1

The Culture: Southern Influence at a West Coast Installation, 1930—1961

The year 1961 was the one that a future president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, a man of partial African descent, was born. That year, in an obscure shipyard in the San Francisco Bay Area, pipefitter Willie Long was instigating a movement. This movement played a role both indirectly and then cumulatively in facilitating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and began a progression from there to the possibility of Obama becoming the first African American president of the United States of America.

As Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope, in reference to the 1960s, “As the child of a mixed marriage, my life would have been impossible, my opportunities entirely foreclosed, without the social upheavals that were then taking place.”

Mare Island lies at the lower reaches of the Napa River, which divides it from the city of Vallejo, not far from where the river flows into Carquinez Strait on San Pablo Bay.

In 1852, an Act of Congress authorized the establishment of Mare Island Naval Shipyard, which would become the U.S. Navy’s first shipyard on the Pacific Coast. Then, in 1853, the federal government purchased the island from its three owners for $83,000.

The Congressional Act called for the construction of a foundry, machine shop, boiler shop, engine house, pattern house, carpenter’s shop, and storehouses. This included Building 46, which later housed Shop 56, where the largest number of 21ers worked.

In 1854, David Glasgow Farragut was assigned to manage the construction and inauguration of the shipyard, which, through the years, grew to the point that during World War II, it was capable of carrying a workforce of more than 46,000 people working around the clock and becoming part of a great military staging area for activities in the Pacific and the Far East. It closed in 1996.

The first African American workers are believed to have started working there in the latter part of the nineteenth century. According to author Sharon McGriff-Payne, “During the first decade of the twentieth century, at least eight African American men served as clerks at Mare Island.”

But during and after World War II, the opportunities for African Americans to work in certain jobs changed, owing to the arrival and influence of many whites from the Southern United States, sometimes known as “Okies,” as some did come from Oklahoma.

But most came from some other part of the segregated South, arriving at Mare Island after working in the fields in California’s Central Valley. The influx of white Southerners into the shipyards of Northern and Southern California brought the harder forms and ideas of discrimination that were part of their Southern heritage, including work and pay customs. This had a significant impact.

Race-tiered pay structures were common in the South. More than likely, many of the older African American workers at Mare Island had worked under such conditions, if not in some form of modern-day slavery, especially if they had been industrial workers in the South.

Those who had been tenant farmers or sharecroppers may have fared even worse. Thus, both the African Americans and the whites working at Mare Island may have been accustomed to and expected race-tiered pay structures. Both African American and white workers essentially fell victim to this learned, generational thinking.

“Whites considered it improper for Negroes to compete directly with them for better jobs,” according to Ray Marshall, economist and former Secretary of The U.S. Department of Labor under President Jimmy Carter. “It was especially unthinkable that Negroes should hold supervisory positions over them.”

White workers brought with them their ideas about the exclusion of African Americans, mainly from the skilled trades, and notions of simple fairness. Increasingly, African American workers faced significant discrimination at Mare Island.

Even though they were federal employees and sometimes worked under a civil service system, it meant little if leadership wanted to fire them or restrict opportunities for training, advancement, or fair pay, which usually occurred with impunity. The problem was compounded by the fact that many of the men who comprised the ranks of the naval officer corps, who were top managers, were also from or descended from the South.

In the end, the culture and beliefs of the South, strongly influenced by slavery and its Jim Crow successor, had a tremendous impact on events as they unfolded in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s at Mare Island. Yet a casual observer could easily have believed that race relations were good there, or at least acceptable.

There were hundreds and sometimes thousands of African Americans working there, but there were few formal discrimination complaints. The steady employment and good government-paid benefits were appreciated. But there was deep-seated, long-standing resentment over the lack of equal opportunity.

There were African American men working in the production shops, classified as helpers, who should have been promoted to journeyman or “mechanic” years or even decades before they were or if, indeed, they ever were. There were African American journeymen who should have been promoted to the level of leadingman or higher many years earlier.

Discrimination at Mare Island was reflective of the wider problem for African Americans working for the federal government. The Fair Employment Practice Committee was established by Executive Order 8802, within the Office of Production Management. The committee’s purpose was to make recommendations about how EO 8802 could be best implemented and to investigate alleged violations and “to take appropriate steps to redress grievances.”

Executive Order 8802 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941. This sought to provide equal opportunity and prohibit the prevailing racial discrimination in the national defense industry. It was the first such federal action, though not a law, in the U.S., requiring all federal agencies and departments involved with defense production to ensure vocational and training programs were administered without discrimination based on “race, creed, color, or national origin.”

All defense contracts were to include provisions that barred private contractors from discrimination, as well. The order was issued in response to pressure from civil rights activists, notably Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and A. J. Muste, who had planned a march on Washington, D.C., to protest racial discrimination.

The march was suspended after the order was issued. Yet, during the ensuing years until the 21er’s filing, EO 8802 had little effect on hiring, training, and promotions at Mare Island, even as late as 1960, and though long-standing resentment was largely unspoken, it was simmering, becoming hotter, ready to boil over.

2

Ladders Leading Nowhere: The Racial Divide

In a 1961 report, Harris Wofford noted in Of Kennedys and Kings:

Of the 6,900 employees in the upper reaches of the Agriculture Department, just 15 were black. At the Pentagon, the figure was only 444 of the 69,955 higher-grade staff. At the federal Civil Service, only two blacks had the highest-ranking levels of GS 17 and GS 18.

At Mare Island, although the overall number of African Americans employed was not low, at least in some shops, there were many obstacles to their advancing through training and promotions. To make matters worse, there was a denial of the obvious on the part of the shipyard leadership. James “Jim” Davis, a journeyman pipefitter in Shop 56, noted:

“You know something [is] wrong … but, anyway, the shipyard [management] answer was … the reason that blacks don’t get temporary promotions was because they didn’t go to social events. Remember that clearly, you know; pipefitters would have picnics in Napa and shit, you know. Even the guy from Washington talking about it, [said] that was the most ridiculous answer that they could give.”

The reality was that African Americans were not an integral part of the Mare Island culture, either on the island or as it extended to shipyard-related social activities.

The Mare Island Grapevine, known simply as The Grapevine among shipyard workers, was the official newsletter from 1942 to 1996 and carried many photos of Mare Island—related business/work and social activities. Issues of The Grapevine from 1959 to 1964 show very few photos of African Americans and only one in a position of influence or power.

In a book published in 1977, Sidewheelers to Nuclear Power: A Pictorial Essay Covering 123 Years at Mare Island Shipyard, there are 240 pages of photos, along with some text, of buildings, ships, and people, covering many decades of Mare Island’s history. As far as can be determined, there is not one photo containing the image of an African American. Not one.

The System of Promotions

At the time of the complaint, there was a largely accepted progression leading to a leadership position for those working in the production trades and shops. New employees normally started as either an apprentice or a helper.

If a person started as an apprentice and successfully completed the training, that person automatically became a journeyperson, usually after four years. If one started as a helper, the first promotion was usually to “limited” mechanic/journeyperson. The next step was mechanic or journeyperson.

After either of those two paths, one could become a “snapper,” informally supervising a few people. The next step was to the leadingman level, supervising snappers and mechanics, and then to quarterman, a position responsible for supervising several leading men and reporting to the shop foreman.

The next possible promotion was to shop foreman, who reported to the shop master, which was the top position in each shop.

Most of the African Americans were helpers in all the shops, some after as long as fifteen years or more on the job. In reality, the helpers and limited mechanics often did the same work as journeypersons, without comparable pay. Davis recalled the following during a conversation in 2003:

“Well, since we opened that bag of worms, Jake, you can remember this; the [ship] building way [activity] was ran by black riggers, and they were all helpers. The white guys … the white guys was the mechanics and they was all taking orders [from African American helpers]. We had two or three or at least a couple of guys that signed the complaint that were part of that mechanic/helper type thing.”

Sloan said:

“Well, I know the helpers did a lot of the work in the pipe shop limited, too … Of course, I became limited, and we were doing the same work as the pipefitters or the mechanics; there were some black guys that had been there [working as helpers] for years and years.”

Willie Capers, who worked at Mare Island for more than a decade, also recalled unfair practices. “I went there as a helper, and I left as a helper,” he said. This occurred despite the fact Capers often managed certain rigging operations for Shop 72 and was a key player and supervisor in some of the shipbuilding activities.

Unless change were to take place, many of the African American men who started as apprentices would probably never rise above the mechanic/journeyman level, and some who started as helpers never would rise above the mechanic-limited level. Others may have remained helpers their entire careers. Many did. Eventually, some of these men began to think enough was enough.

Even with higher-level promotions as one would see in a move from journeyman/mechanic to supervisor, African American workers were having the same experiences. Boston Banks, Jr. was a journeyman machinist in Shop 31 at the time of the complaint filing. He said that when he had a score of ninety-six on an exam, identical to the score of a white person, the white person went to the top of the promotion list, and he went to the bottom:

“I went into the office that day … and I went by and looked at the list … My supervisor came out and saw me looking at the list and he says, “you can’t beat city hall, can you?” And I told him, “MacArthur,” I says, “you cannot beat them, but you can let them know that you don’t appreciate what they are doing.”

Many of the whites in leadership roles, starting at the top with the shipyard commanders and the rank and file may have thought it only natural that African Americans were paid less than whites for doing the same or similar work, this thinking originating from their Southern roots, where this had always been standard and accepted practice.

Although many African Americans accepted such practices when they were working in the South, some were increasingly reluctant to do so in 1961 California. In terms of overall numbers, some shops had more African American workers than others. Some shops/trades were more exclusionary, just as in the construction building trades in the private sector.

When asked about the small number of African Americans in some shops, Eddie Brady, who became a 21er, remembered the change:

“Well, I think [some in] the machine shop just thought they was too good for blacks; it’s the only thing that I can think of … they just didn’t want ’em and they didn’t make an effort to hire ’em. You see, before our organization came, there never was a black [in a position] to go out to an employment office to hire employees for Shop 31. I think I went out one year just after we got the thing going … the next year Foster came out and, ah, we was getting some blacks in then, but until then, they was passing them over….”

Banks confirmed the bias Brady had expressed:

“That was it! They did not want blacks in [some] shop[s] … We weren’t supposed to be able to read or write or do any of this handling of machines and making parts and making them to a specific size.”

Williams shared his observations. “There were jobs they considered white people jobs,” he said.

Davis remembered that until the mid-1950s, between Mare Island and Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, there was only one African American in Shop 11 (structural), a man named Frank Jackson. The whites simply did not want African Americans in certain shops:

“The reason they didn’t want blacks in these shops [was] because we was black … That’s it, I mean that’s it. They didn’t want to know if you were a professor or genius or what. When they saw you, they didn’t want you in there.”

This rejection of African Americans by certain trades was, again, a reflection and extension of Southern patterns. For instance, the Order of United Machinists and Mechanical Engineers, the forerunner of the International Association of Machinists, was organized in Atlanta in 1888. “Colored” people were not allowed to become full members until 1948, and then only on a limited basis.

Shop 56, the pipefitters, was somewhat different in that there were many more African Americans overall and more African American mechanics. In fact, some thought they should not be complaining. The reality was that many of those same men had been helpers for years but were never promoted to mechanic or even, in many cases, limited mechanic.

With one historic exception, none had ever been promoted to supervisor. As it turned out, more African Americans from Shop 56 eventually signed the complaint than from any other shop. This may have been due to the influence of Long and John Edmondson, or it may have been a reflection of higher expectations.

There was one other major barrier in place to prevent African Americans from working or advancing in certain shops. At the time of the filing, many African American temporary employees were unable to become permanent workers, which was a requirement for promotions: “That practice was known as ‘broken time’ or ‘broken service’ [where] you would just work a year at a time,” Banks said. “One year then [laid] off, [another] year then [laid] off.”

Workers had to have more than one year to make permanent status, and they had to be permanent to make mechanic unless they had gone through an apprenticeship. The only exception was for veterans, which could help people such as Banks, Brady, Capers, Louis Greer, and Sloan, all of whom had served honorably in the military.

For all these reasons, it was out of the question for most African American workers to be promoted to leadingman, let alone to the position of snapper. Being a snapper was important because even when the African Americans passed a qualifying exam, they were not accepted over the whites who had been snappers. Adding insult to injury, when it came to promotions, African Americans were often passed over in favor of whites they had trained.

“One week we were training an individual and the next week he was telling you what to do. So we began to become disgruntled,” Long said. “Some of the workers were familiar with similar stories of conditions in the private sector.”

Davis spoke about his father’s experiences:

“My dad, he got an attitude where he wouldn’t tell whites anything … He said, “Here comes a guy who doesn’t know anything … three weeks, a month, two months, he’s the boss. He’s bossing you, [after] you taught him everything.” He said it happened time and time again.”

According to Long, this was true not just “for blacks but for Orientals, Mexican Americans…. They had nothing; it was only the whites [who] were permitted to hold certain jobs.”

More important than anything were the general facts “on the ground.” African Americans faced generalized discrimination daily. “There is no way we could tell you the horror stories we experienced over there,” Davis said. “At every phase of each workday, we ran into discrimination.”

The indignities and racism took many forms, some large and some small. For example, whites were always asking African Americans if they were “getting enough,” meaning enough sex. Sloan’s standard response was, “Are you missing any?”

On at least one occasion, a white man asked Sloan whether he preferred sex with white women or African Americans. Sloan’s answer was that he did not know because he had never had sex with an African American woman. This answer usually ended the discussion, at least for a while.

John Edmondson

The story of John Edmondson is typical of the problems that had been evolving for years at Mare Island, especially around promotions. He was widely respected and had great influence on African American workers, so his story is important in understanding what unfolded.

Edmondson was born in Memphis in 1908. His family sent him to California when he finished high school, “to keep him alive,” recalled his daughter, Catherine Edmondson-Fulcher.

Edmondson always took pride in himself and spoke up for his rights, which could put him in great danger in the South. He was a tough guy who, according to Davis, was a star on a very good Mare Island football team in the 1930s. Edmondson had relatives in the area. His uncle, George Posey, a Buffalo Soldier, had come to Vallejo in the early 1900s, according to McGriff-Payne.

His apprenticeship at Mare Island began in 1930, and he later became one of the best, if not the best, of the journeyman pipefitters in Shop 56. It was said that he and Daryl Franklin, another African American pipefitter, could dismantle and then repair the piping system on a ship without any help. That was probably a stretch, but they were outstanding pipefitters.

His skill notwithstanding, Edmondson’s career was full of discrimination and challenges, as was Franklin’s, although Franklin was finally promoted to supervisor because of tremendous influence by a white supporter.

Through the years, Edmondson repeatedly voiced his dissatisfaction with the lack of promotional opportunities for African Americans but never received the support he needed from others in order to take real action.

According to Davis and others, in the years before 1961, Edmondson had thirty years in his job and had tried to organize African Americans to protest the discrimination. But owing to their ultimate lack of courage to stand up, he repeatedly met with failure. Because of this, he became embittered long before, which may have influenced his habit of mostly having lunch alone.

Edmondson had never been promoted to leadingman (supervisor), although some of the white supervisors in his shop were not born when he came to the shipyard. In some cases, they had been trained on the job under his direction. To a lesser extent, the same was true for many others, with the difference being that Edmondson was widely admired and respected, especially by African Americans, but even by whites.

Since he was an outstanding pipefitter, Edmondson was finally promoted to snapper, but a promotion to the position of leadingman eluded him. This was the common experience of African Americans with very few exceptions, in the many production shops. Davis said:

“Well, as I recall, we had a ceiling on Mare Island. Not only was it called a glass ceiling, but at that time, it was a ceiling where there were no blacks that were promoted in any shops. There was only, at that time, approximately two black supervisors, [and] that was in the paint shop and, I guess, sandblasters and riggers. Was that right? No, it wasn’t the riggers, it was the sandblasters.”

On and off Mare Island, signs of direct and indirect discrimination, were long-standing. In 1961 there were people still working at the yard who were old enough to remember the Ku Klux Klan activities in Vallejo. Edmondson was one of them. While serving his apprenticeship, there were still colored and white restrooms on the shipyard. It all bothered him. Long stated:

Several times in his career, [John] had gone up to [the main office of Shop 56] to protest, and he would have a bunch around him who would [claim] to want to do something, so they would say. But when he would go up to face the music, he would look around and there was nothing, no one, nobody to back him up.

Promotions or not, in everything Edmondson did, “he carried himself as a proud man, and that pride could not be disturbed,” Sloan said.

“If John had been a white man, he would have been master of Shop 56,” Davis recalled Franklin saying of Edmondson’s work and professionalism. He would not willingly “take low” to any man under any circumstances.

Although Edmondson was eventually detailed to the design division, he was never promoted to supervisor. When he retired, he took a job as a technician at Napa State Hospital, possibly to help make ends meet.

Edmondson influenced Long’s thinking, his daily work, his professional life, and his personal life, advising Long during a difficult divorce. According to Edmondson-Fulcher, they knew each other well and worked in the same shop, and belonged to the same Masonic lodge. Even more than the others, Long was angry that Edmondson had been “passed over, around, and all those things.” He promised, “John—if I can get in a position where I can, I will do some of the things you were trying to do.” Many others felt the same way. Sloan said:

“Whenever I would see John, I would think of strong men like Jackie Robinson … Later, once I got to know his story and saw photos of him, Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist and social reformer, would come to mind when thinking of John. Strong. Proud.”

He died in 1979, a great man largely forgotten, except by his family, his church and lodge members, and those who knew and worked with and respected him.