AND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
- GEORGE McLAURIN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
PORT CHICAGO The Port Chicago Naval Base, completed in 1942 and located about thirty-five miles northeast of San Francisco, quickly became the major west coast facility for the loading of ammunition for the Pacific Theater. Almost from the beginning of the base, African American naval personnel were the majority of the workforce. On the evening of July 17, 1944, about half of the black stevedores stationed at the facility were loading two ships, the Quinalt Victory and E.A. Bryan when an explosion, the equivalent of a small earthquake, destroyed the ships and dock and leveled the nearby town of Port Chicago. Three hundred twenty men, 202 of them African American, were killed instantly in the explosion. The black sailors killed and wounded at Port Chicago accounted for 15% of all African American naval casualties during World War II. Following the explosion 50 black sailors were put on trial for mutiny when they refused to resume loading the ammunition. The following account, eyewitness Cyril Sheppard, an enlisted man in the barracks during the explosion, describes the first moments of the tragedy. I was sitting on the toilet--I was reading a letter from home. Suddenly there were two explosions. The first one knocked me clean off... I found myself flying toward the wall. I just threw my hands up like this, then I hit the wall. Then the next one came right behind that, Phoom! Knocked me back on the other side. Men were screaming, the lights went out and glass was flying all over the place. I gout out to the door. Everybody was... that thing had...the whole building was turned around, caving in. We were a mile and a half away from the ships. And so the first thing that came to my mind, I said, 'Jesus Christ, the Japs have hit!' I could have sworn they were out there pounding us with warships or bombing us or something. But one of the officers was shouting, 'It's the ships! It's the ships! So we jumped into one of the trucks and we said let's go down there to see if we can help. We got halfway down there on the truck and stopped. Guys were shouting at the driver, go on down, What the hell are you staying up here for? The driver says, 'Can't go no farther.' See, there wasn't no more docks. Wasn't no railroad. Wasn't no ships. And the water just came right up to...all the way back. The driver couldn't go no farther. Just calm and peaceful. I didn't even see any smoke." Source: Robert L. Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny: The Story of the Largest Mass Mutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History (New York: Amistad Press, 1993), p. 58. BLACK PORTLAND WOMEN AND POST-WAR DISCRIMINATION In the following account historian Amy Kesselman describes the difficulties African American women faced when the Portland-Vancouver shipyards closed immediately after World War II. Among the women who had most difficulty adjusting to reconversion were black women and women in the higher age brackets (over thirty-five). In her study of women wage earners in four cities, Lois Helmbold demonstrated that during the Depression younger women who were black and/or over thirty-five were displaced by younger, white workers. During the war older women moved back into the work force, and black women of all ages moved from domestic and service work to industrial work. In the reconversion period, these women...confronted the restoration of prewar conditions. About half of the black population left the Portland-Vancouver area after the war, and those that remained faced widespread discrimination by employers and unions. The United States Employment Service (USES) did not force employers to hire black workers, because employers threatened to find workers elsewhere. USES officials concluded that it was "unwise and the wrong approach to attempt to force employers to hired colored workers against their will" after thirty firms stopped using USES during the war when they were pressured to hire black workers. Members of the Portland chapter of the Urban League, which had been established during the war, thought that USES workers themselves lacked "racial tolerance" and were not doing enough to change the policies of local industries. Portland, according to Urban League members, was the most bigoted city on the West Coast. Black women, of course, faced double discrimination. Only two Portland area manufacturing establishments registered with the USES would employ black women: a garment factory and a bag factory that operated two segregated buildings, one for white workers and the other for black workers. The Urban League tried to improve employment prospects for black workers by pressuring unions and employers to end discriminatory practices and by reluctantly acting as an employment agency for black workers. Black women seeking the help of the USES or the Urban League were often urged to take work in domestic service, which "most of them are reluctant to do...because they object to the wage scales and the working conditions." According to the USES, many of the black women looking for work were married and unable to live at their place of employment, a requirement for many domestic jobs. Margaret Kay Anderson, field secretary for the Women's Bureau reported that "many of the colored women who worked during the war are out of the labor market because they had no intention of working when the war was over." She did not explain how the USES knew that these women had been planning to retire from the work force and were not discouraged by the limited opportunities for black women workers... Despite efforts to find alternatives, two of the three black women worked as domestics in the postwar period. Audrey Moore, who was the sole support of her child, reported having difficulty finding jobs--a difficulty compounded by being female and black, and by not having a high-school education. Housecleaning, poultry work, and seasonal cannery work were all she could find. Marie Merchant cleaned Pullman cars for a while and then did domestic work for private families. Beatrice Marshall...who had been trained as a machinist but was a victim of racial discrimination in the shipyards, worked at the bag factory until it closed in 1946, when she got a job as a page in the public library...
Contemporary observers tended to explain local racism as an import from the Deep South. Relations between blacks and whites in southern Nevada, however, actually followed the same cycle of accommodation and conflict that characterized earlier frontiers in the United States. Minorities had traditionally encountered less hostility on relatively new and open frontiers, but as each new West became more crowded, tensions between ethnic and racial groups increased. Whites were more likely to invoke prejudices as frontier societies grew more complex and competitive.... All across the American West, blacks, Indians, Latinos, Asians, and other minority peoples had been relegated consistently to less rewarding jobs and less desirable lands once whites began to crowd into frontier regions. Blacks suffered something of the same fate in Las Vegas during the mid-twentieth century. Blacks coexisted relatively easily with whites in southern Nevada from the founding of the railroad town in 1905 until whites began to throng to the boom town of the 1940s. A quite small percentage of the population before World War II, blacks resided not in a sharply defined district of their own but rather in close proximity to whites in downtown Las Vegas during the 1920s and 1930s. The relative harmony broke down briefly in the early 1930s when blacks began to compete for jobs on Boulder Dam, but after completion of the project relations returned to normal until the tremendous influx of both whites and blacks during the Second World War. Blacks generally lost the ensuing competition for the best jobs and more comfortable housing. Whites, faced with more blacks than ever before, increasingly practiced policies of discrimination and segregation that cemented the plainly subordinate status of the minority. When blacks and whites kept arriving in southern Nevada after the war, amid fears of economic slump and housing shortages, whites continued to restrict their minority to the less rewarding jobs and the most run-down residential district. By 1950 Las Vegas had become a tightly segregated city.... Blacks remained concentrated in an area that was so impoverished that in 1965 it became one of the very first targets of VISTA, the Great Society's domestic Peace Corps program. At the same time that they confined the minority to Westside residences, whites closed off the resort city to blacks by erecting rigid racial barriers that earned the city comparison to the Deep South. Downtown and Strip establishments generally did not admit black patrons until the late 1950s and early 1960s, so black Las Vegans had to gamble at their own clubs in Westside. Black entertainers like Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis, Jr., when they were permitted to stay in Strip hotels at which they were performing, were sometimes discouraged from mingling with whites or having black friends accompany them on the grounds. Segregation was extended to other public places as well, including theaters, restaurants, swimming pools, and schools. * * * The prospects for black Las Vegans began to brighten during the late 1950s and early 1960s at the same time that conditions improved around the country. The quality of life in Westside started to change in 1955 as banks began to lend money to black homeowners and government agencies invested additional funds for rebuilding the run-down district. The coincidental opening of the first interracial hotel, the short-lived Moulin Rouge, indicated a growing interest in black tourists as well. Even greater strides were made, however, once Las Vegans realized that their racial policies tarnished the image of the city in the eyes of a county that was increasingly responsive to demands for civil rights. Exclusionary policies no longer seemed appropriate for a city hoping to be regarded as cosmopolitan. Las Vegans, who had previously been largely unmoved by protests organized by civil rights activists, were much more sensitive to the possible repercussions of a demonstration scheduled for March 1960, by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Major hotels and casinos averted the protest, and the certain bad publicity, by agreeing to desegregate facilities quickly. Conditions for blacks did not improve overnight in Las Vegas, as evidenced by riots that rocked Westside in 1969, but positive changes had been started. Racial barriers would not be permitted to stand in the way of the continuing boom in southern Nevada. Source: John Findlay, People of Chance: Gambling in American Society from Jamestown to Las Vegas (New York, 1986), pp. 189-191. CHAPTER NINE: The Civil Rights Movement in the West Most Americans typically identify the black civil rights movement of the 1960s with the states of the South. This chapter, however, will explore the movement's ramifications in the West. The first vignette, Segregation in Public Schools in the West, is actually a table that shows the extent of school integration in the region before 1954. A remarkable direct-action campaign against racial discrimination by the students of the University of New Mexico in 1947 is described in An Early Civil Rights Victory in New Mexico. The next vignette, School Desegregation: The Arizona Victory, 1953, shows the prelude to the famous Brown Case. The decision in that landmark case appears in the next vignette, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. The sit-ins come to the West fairly early. Those efforts in Oklahoma City are outlined in Sit-Ins: The Oklahoma City Campaign, 1960, The Katz Drug Store Sit In, 1958, and Charlton Heston Protests in Oklahoma City. The Sit-In Movement Comes to Houston, and The Movement in San Antonio describe similar protests in Texas cities. The Watts uprising is described in the next two vignettes, The End of Non-Violence: The Watts Riot and Marquette Frye: From Wyoming to Watts. The rise of Black Militancy in the West is detailed in Black Omaha: From Non-Violence to Black Power, The Black Panther Party, Angela Davis on Black Men and the Movement, and The University of Washington Black Student Union. Finally, Oregonians React to the Death of Martin Luther King, shows the response in this state to the changing goals of "the movement." Terms for Week Nine: Phoenix Union High School Case, 1953 Thurgood Marshall Linda Brown Clara Luper, Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council. Central Area Civil Rights Committee Rev. John H. Adams Rev. Samuel McKinney Tracy Simms Tom Bradley Marquette Frye Jackson Street Community Council Ernest Chambers Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party Ron Karenga, US Angela Davis Elaine Brown COINTELPRO Aaron Dixon Walter Hundley Larry Gossett SEGREGATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE WEST, 1950 Most students of the civil rights era assume that public school segregation was a distinctly Southern occurrence. As the table below illustrates, school segregation extended into the West as well. Indeed it was a nationwide practice before the Brown decision. The table below lists the status of school segregation in all forty-eight states. I have highlighted the states of the West to show where each stood on the question of separation of pupils solely on the basis of race. _____________________________________________________ Segregation Permitted Segregation Required in Various Degrees _____________________________________________________ Alabama Arizona Arkansas Wyoming Delaware Kansas District of Columbia New Mexico Florida Georgia
Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi North Carolina
South Carolina Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia ______________________________________________________ Segregation Prohibited No Legislation ______________________________________________________ Colorado California Connecticut Maine Idaho Montana Illinois Nebraska Indiana Nevada Iowa New Hampshire Massachusetts North Dakota Michigan Oregon New Jersey South Dakota New York Utah Ohio Vermont Pennsylvania Rhode Island
Wisconsin Source: Carl E. Jackson and Emory J. Tolbert, ed., Race and Culture in America: Readings in Racial and Ethnic Relations, (Edina, Minn., 1989), p. 106 ADA LOIS SIPUEL FISHER AND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT The following is Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher's account of her entrance into the University of Oklahoma by order of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1949. It was a cold day, but one of crystalline purity. There I was, a preacher’s daughter from Little Chickasha, Oklahoma, climbing the steps of the United States Supreme Court building. My eyes caught the words “Equal Justice under Law.” Amos Hall, Thurgood Marshall, and I entered the building ahead of schedule. We walked down the wide corridor, its way marked with uniformed military personnel standing at attention at spaced intervals. Finally we came to the Court’s chamber. The awesome sight seemed a fitting end of a journey two years in the making. The chamber had plush carpet and carved, heavily padded pews for spectators. The Court’s sergeant-at-arms sat in a high chair facing the audience. Behind him was the judge’s bar, beautifully carved and long enough to accommodate nine large, overstuffed leather chairs, one for each of the nine justices. Behind the chairs was a heavy velvet curtain. The bailiff announced the imminent appearance of the justices, and everyone stood. The judges then stepped through the nine slits in the curtain. I was thrilled. I recognized a few of them from photos that I had seen. The real thrill came from my sense that this August body was assembled that morning because of me--to recognize and affirm my rights of citizenship... As had been true at the state supreme court, the judges were free to interrupt counsel for either side at any point. This time, however, it was the state’s counsel that was being interrupted. Marshall carefully presented his argument with scarcely an interruption. I believed that only one decision was plausible: my immediate admission to the University of Oklahoma. That seemed the only way Oklahoma could comply with the United States Constitution. Attorneys Hansen and Merrill had a much harder and slower go of it. The state attorneys reiterated their position concerning out-of-state tuition and my failure to give the board of regents notice of my desire to study law within the state. They also spoke of the Oklahoma law prohibiting whites and blacks from attending classes together. Various justices cut in on the arguments with rather pointed questions that seemed to indicate they were leaning in my direction. At least as important as the questions’ wording was their tone, a tone that ran all the way from incredulity to frustration with Oklahoma’s position. Justice William O. Douglas cut in on Merrill’s and Hansen’s point about the lack of prior notification to observe that I had attempted to enroll on January 14, 1946, and filed suit almost two years ago. Douglas opined that would appear to be clear notice. He said that at the rate the state was moving I would be an old lady before I would be able to practice law. Justice Robert Jackson wanted to know why, after two years, Oklahoma had made no effort to do anything about the problem. Justice Hugo Black also specifically wanted to know whether the regents had taken any action to satisfy my effort. Hansen had no direct response, saying only that the regents had no money to set up any other law school, adding that they believed I would refuse to accept a segregated law school. Justice Felix Frankfurter systematically explored various alternatives and asked whether the state would admit me for the term beginning in a few days if the Court mandated it to do so. Hansen answered yes, if necessary, although he added that doing so would violate the laws of Oklahoma. Frankfurter then asked if a separate course of study could be arranged within the existing law school. Hansen answered that it could. Could I be admitted temporarily pending the establishment of a separate law school? Hansen said that the Oklahoma Board of Regents for Higher Education had authority to do any or all of those things. Justice Robert Jackson interrupted to ask if counsel really believed that a school with a single student could afford an acceptable legal education. Merrill answered yes. Justice Jackson disagreed. He said such foolishness was neither reasonable nor equitable. Dean Merrill noted that Oklahoma was one of many states with a public policy of segregation. He reminded the Court that for decades rulings had upheld that arrangement. Now, he told the Court, plaintiff is unwilling to recognize that settled policy. He was right on that. Justice Jackson asked why I should be required to abide by a given policy more than any other person. Should I, he asked, be required to waive my constitutional rights for the benefit of the state’s public policy? They were good questions--great questions, it seemed to me. They were exactly the questions that every other court and public official had ignored. This time, this Court asked them. Only four days after the hearing, the Court issued a terse one-page, unsigned unanimous order. With OU’s second semester’s enrollment to begin in exactly one week, the judgment was that I was “entitled to secure legal education afforded by a state institution.” The Court ordered that Oklahoma “provide it for her in conformity with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and provide it as soon as it does for applicants of any other group.”... Source: Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, A Matter of Black and White; The Autobiography of Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher (Norman, 1996), pp. 119-122. GEORGE McLAURIN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA George McLaurin, who entered the graduate program at the University of Oklahoma in 1948 was the first African American student to attend the university. Here below is a brief account of his initial days at the institution. George McLaurin officially enrolled in four graduate education courses on October 13, 1948. At the time, the College of Education used several classrooms in the old Carnegie Building. All of McLaurin’s classes were assigned to the same one: room 104. The scheduling was no accident. The large lecture room had a little anteroom (Marshall later termed it a “broom closet”) off to its north side. Separated from the remainder of the room by columns, the anteroom allowed an occupant to peer out at a forty-five-degree angle to see the front of the room and the blackboard. Thus the choice. It was under such surreal and humiliating conditions that George W. McLaurin became the First African American to attend the University of Oklahoma. By the end of the year about twenty others had also enrolled. All of them were completely segregated within the university. They had designated sitting areas in the classrooms and the library. They entered the cafeteria by a side door and sat at folding tables set up in a corner away from other diners, surrounded by a heavy iron chain, and manned by an armed guard. McLaurin, a senior citizen when he entered, left the university at the end of his second semester because of unsatisfactory grades. His age and the humiliation he suffered probably affected his performance...
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