I’m glad there is now a Black History month. The story of African Americans in the U. S. A. needs to be told and remembered, in the same way the Shoah needs to be told and remembered. Likewise, let us not forget the tragic experience of the Native Americans. To think that the different waves of immigrants were welcomed in our Country is to be oblivious of the facts. You have to be pretty old to remember the signs stating, “Help wanted. Irish need not apply.”
It would do every high school student of U. S. History good to read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the U. S. A.
Since [February] is Black History Month, I will focus on my experience of Black America and my small role in it. My thesis is simple: We all have a role to play and a responsibility, to oppose racism and work for social and economic justice. Great leaders may inspire change, but it is the followers who bring it about. This can be change for the better or worse. Being silent in the face of injustice is to allow it to continue.
As a child coming out of the Great Depression, we lived in a northern Illinois city. My parents lived next to the railroad tracks, about a block from the train station. Across the alley was the old Republic Hotel where many of the Blacks lived. I had no concept of segregation at age five. I did not think it unusual that all the Blacks seemed to live in the same part of town and near the railroad tracks. The house north of us was occupied by an Irish family and that to the south by Italian family. I played with the Black kids across the alley but attended St. Mary’s school, which was all white and mostly Irish. It never occurred to me that being Irish was barely a step above being Black.
World War II came along, and my dad volunteered for the U. S. Navy. Mom, my younger sister, baby brother, and I had to move to northern Pennsylvania to live with her folks. There I attended the public school. This was a small, all white town. It was also all Protestant, except for a few Catholics. There I learned what religious bigotry was all about.
That involved mostly name calling and just being left out. I didn’t understand it, but it didn’t bother me much. My best friends were the neighbor boy and his cousin. His dad bossed a gang of Mexicans pounding spikes on the railroad tracks, and his cousin’s mother was an unwed mother. I guess we were all outcasts. My first job was picking cherries with the migrant workers. We were paid ten cents for a heaping, four-quart basket. I made thirty-to-forty cents a day and thought I was rich.
After the war, we returned to Streator, IL. We had a slightly better home in an all white section of town. I belonged to the YMCA and mingled with the Black kids. Al Jolson had his minstrel shows where white guys would blacken their faces, pretend to be Blacks, and dance and sing. Hardly very complementary. Jack Benny had his Black servant, Rochester. Very amusing. If you looked at the obituaries in the paper, you would assume Black people never died. No wonder Ralph Ellison wrote The Invisible Man. Slowly, I was coming to realize my Black friends were disadvantaged. I resented it.
President Harry S. Truman integrated the Armed Forces. The Korean War was winding down. I quit high school half way through my Senior year and joined the Army. I ended up in the 11 Airborne Division. Arriving at Ft. Campbell, KY, by train from Ft. Bliss, TX, I noticed that the drinking fountains were signed, “Whites only” and “Coloreds.” Looking around, I noticed that the restrooms were labeled the same way. I found it disturbing.
After finishing Jump School, our division was sent to Germany. We had some outstanding Black NCO’s and a few Black officers. Integration was working–sort of. It did not mean the end of racism. Brown and I were having a beer in the Kaserne bowling alley and watching people bowl. A Pfc. was doing the same. A teenaged kid called Kelly a “dirty motherf#*%ing nigger.” Why, we didn’t know; but Kelly politely kicked him in the butt, not hard. The kid’s old man happened to be a Colonel, and his buddy was a Major. Kelly was court martialed. Brown and I testified in Kelly’s defense. The kid and his old man denied calling Kelly a name, as did his buddy. They lied under oath. Kelly was convicted, sentenced to five years in prison, and was issued a dishonorable discharge. Brown and I were astounded! That’s justice!
That was not the end of the matter. Brown and I were charged with perjury, giving false testimony. They wanted to give us a General Court martial. Lucky for us, the General Court turned down their request for “lack of evidence.” Then the Colonel insisted we be given a Special Court martial. He must have been really pissed! The Special Court turned it down for the same reason. Not being a quitter, he demanded we be given a Summary Court martial. We had dodged five years in prison and a DD; we had dodged 90 days in the stockade and a bust to Private 1. A Summary Court could give us a bust and 30 days hard labor. However, the Uniform Code of Military Justice allowed us to refuse a Summary Court and demand a Special Court. We refused. Since the only thing left was company punishment, the Colonel demanded that. Too bad, we rightly refused that. He was pissed, and we had escaped from being thrown out of the Army for telling the truth. I had learned something about Black justice!
I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the news then, but I did read the Stars and Stripes. Headline: “101 Airborne Sent to Little Rock by President Eisenhower to Integrate the Schools.” I thought, how disgraceful! It’s fine if [Blacks] fight for their Country, but their children can’t go to school with the white kids. Why?
Out of the Army and working at East Moline State Hospital, I had many Black friends. I was also majoring in Sociology at St. Ambrose College, under Fr. William T. O’Connor. Fr. Bill had helped the UAW organize unions at J. I. Case, Harvester, and John Deere. He also worked with Charles Toney and the Davenport, IA, chapter of the NAACP. He motivated his students to work for justice; we were known as O’Connorites. St. Ambrose just had opened up enrollment to women but had no Black students. I invited Shirley Early, a cute Black woman who worked at the hospital, to enroll. She could ride to class with me. The college accepted her, and we rode together for a semester. She got tired of “hearing necks snap” as we walked down the campus together.
At that time, the bars in East Moline, IL, were segregated. If I was going out with my Black friends, I had to go to a Black bar. One night after work, Mark Dourghty and I decided to stop for a beer, only this time we walked into a white bar. The place would sell Blacks packaged beer, etc., but they were not allowed to sit at the bar. It was late. There was only one customer in the place, who was sitting clear at the end talking to the bartender. The bartender totally ignored us, as if we didn’t exist, although he saw us come in and sit down at the bar. Finally, he walked down and asked us what we wanted. We said we wanted a glass of draft. Slowly he drew one glass of draft and set it in front of Mark saying, “Nigger, the law says I have to serve you.” Then pointing at me, he said, “You white bastard, there’s no law saying I have to serve you.” Then he walked back down to the end of the bar. Mark was angry; he wanted to leave. I was determined, so we stayed. Mark finished his beer, and we sat and waited. Finally the bartender walked back to us. He told Mark that in his judgment, Mark was drunk, so he did not have to give him another beer. We left.
Several years later, the same bartender/owner decided to seek the Democratic nomination to run for State Representative. He asked the Quad-City Federation of Labor for an endorsement. By then, I was a delegate; I related the incident at the bar. He got neither the endorsement nor the nomination. The Quad City Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO was a strong supporter of civil rights.
After graduation, I went to work for the Illinois Department of Labor at the Moline, IL, office as Employment Interviewer II. I had all the restaurant, night club, and hotel industry, along with Sears Roebuck and Moline Hospital, as major market accounts. I mostly interviewed waitresses, cooks, chefs, and kitchen helpers and found jobs for them. President John F. Kennedy sent down an Executive Order that there was to be no discrimination in job referrals from the Department of Labor.
The owners of the Old Mill Inn in downtown Rock Island, IL, told me they knew integration was coming. So, if I should happen to come upon a really nice looking Black waitress, they had a job for her. Up to this point, there were no Black waitresses in the Quad Cities.
As luck would have it, a Black engineer had been transferred to the Rock Island Arsenal. His wife had been a flight attendant for Delta Airlines. She came in looking for a waitress job. She had one that day at the Old Mill Inn in Rock Island. Once the color barrier was broken, opportunities opened up for others. I got an order from the priest at St. Mary’s in Rock Island for a cook. I thought, “I’ll see just how Catholic they are.” I sent them a Black Seventh Day Adventist. They were delighted; she had Saturday off and they ate well Sunday. What the business people feared was that their business would suffer if they hired Blacks for cooks or waitresses. Being able to point out that that was not the case definitely helped the cause. Regardless, I implemented the President’s order with zeal.
Finally, the big test came. I got an order from Sears Roebuck on 23rd Avenue, Moline, for a shoe salesman. Not one Black worked there. I had a very experienced shoe salesman from Alabama. He was dressed for the part and knew the business well. I told him about the job. He was reluctant to go. He was sure he would be turned down, because he was Black. He had been turned down before. I told him about the President’s order and that we were the Department of Labor. I assured him, this time would be different. He went; he got the job. The Personnel Director at Sears was livid; she had a few not-so-nice remarks for me. Later, our office manager called me in for a little chat.
“Art,” he said, “I commend you on your job referral to Sears. You did the right thing. Unfortunately, the gal there complained to the downstate DOL Supervisor, and he has black-balled you. You’ll never get a promotion in the Department of Labor.” I thanked him for letting me know. It was time to move on.
Today, no one thinks a thing about being waited on by a Black waitress or seeing a Black cook in the kitchen. The unwritten code of segregation that existed in the 50’s and 60’s has disappeared. Change did come. No one person brought it about. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mama Rosa Parks, and others helped raise our consciousness and inspire us. But it was the millions of people in their communities who stood against racism in their everyday lives that brought about a change for the better.
The struggle is not over yet; nor is it likely ever to be. As long as there are people who seek to dominate others, by one means or another, the battle for justice continues. It is through non-violence, love, and forgiveness that “we shall overcome.” Let us all write our Black histories.