Top 10 Examples of Racism in History of the American Labor Movement

5. African-American “Strikebreakers”

A “strikebreaker” is a person who is brought into a position left vacant during an organized employee strike. and employers during the early 1900’s would purposefully use African-American workers to replace the unionized white workers. This was not taken to kindly by the leaders of organized labor, in fact they exacerbated the situation by using race to fear monger white workers. A perfect example of this happened in 1917 when AFL leaders, in response to “strikebreakers” being brought to St. Louis from the Deep South. They were to replace workers in an ore company, whose workers decided to strike. CommentaryMagazine.com tells the story this way.

Edward F. Mason, secretary of the East St. Louis AFL Central Trades & Labor Union, called on union members to march to City Hall on May 28, 1917, to demand a halt to “the importation” of Negroes. “The immigration of the Southern Negro into our city,” Mason stated, “for the past eight months has reached a point where drastic action must be taken. . . . On next Monday evening the entire body of delegates to the Central Trades and Labor Union will call upon the Mayor and the City Council and demand that they take some action to retard this growing menace and . . . get rid of a certain portion of those who are already here.”

John T. Stewart reported the fires and riots in the St. Louis Star for July 3: “Negroes were ‘flushed’ from the burning houses, and ran for their lives, screaming and begging for mercy. . . . Rioters formed in gangs and trooped through the streets, chasing Negroes. They stood around in groups, laughing and jeering While they witnessed the final writhings of the terror and pain-racked wretches who crawled to the streets to die after their flesh had been cooked in their own homes. . . .”

It was said that the only way to relieve the tension was to make sure that the white workers had priority over the “imported blacks” to the positions over which they were striking.