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Ward, Herbert (audio interview #2 of 2)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the first of two separate interviews with Herbert Ward. The interview was conducted in his office at the Department of Water and Power.
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- 2019-09-24
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- File: lhduhward1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-2:58)... Born in Texas, Ward moved to California to pursue a college education at UCLA. Juggling school and work was difficult and he decided to leave college and go to work with the railroad. He worked 1939-1942, first as a fourth cook (dishwasher) and then as a second cook. He filed an application with the Urban League for work in the defense industry. He was among the second group of Black men hired at Lockheed. (2:58-9:37)... When he started at Lockheed, he immediately inquired about the union. His interest in trade unionism stemmed from the fact that the men in his family traditionally worked as longshoremen and were involved with the union. Sid Watson, the vice president of the IAM district office, also was working at the Lockheed plant and explained that the IAM constitution excluded Blacks from membership. However, Watson agreed to submit an application for Ward following his probationary period at the Lockheed plant. When this time passed, the application was submitted and Ward decided to attend an IAM meeting. There no other Blacks present, but he was not harassed. The vice president of the local, Clarence Gibson, approached Ward and expressed an interest in seeing more Blacks and minorities at local meetings. Ward felt that it was essential for Blacks to take an active part in unionism. He explains that it was inconsistent for Blacks to be helping with the war effort, yet be subject to racial discrimination at the same time. He recalls that many Whites were eager to cooperate with Blacks and form a coalition to fight the exclusionary clause in the IAM constitution. He believes that he became a leader in this effort because of his involvement with the NAACP and the Urban League. Ward, along with community activists such as Reverend Clayton Russell, organized a mass meeting to form a committee (Yea Vote Committee) to fight this clause. At the meeting they discussed the lack of Black workers in the union and the division of labor that placed Blacks into segregated and menial jobs. (9:37-14:32)... The Yea Vote Committee included community activists such as Leon Washington, Faye Allen, Lauren Miller, Thomas Griffin, and Gus Hawkins. The Yea Vote Committee educated itself regarding the appropriate procedures to overturn the exclusionary clause, which involved introducing a referendum. However, this process proved very difficult and emphasis was placed on highlighting the issue on a national level. He did not want to pursue change through legal channels because he felt it would limit the community's ability to agitate for social change. Shortly after the committee was formed, the FBI began investigating the group for communist activity. He admits that although communists tried to persuade the committee to take action in other areas, the committee stuck to its original purpose of defeating the discriminatory practices within the IAM. (14:32-21:05)... He describes his meeting with the FBI regarding communist activity and his involvement with the Yea Vote Committee. This meeting was particularly bitter for Ward because the FBI agent refused to believe that racial discrimination was a dominant feature of American society. Ward argued that it was his responsibility to ensure jobs for Blacks when they returned home from WWII. As a result of this investigation, the communists in the Yea Vote Committee were fired from their jobs as security risks. The FBI also investigated Ward within the community, interviewing his neighbors. At the same time, he was being investigated by the IAM district office. He digresses regarding his conversation with the vice president of the IAM, a strict segregationist, who suggested that a Black auxiliary local be formed. Ward refused to accept this suggestion. (21:05-29:07)... In 1945, he was sent as a delegate to the IAM convention in New York to lobby the other delegates and persuade them to change the policy that excluded Blacks from IAM membership. He was denied entrance into the convention and after he managed to sneak in twice, he was kicked out both times. He spent the remainder of the convention in the lobby area, arguing his cause there. The resolution to change the IAM constitution was not passed during the 1945 convention. Harvey Brown, the president of the IAM argued against it and justified the idea of a Black auxiliary. While Ward was in New York, he visited A. Philip Randolph and Clarence Johnson. (29:07-39:14)... On his return to Los Angeles from the New York convention, his activity with the Yea Vote Committee continued, and he became increasingly suspect to the FBI and the union because of the communist element in the committee. He was approached by AFL representatives to act as the mediator between the union and the Black community. During union elections, his local released him from the plant to do campaign work within the Black community. In 1947, he was elected as a delegate to the California conference and the Western States Conference in Portland, Oregon. The atmosphere there was very racist, and there was no resolution introduced challenging the exclusionary clause. The first rejection of the clause occurred in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1948, seven years after his battle began. (39:14-47:16)... After the exclusionary clause was removed from the IAM constitution, he worked as a steward for twelve years and was then hired as a business representative. There was an implicit code in the IAM that kept Blacks from moving into better jobs within the union. He spoke out against this discriminatory code on many occasions and the IAM finally abandoned the practice. At this time he ran for district trustee and lost. He was offered a position as an apprenticeship consultant for California, as well as a position as a labor attache for the Labor Department. When he decided to resign from the AFL, they offered him a full-time position as a mediator between the local district and Sacramento because of his political expertise. end of recording - tape continues to 47:05 File: lhduhward2.mp3 (0:00-2:55)... Tape begins abruptly with discussion of his position with the IAM He worked as a liaison between the IAM local and the Sacramento district for approximately one year, and then on a special assignment in San Antonio processing discrimination cases. He moved on to organizing when that position ended. He clarifies that the people who worked at Lockheed and were involved with the Yea Vote Committee were from different communities in the Los Angeles area. (2:55-5:41)... He notes that Lockheed once kept records of the number of minorities employed at the company until the IAM protested and this practice was abandoned. He believes, however, that the company continued to keep these types of records for the purposes of maintaining affirmative action hiring practices. Although he worked at the Lockheed-Vega plant located in the Valley, he was familiar with Black workers, such as Clarence Gibson, who worked at the Lockheed plant on 7th and Santa Fe Streets plant. (5:41-12:19)... Ward discusses his knowledge of and association with Reginald Jones, who worked in the personnel department at the Lockheed Maywood plant. Jones' main responsibility was handling equal opportunity and discrimination complaints. Ward recalls that Lockheed had very little knowledge or access to the minority population in the community and, therefore, made contact with the Urban League and the NAACP. (He digresses regarding an experience when he was investigated by the FBI regarding his association with a Black man they believed was a communist. The FBI agent implied that all Whites who were active in the Black community were communists or had ulterior motives.) (12:19-17:36)... The IAM constitution only excluded Blacks from union involvement. Mexican Americans were considered Caucasians [sic] and eligible for IAM membership. However, Ward recalls they they did not receive equal treatment in terms of jobs or wages. He believes that Mexican Americans accepted this position until the civil rights movement, at which time they realized that their "Caucasian" identification disadvantaged them. With regard to Black women in the labor movement, they were relegated to menial positions, but they did not fight against this discrimination until much later. However, women joined intensive training programs and were hired at North American, which was organized by the UAW/CIO. The UAW prohibited all forms of discrimination, and as a result appealed to minorities, including Blacks. (17:36-19:32)... Ward discusses his involvement with the Lockheed Maywood plant, which employed a high percentage of Mexican American workers because of the plant's proximity to the East Los Angeles. (19:32-23:36)... While he was working with the Yea Vote Committee, none of the other lAM locals came to the defense of Black workers. He did encounter sympathizers, particularly at union conferences and conventions. At times, he quieted the opposition to the IAM so as not to jeopardize the support he gained within the IAM. He digresses regarding Jim Crow locals in the South, indicating that the Blacks in these locals were opposed to desegregation, feeling that they would lose the autonomy they had. Ward did not agree with this position and had a difficult time trying to convince southern Blacks that desegregation would result in more rights. (23:36-25:43)... In addition to the battle that Ward was waging with the IAM, Walter Williams was organizing against the Jim Crow local in the Boilermakers Union, marking two struggles in the AFL. Black women were involved in the union battles, but not in large numbers. Ward recalls that most of the union meetings and gatherings were held on Sundays, making it difficult for women to attend because of family responsibilities. Rather than an active, leadership role, women played a support role during this period. <b>End of tape
- SUBJECT BIO - Herbert Ward came from a union background, with family members who were in the Jim Crow longshore union in the Gulf Coast of Texas in the 1920s and 1930s. He came to Los Angeles as a young man, seeking better educational opportunities, but after a brief period at UCLA ended up working on the railroad as a porter and cooks helper until he became involved with the Urban League training program at Lockheed-Vega in Burbank. He joined the IAM, District Lodge 727, and founded the "Yea Vote Committee," which fought to overturn the exclusionary clause in the IAM's constitution. Ward was later elected to office in his predominantly White local and eventually became the first Black Special Representative on the staff of the IAM in the west. He was also a leading member of the NAACP in Los Angeles beginning in the 1940s. He was interviewed initially by Sherna Berger Gluck as part of the Rosie the Riveter Revisited project, and was re-interviewed six months later by Greg Perkins as part of his project on the desegregation of unions in wartime Los Angeles. TOPICS - education; work at Lockheed; IAM organizing; racial discrimination in the IAM; Yea Vote Committee; communism and red baiting; IAM conventions; and job opportunities in the IAM;IAM organizing; Reginald Jones; exclusionary clause of IAM; women; and Black southern locals; 1979-11-29
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