Labour Movement - Labour and Racial Equality

Labour and Racial Equality

This section requires expansion.

A degree of strategic bi-racial cooperation existed among black and white dockworkers on the waterfronts of New Orleans, Louisiana during the turn of the 20th century. Although the groups maintained racially separate labor unions, they coordinated efforts to present a united front when making demands of their employers. These pledges included a commitment to the "50-50" or "half-and-half" system wherein a dock crew would consist of 50% black and 50% white workers and agreement on a single wage demand to reduce the risk of ship owners pitting one race against the other. Black and white dockworkers also stood together during protracted labor strikes, including general levee strikes in 1892 and 1907 as well as smaller strikes involving skilled workers such as screwmen in the early 1900s.

Negroes in the United States read the history of labor and find it mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us They are shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience and protests are becoming our everyday tools, just as strikes, demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the table Our needs are identical to labor's needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.

Dr. Martin Luther King, "If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins", December 11, 1961

Read more about this topic:  Labour Movement

Famous quotes containing the words labour and, labour, racial and/or equality:

    Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry,
    Under the conceiving moon, on the high chalk hill,
    And there this night I walk in the white giant’s thigh
    Where barrren as boulders women lie longing still
    To labour and love though they lay down long ago.
    Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
    Honest labour bears a lovely face;
    Thomas Dekker (1572?–1632?)

    I don’t think Dr. King helped racial harmony, I think he helped racial justice. What I profess to do is help the oppressed and if I cause a load of discomfort in the white community and the black community, that in my opinion means I’m being effective, because I’m not trying to make them comfortable. The job of an activist is to make people tense and cause social change.
    Al, Reverend Sharpton (b. 1954)

    His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants’ hall.
    —J.M. (James Matthew)