The history of unions in America is tied closely with the history of America in general. Civil rights, tax laws, healthcare, and so much more were shaped in response to the work done by activists and labor leaders throughout America’s history. Many of these leaders worked quietly in their respective fields, but still managed to make massive positive changes in American culture and business. In honor of Black History Month, we wanted to spotlight some of those amazing leaders and minds that might not have been in your history books.
Labor Union Leaders who Paved the Way [Black History Month]
Hattie Canty
Canty was born during the great depression in Jim Crow’s Alabama. Despite the racial tension in her hometown of St. Stephens, she was always proud of her southern heritage, in fact she claimed most of her success is owed to her southern upbringing.
In the 50’s, Canty moved to San Diego with her children and husband. She worked hard as a cook and a maid to maintain her growing family. During her time there, she began to witness how much stress things like minimum wage and mandated weekly hours can put on a family.
Eventually, her family moved to Las Vegas. Her husband had begun to make enough money to where she didn’t have to work two jobs anymore. She began working part time as a maid at the Thunderbird Hotel to keep busy and to help with the family’s finances.
Unfortunately, three years after moving to Vegas, her husband died of lung cancer. At 41 years old, she became the sole caregiver to eight children. She jumped from job to job. She worked as a janitor or a private maid, but could never find relief. No matter how much she worked, she couldn’t make enough to consistently support her family. Eventually she found a job with the Maxim hotel, which was just off the Las Vegas strip. Unlike her previous jobs, Maxim was unionized.
She joined the Las Vegas Hotel and Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and, over time, rose up through the ranks, eventually being elected to the executive board. There, she organized meetings and made demands to improve labor conditions. When her demands weren’t met, she organized some of the largest strikes the country had ever seen.
Her strength and clear leadership skills led to her becoming the union president in 1990. She worked hard to increase worker’s rights, wages, and to dismantle longstanding racial stereotypes. By 1997, her work directly led to Las Vegas doubled the average wage for service workers. Canty left a legacy founded on grit and fairness that is celebrated in unions to this day.
Asa Philip Randolph
Randolph might be a name you find familiar. His history is tied neatly into America’s. Much of his work in the 1910’s and 20’s served as a roadmap that was used by civil rights leaders during the 50’s and 60’s.
Randolph was born in Florida in 1889. He was the son of a minister and a seamstress who stressed Randolph’s need to be educated. In his memoirs, Randolph highlights a moment from his childhood—a night where an angry mob attempted to break into the Jacksonville county jail. His father, with a pistol in his coat, went down to break it up, advocating for peace and a fair trial. Randolph didn’t follow his father, he stayed home with his mother, who sat at the front door with a loaded shotgun.
After long nights talking with his family and reading W.E.B. Du Bois, Randolph made a vow that he would dedicate his life to fighting for social equality and fairness so no one ever had to experience the fear he felt that night.
After graduating as valedictorian, Randolph moved north to Harlem. It was 1911 and the sparks of the Harlem Renaissance were just getting started. There he met and married Lucille Green, an activist worthy of an entire article for herself. With Green, Randolph’s eyes were opened to politics and the power of print media.
Like many great thinkers during his time, Randolph hung around Harlem’s Soapbox Corner. There he learned about class-consciousness, Socialism, and the fight for racial equality. One of his contemporaries, William White, asked Randolph and his friend Chandler Owen (the famous Orator who wrote speeches for Thomas Dewey, Eisenhower, and L.B.J.) to run a paper for him called The Messenger.
The Messenger quickly became a household name in America, and is cited as being one of the most important newsprints to ever circulate through the United States. Besides inspiring many of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, it also was a source for social and economic justice, especially when it came to unions.
Due to his skills as a public speaker, Randolph became an organizer for America’s unions. He helped create the “Union of NYC Elevator Operators,” “The Shipyard Union,” and eventually the National Brotherhood of Workers of America, which was essentially the first successful union conglomerate. His greatest success, however, was “the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,” (BSCP). Porters at the time had dangerous jobs and were frequently underpaid and lived in awful conditions.
Randolph managed to organize and gather 51% of all railroad porters under his banner. Leading the Pullmans (the family leading the railroad market at the time) to retaliate with mass firings.
The battle between the Pullmans and the BSCP was short, but legendary. The Pullmans ended up outlasting the BSCP by hiring 5,000 scabs, essentially forcing the union to dissolve or lose well over half of their members. This victory, however, was short lived. As in 1934, FDR amended the Railway Labor Act, giving railway workers access to overtime, wage increases, and a shorter workweek.
This led to other massive changes and the creation of the American Federation of Labor among other watchdog groups designed to protect American workers across the country.
Randolph went on to become a Civil Rights leader and began laying out his plans to end segregation and discrimination in business. Randolph’s plans were inspired largely by Mahatma Gandhi’s practices in India. Simply the threat of these plans led to the creation of the Fair Employment Act, Brown vs. Board of Education, and the eventual march on Washington.
Norman Hill
Norman Hill was born in 1933 in New Jersey. He received a bachelor’s from Haverford College in Sociology in 1956. After college he joined the military. Upon finishing his service, he moved to Chicago at the height of the Civil Rights movement. There, Hill joined Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and became one of the chief coordinators of Chicago’s push for equality.
Hill worked closely with Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While working on civil rights protests, demonstrations, and support networks that funded activists; Hill began to start working on developing unions, especially within the construction industry.
Once Hill began working for the AFL-CIO, he began to make massive waves in the American labor movement. He dedicated his life to encouraging people to take change into their own hands by voting and protesting peacefully. During his time at AFL-CIO, he assisted underpaid workers during the Memphis Sanitation Strike who were facing ostensibly dangerous working conditions. Hill was there to organize and maintain peace. But the growing tension between the city of Memphis and the protestors became too much to control, and eventually the protests became violent.
This violence led to a greater focus on organization from leading civil rights activists. Hill and others led marches, and with Martin Luther King Jr. pushed for an end to violence and advocated for a better way. The violence stopped, but the protests continued. Hill believed that this movement in Memphis could lead to a greater social change, and he was right.
These continued protests led to King’s famous “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech, the last speech he gave before his assassination.
Hill was a true supporter of both King and Randolph, and believed in the power of non-violence. After King’s death, he pushed for the formation of a local AFSCME chapter, which was founded soon thereafter. These led to a massive shift in wages for sanitation workers.
On the 50th anniversary of this protest, Norman Hill wrote an account of the events and how they connect to the world today, you can read it here.
Hill kept fighting after Memphis and had one of his biggest successes in the Joint Apprenticeship Program, which was a recruitment and training program in the deep south. This organization helped build a network of support for minorities in the construction industry—the main sponsor for this program was APRI, the Asa Philips Randolph Institute.
Hill worked well with APRI and eventually joined their board and became their president. Heading APRI, Hill supported the creation of many workers equity unions across America, as well as trade guilds, and activist groups.
Hill worked on establishing APRI chapters across the nation. These chapters are all dedicated to pushing for fair rights for workers, education and equality. Most recently, the APRI has fought hard to protect the right to vote and to increase civic activity to make sure every voice is heard.
Today, Norman Hill, who is 87 years old, still fights for the rights of workers and minorities. He is a consummate writer and a staunch defender of liberty. He is truly someone to look up to.
Further Reading
There are a lot of great resources for more of the amazing people who fought and continue to fight for worker’s rights across America. Some of the best sources I found were the AFL-CIO website, which not only goes into the history of unions, but also explains the ways they work and what rights you have now. Check them out here.
There are also great documentaries out there, especially about A. Philip Randolph and his paper the Messenger. You can find a lot of great information about him on the APRI website here.