Identifier: negroinchicagost00chic_0 (find matches)
Title: The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Chicago Commission on Race Relations
Subjects: African Americans Race riots
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago Press
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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f Labor so long as they are American and inthe interests of the workmen, but if their practices are against Negroes, then we areagainst the American Federation of Labor unflinchingly. Question: To what extent have you found their practices unfair to the coloredpeople ? Mr. Mays: There are fourteen unions in railway employment in the AmericanFederation of Labor. The United Brotherhood of Railway Employees has beenaccepting Negroes in full membership, but the other thirteen organizations do notaccept Negroes in membership. As a matter of fact, they are secured on contract,which is the greatest holdback for the Negroes and breeds more distrust on the partof the Negro in these places, so far as the American Federation of Labor is concerned. Before the roads were under government control certain discriminatory practiceswere found in the South, but now you will find colored men in certain skilled positions.In the Brotherhood of Carmen, if a colored man is not organized into the local union,
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THE NEGRO IN INDUSTRY 411 he cannot advance automatically from repair to car building. He might be a memberof one of these local unions chartered by and affiliated with the American Federationof Labor. But under contract they say their members must be white, and they useonly white men. In the South our men have enjoyed these jobs; under war condi-tions they were brought here, but under this contract no Negro can be employedas a carman, although he has all the experience in the world. They refuse to take thecolored man but take the white man. No colored boy can go in as an apprentice andwork up to a skilled mechanics position. Consequently they are reducing theNegro railway worker to a position of common laborer and automatically are keepinghim down. If this is the condition in the railways in the North, I say it will prevaileverywhere. I have said that it is a northern prejudice coming South. Much effort was made to obtain statistics of white and Negro membershipin local trade unions

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