Color of Law questions

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SUPPRESSED INCOMES

A COMMON EXPLANATION FOR de facto segregation is that most black families could not afford to live in predominantly white middle-class communities and still are unable to do so. African American isolation, the argument goes, reflects their low incomes, not de jure segregation. Racial segregation will persist until more African Americans improve their educations and then are able to earn enough to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods.

The explanation at first seems valid. But we cannot understand the income and wealth gap that persists between African Ameri- cans and whites without examining governmental policies that pur- posely kept black incomes low throughout most of the twentiet_h century. Once government implemented these policies, econo~~c d'ff • · · ossible but 1t is 1 erences became self-perpetuating. It 1s not imp , . h rar f . . h h'gher rank in t e e or Americans black or white, to ave a 1 nat' 1 . ' h . Everyone's stan-

iona income distribution than t eir parents. indi- dard f 1 · . . eration, but an

. 0 1v1ng may grow from generation to gen . f others vidual' 1 . the incomes o . s re at1ve income-how it compares to h his or her in th k bl . ·1ar to ow e present generation-is remar a Y simi . Pare , • . h · eneratton.

nts incomes compared to others in t eir g

153

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t of de;·ure residential segregation ha . So an accoun . s to inc}

blic policy geographically separated Af . Ude 11 only how pu rtcan A 0t f

h 'tes but also how federal and state labor "lller· cans rom w I • . d .market I, . . h ndisguised racial intent, epressed African A Polj_

c1es, wit u d h C\ll} . I

ddition some an per aps many local g er1can wages. n a ' ·1 h . overnrn

d Af . Americans more heav1 y t an whites. Th f ent8

taxe ncan e e f eq ment actions were compounded because neighb s of these govern . . orh00 • · ts elf imposed higher expenses on Af ncan A . d segregauon 1 . . lllerica

h hite families, even 1f their wages and tax rates had b n t an on w . een

'd · l The result: smaller disposable incomes and fewer s . 1 enuca . . . av1ngs £ black families, denying them the opportunity to accumul ror . . 'ddl ate wealth and contributing to make housing 1n m1 e-class commu- nities unaffordable.

If government purposely depressed the incomes of African Americans, with the result that they were priced out of mainstream housing markets, then these economic policies are also important parts of the architecture of de jure segregation.

I

UNTIL LONG after emancipation from slavery, most African Americans were denied access to free labor markets and were unable to save from wages. This denial of access was another badge of slav- ery that Congress was duty bound to eliminate, not to perpetuate.

Following the Civil War, and intensifying after Reconstruction, a s~arecropping system of indentured servitude perpetuated aspects of the slave system. After food and other living costs were deducted from their earnings, sharecroppers typically owed plantation own- ers more than their d L 1 · · e . wages ue. oca shenff s enforced this peonag ' preventmg sharecr f t . . oppers rom seeking work elsewhere, by arres - mg, assaultmg or m d . h b cond · .

1 ' ur enng t ose who attempted to leave, or Y

onmg v10 ence d In . perpetrate by owners. many mstances Af .

and phony off '. ncan Americans were arrested for petty enses (like va 'f ff

work), and whe h grancy 1 they came to town when o n t ey were un 61 a e to pay fines and court fees, war-

. mes sold prisoners to plantations . Jlletl . . , rn1nes and f

Jetls so Blackmon, m his book Slavery by A h' actories. las d f not er Nam . Votlg from the en o Reconstruction unt'l w, I e, est1- that . . 1 word W II

111ateS slaved m this way exceeded 100 0 M' ar , the ber en , oo. ines o 11of11 S el alone used tens of thousands of 1. . perated V S te rnpnsoned Af • bY ·. · The practice ebbed during World W II b . rican

ericans, f Ifill . ar ' ut tt Was , Afl'I that Congress u ed its Thirteenth A d n t ·1 1951 rnen rnent obi'

oJltl d explicitly outlawed the practice. 1-tion an . ga African Amencans managed to escape to th N h

SoJ11C e Ort early h twentieth century, yet others were forcibly pre d •o t e . . vente or 1

• 'd ted from domg so. But durmg World War I when• . ·0wnt a , 1mm1gra- 1 f unskilled Europeans was sharply curtailed norther tion o . , n manu-

ers sent recrmters south. They frequently traveled in di'sgu· factur . 1se, pretending, for e~ampl~, t~ be msurance salesmen, to avoid capture by sheriffs. Dunng this time, more tha~ 600,000 African Ameri- ans left the South, mostly to seek work m the North and Midwest.

~istorians call this the First Great Migration. World War II then spurred the Second Great Migration, from

1940 to 1970, when more than four million African Americans made the journey. Thus most African Americans could not begin to accu- mulate capital for home purchases until fairly recently, well after European immigrant groups were able to participate in the wage economy. And when African Americans who left the South entered a northern labor market, federal, state, and local governments col- laborated with private employers to ensure that they were paid less and treated worse than whites.

II

IN THE r93os, President Franklin D. Roosevelt could assemble the congressional majorities he needed to adopt New Deal legislati~n only by including southern Democrats, who were fiercely commit- ted to wh' · 1 s 't minimum tte supremacy. In consequence, Socia ecun Y, Wage p · · 11 excluded f rotect1on, and the recognition of labor umons a . rolll c A · predom1-overage occupations in which African mencans

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d d mestic service. State and local . lture an o I . h govern naced: agncu_ I When for examp e, m t e mid-1930 S 'nel\t

d · m1lar Y· ' f Af · s t l s behave si d hospital or ncan America · Cl\i' d a segregate . h. . n Pati Is

construcce . I black ule setter; w lte u nton Ill ents I · red a sing e ernbe 'a contractor 11 . fi d the contractor and announced · rs Pro.

d the city re tt Wo I tested, an fi h t employed African American lab ll d n0 e any rm t a T A) or. longer us V lley Authority ( V segregated it

The Tennessee a . s '11ork II ·n housing. At construction proJ· ect A. ers h . b as we as t s, f .

on t e JO . ned to work separately, but only 'f rican Americans were ass1g . k f 11 I enou h

d d t particular sites to ma e up u crews. If g were nee e a d · d k · 1 no1 . A ricans were eme wor entire y. No A.f . , then African me d f rican

. permitted to be promote to oreman 0 Americans were . r other . 1 in the TVA. The first national New De I supervisory ro es . d . . . a Pro. h F deral Emergency Relief A mmistrat1on, adopt d . gram, t e e . d e 1n

d. ortionately spent its fun s on unemployed '11h' 1933, 1sprop . . . ites, f I refused to permit African Americans to take any b requent y . . u1 the least skilled jobs, and even m those, paid them less than the officially stipulated wage.

Similar policies later prevailed under the National Recovery Administration (NRA), another New Deal agency established in Roosevelt's first year. It established industry-by-industry minimum wages, maximum hours, and product prices. Codes routinely with- held benefits from African Americans that white workers enjoyed. In addition to agriculture and domestic service, the NRA did no1 cover subindustries and even individual factory types in whid African Americans predominated. Canning, citrus packing, anc cotton ginning were industrial, not agricultural jobs, but worker: were usually African American, and so they were denied the NRA': wage and hours standards. The NRA took account of the lowe cost of living in the South by setting lower wages in that region In Delaware, 90 percent of fertilizer manufacturing workers weri Afr~can ~merican; thus fertilizer plants were classified as "sout~ ern, while other factories in the state that hired whites were classi fied as "northe " h ' h · · · d . rn, ~o ig er minimum wages apphe , .

~he first mdustnal code that the administration negotiated w1tl business leaders in 1933 increased minimum wages in the cottoi

. d try, resulting in price increases through h ·t in us ·1 1 h' t e produc itt e . . ncluding reta1 c ot mg. But the agree b -

te hatJl, 1 . . . ment ypassed •ofl c h' h African Americans predominated· cl .

ti . 11 1c . • eaners, outside )·obs l d yardmen. Of the 14,000 African Americans in th . d

an f h . b 1 'fi e in us-crews, held one o t ese JO c assi cations. The NAACP 0 000 k h N com-trY, I ' "for these wor ers t e RA meant increases of f

· ed f h' rom 10 Platll ' nt in the cost o everyt mg they had to buy · . h ,~~a to 4° P y in increased wages." . le penn . C

s1Il}he Civilian Conservation orps. (~CC) not only segregated . l camps but allowed local policies that did not permi't Af • ·denua . n-

res1 ericans to enroll or restricted them to menial jobs in which can Arn Id not develop the higher skills that the corps was meant to they cou h .

'd Florida announced t at it would not accept African Amer-rovt e. . " . . 5 while Texas officials declared that this work is for whites

ican ' h d 1 · · 1· f 1 " Many other states a ong wa1tmg ists o eligible African

:;ricans because localities refused to allow the CCC to establish camps to lodge them. Where the army set up segregated camps, it did not permit African Americans to lead the units, assigning white commanders instead. CCC sites usually had educational programs, but army officers often refused to hire black teachers, leaving "edu- cational adviser" positions vacant.

African American corps members were also rarely allowed to upgrade to better-paying jobs like machine operators or clerks, even if they'd had experience as civilians. The painter Jacob Lawrence worked as a youth at Breeze Hill, a segregated camp for African Americans about seventy miles northwest of New York City, where 1 ,400 young men shoveled mud for a flood control project. Not one

could he promoted to a higher classification. My father-in-law told how, in a white CCC camp, he claimed to

know how to type (although his skills were minimal), then quickly learned t d f · · · h' 1 k' . 0 0 so a ter persuading a supervisor to give im a c er s !06· Be was then able to send a few dollars back to his parents, help- 1ng to k h . . f 1. h . eep t em and his younger brothers and sister rom oSmg t e1r ho Af . k h t me. rican American youths who already new ow to Ype (o · · A r Were equally capable of faking it) had no such opportunities.

I necdot 1 · k f . h 1 t es 1 e these, multiplied tens of thousands o times, e P 0

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.... ::.

1 . h different African American and whit

exp ain t e . e ec0 . . d ·ng the Depression and afterward. nolllic uons uri · c0 tlq· l,

III

I 5 President Roosevelt signed the National L b N 193 , . . a orb

A anting unions at construction sites .and fact . -l\elatj

ct, gr 'f h . or1es th %8 bargain with management i t e unions were su e rii>h to . . PPort d t

maJ·ority of workers. Labor organizations that gained h' e by a . h t is offi

ertification could negotiate contracts t at covered all ciaJ c . d . of a fi e mployees The original bill, propose by Senator Rob rn1_i8 . . . enw

of New York, had prohibited government certification of u a?ner that did not grant African Americans membership and

010 ns . Workpl

rights. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) lobbied W: ace to remove the claus~, and h_e did so. The enactment of the ~~'. ner Act was accomplished with the knowledge that it sancti' d g . one an unconstitutional policy of legally empowenng unions that refused to admit African Americans. For at least the next thirty years th government protected the bargaining rights of unions that d~iJ African Americans the privileges of membership or that segregated them into janitorial and other lower-paid jobs.

ln some cases, newly certified unions used their collective bar- gaining rights to force companies to fire African Americans who had been employed before unionization, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency delegated to administer the act, did nothing in response. In New York, for example, the NLRB- certified Building Service Employees Union forced Manhattan hotels, restaurants, and of fices to fire African American elevator operators and restaurant workers and then give the jobs to whites.

IV A eri·

TH~ GOVERN~ENT's participation in blocking Africa~ jf,ct cans wage-earnmg opportunities had its most devastating

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r Suppressed Incomes • 159 '"' rid War II, when black workers . . wo migrated ·

JtJrlpg d ction in search of jobs. The Roo l to centers of ro u seve t ad min. . .

1ar P d f ctories to convert from civilian t .1. 1strat1on

· e a O m1 1tary d ,eqiur and navy effectively operated shipbu'ld' pro Uction. h arJ1lY · f d 1 tng yards • f e kers and aircra t an tank manufacture Yi f ' muni- . os ma , d d d . . rs. et ederal age

ttO h tolerate an supporte Joint managem . n- . bot . ent-union I' .

c1es African Americans from doing any but th po ic1es kept e most p l that · defense plants. 00r Y id tasks in .

pa ts in the San Francisco Bay Area, where All . d Even _ . en an Frank

on sought work dunng the war, were typical Th . . Stevens . . . . · e region

h largest center of war-related sh1pbu1lding 10 the t' Th was t e . . na ion. e . Laborers Union, which had seven members in 1Jarine . 1941, grew Ore than 30,000 dunng the next few years. The Steamfi to Ill . tters

union membership soared from 400 to 17,000. Unions like these had NLRB-certified agreement_s that companies could not hire without a union referral, and the unions would not refer African Americans.

From 1941 to 1943, the Henry J. Kaiser Company built four shipyards in Richmond with a capacity for 115,000 jobs. It could not recruit enough white men for all of them, so it began to take on white women. By 1944, women made up 27 percent of Kaiser's Richmond workforce. Then, with the supply of white women also exhausted, Kaiser sent agents to the South to seek African Ameri- can men. By war's end, still short of workers, defense industries opened some industrial jobs to African American women, who were previously employed only as janitors, cafeteria workers, and restroom attendants.

After four years of fierce conflict with union activists, Ford Motor finally recognized the UAW as its workers' representative in 1 941. Faced with a labor shortage that threatened its military con-

tracts, the company hired African Americans like Frank Stevenson. Initially, Ford would not permit them to work in the higher-~aid paint department, or as foremen, electricians, or in other skilled ;rafts, hut as the union got stronger, activists like Ben Gross pressed 0rd

to open more classifications to African Americans. 'fhe UAW 1 · · Congress of I was part of the new more ega 1tanan

ndustrial o • . . ' k h er were mostly rganizations. Shipyard wor ers, owev ,

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servative AFL. So while the S ore con b A teve

d by the rn d d union mem ers, FL unio tls% Presente f 11 fle ge . . T ns 1ll re became u - . Americans to JOtn. here w ostly

brothers . African b . ere a f Id ot permit f he Shipyard La orers union Wa ,. . e~ wou n ent o t · h 1 s '"'-fr

·ons-90 perc nted workers in t e owest-p 'd lean exceptl it represe . h. h . a1 0 American because·n d maintenance, in w ic whites Were r eeu,

·ons like unskt e . in the industry, the International b are\y pau , I est union oro h f nd. But the arg I on Shipbuilders and Helpers of ,._ -ou •1 makers, r • '"'-fller erhood of Bo1 er rcent of all shipyard workers) had . . lea

· about 7° pe h · b 'Id 81gned (represenung . h K • ser and other s 1p u1 ers providin h ct wit at · 1 g t at

a 1940 contra b uld work. The Bo1 ermakers' constit . ion mem ers co 11 · . Utton

only un . A ericans from enro 1ng. Under Its NLRB h 'b. ted Af ncan m Id -

pro 1 1

h Kaiser Company cou recruit nonmemb ertified contract, t e d b r. . ers c . . 1. ts had been exhauste . But erore going on th only 1£ the umon is . e job, these hires had to join the u~1on. . .

Unable to supply enough white workers, ~ut unwilling to admit African Americans, the Boilermakers established segregated auxil- iary union chapters. In 1943, their fi~st yea: of ~peration, the aux- iliaries placed 10,000 African Americans in shipyards and other industries where the Boilermakers controlled jobs. Auxiliary mem- bers had to pay dues to the white local but were not permitted to file grievances or vote in union elections. They received fringe benefits worth about half what white members received. The union did not assist black workers in advancing to better-paid jobs, and African Americans could not promote to foreman if the role involved super- vi~ing whites. Even if fully qualified African Americans performed skilled work, the shipyards classified and paid them as trainees One Kaiser worker w · · 1 • f h e . . ent to a c1vi nghts meeting in protest o t es pohc1es; the company fired h. f .

The NAACP fil im or attending. - tices· the ag . ~d. an NLRB complaint regarding these pracd

· ' ency criticized th B · i · ine its certificatio f h . e 01 ermakers' policy but mainta .

n o t e whit 1 nine other national u • . h es-on Y union. At least twenty-_ I n1ons eit er 1 d . nure Y or restricted th exc u ed African Americans e em to second 1

In the postwar y -c ass auxiliaries. l _ ·1 ears, sorne . vo un

tari Y, but federal . unions began to desegregate . 5 agencies contid d un10I1

· nue to recognize segregate

suppressed Incomes • 161

""'ent itself until 1962, when President Kenned o"ern1•• y

1.·o the g ·ce Nonetheless, the Post Office's National Asso- it1'1 h practt . . . . . .

1 ed t e Carriers did not permit Afncan Amencans to J'oin biflJ1 f Letter f . . . •oo o til the 1970s. A ncan Amencan mailmen could c1at1 reas un . d . . oflle a_ s to protest mistreatment an instead had to join ill s ievance . A . .

t 6le gr •zation for Afncan mencans, the National Alli- 110 ll organ1 . .

catcha l Employees, a umon mostly serving truck drivers, a f p0 sta l 'd . b . aoce o d miscellaneous ower-pai JO categones. The alliance, 50

rters, an later recalled, "didn't have the clout with the [local] mernber C · d'd" Af ·

011e he way the Letter arners i , so ncan Americans master t . . 'd . post likely to receive promotions, consi erauon of vacation re less h . b . h we f nces and ot er JO ng ts . . e pre ere , . . .

t1!11 struction trades contmued to exclude Af ncan Amen cans Thecon . . the home and highway construction booms of the postwar

dunngso black workers did not share with whites the substantial !ears, gains that blue collar workers realized in the two big wage income . . .

owth periods of the mid-twentieth century-war production and gr . . Af. A . . h subsequent suburbanization. ncan mencans were neit er per- mitted to live in the new suburbs nor, for the most part, to boost their incomes by participating in suburban construction.

In 1964 the NLRB finally refused to certify whites-only unions. Although the policy was now changed, the agency offered Afri- can Americans no remedy for decades of income suppression that flowed from its unconstitutional embrace of segregation. Still another decade passed before African Americans were admitted to most AFL craft unions, but seniority rules meant it would take many more years for them to achieve incomes in these trades that were comparable to whites'. Racial income inequality by then was firmly established, and suburban segregation was mostly complete.

V h~ 1941 A Ph· . carp ' · ihp Randolph, national president of the Pullman

0 rters' · demand h union, organized a civil rights march on Washington to

t at Presid R · d 1 · ent oosevelt ban the segregation an exc us1on

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. d fense industries. The presid · ns in e . • ent f African Arne_nca to convince civil nghts leaders to call st,11,i 0

ths trying k before it was scheduled h 0ff t~ for mon ' han a wee . . , e Pers e h but less t d monstratton m return for an lladed mare , el the e . b . elCec .

dolph to cane . I discrimination y unions and man llt1 ye Ran .. • rac1a • Wh'l ageln

d Proh1b1ung ll d war industnes. 1 e some fi ent or er contro e rrns co in government- 1· was toothless. tn,

Po icy 1. d the new p 1e ,

d · ·1 · ht leader First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt supporte civz rig s . d A. Philip Randolph's demand that war industries be requzr~ to hire black workers. She was his emissary to her hus~an ' but also her husband's emissary to Randolph, urging him to call off the threatened June 1941 march on Washington.

. ornmittee The order created a Fair Employment Pracuces C cts ~FEPC) that could recommend cancellation of defense co~;pC m cases of persistent discrimination but at the West Coastd fbe offi f , a e.

ce, or example, no such recommendation was ever Ill

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d . urisdiction over any firm that was 1 C ha J ·1· h . I re ated to th atP h as nonm1 itary osp1ta s that might b 1 e War i sue . v h e ca led u effort, ded soldiers. 1et t e San Francisco FEPC . P0 n to

woun F · , d' director treat et San ranc1sco s me 1cal centers t d . Was I to g o a mtt Af · t1!1ab physicians. rican Af11eric_adn t Roosevelt ensured the agency's weak b .

P esi en ness y nam r h idge publisher of the Louisville Courier-] l ing k f,t r ' . ourna ' as the

JJar . 's first chairman. In a speech following his . J1l 1ttee . . appointment

coJl'I 'd praised segregation m defense plants. A publ. ' ,; hrt ge . b h . tc uproar yt d h's resignauon, ut e remamed as an FEPC me b f ce l • • . f m er, stat-or h nondiscnmmation was a ederal order "in the Naz· d' . t at 1 1ctator 111g " h h · d · ,, and not even t e mec amze armies of the earth All' d attern, , 1e P ,. is ... could now force the Southern white people to give u th or flx . . ,, . . . p e

. 'ple of social segregation m war mdustnes.::• prtOCl .

FEPC accomplishments were small. On one occasion, two skilled African American steam~tters in the Richmond shipyards filed a complaint with the committee over their relegation to the auxiliary local; the union agreed to create an exception for these two, pro- vided that its policy covering all others would be unchanged. On another occasion, an African American was refused work at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company in San Francisco because the Machinists Union would not admit African Americans to mem- bership; the FEPC called the union leaders to a hearing, but they ignored the invitation and no further action was taken.

Like cities nationwide, San Francisco pr·acticed discrimination in public employment and in its public utilities, such as telephone

• Thirteen years later, Mark Ethridge was still publisher of his Louisville newspaper when Andrew Wade attempted to occupy the home he had bought from Carl and Anne Braden. As violence flared at the Wade residence, the Courier-Journal published an editorial urging the mob to use "proper legal procedures" to evict the Wades even though these events occurred six years af~er the Supreme Court had f~und that no such legal procedures were per- mi~s!hle. Ethridge's editorial stated, "The real fault of judgment, in our 0P1?10n, lies with Mr. and Mrs. Carl Braden .... [Their white neighbors] are entirely w"th' h • . . . h f ty in their subd' .. 1 mt e1r nghts ... m protestmg the pure ase o proper h .

ivision by Negroes ... [and] there is no use denying that the value oft eir property . 11 d wi ecrease as a result of the sale." I

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164 OLOR OF LAW • TfIE C

Joseph James, leader of African American shipyard workers in the San Francisco Bay Area, singing the national anthem at a launching in 1943. Yet his union denied him the chance for promotion, and he received few fringe benefits.

. . 1 d because compames, which at the time were very heavily regu ate e th ey had local monopolies. Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, 0~

1 f h · ' I k erator, 1 0

• t e reg'.on s argest firms, did not have a single blac_ op .)eve! hired African Americans only as 1· anitors or for similar low -

k d · . state wor 'an It even refused an FEPC request that it issue a

r J

ing it would comply with th . t saY . , e preside ,

,,ie~ order, The city s streetcar system f . nt s nondiscr· . ol1 .

1 M re used h. . un1-

J1~t1 . ans unu 1942. aya Angelou wh 1· to ire Afri ..,.,eric , . b , o ted ab can f.w nductor s JO as a teenager was out her age

ta co bl ·1 b'l , one of the fi to ge h considera e ava1 a I ity of qualifi d . rst. lndicat- . g t e A . h. e African A 1J1

5 in the Bay rea, wit 1n two years f h merican

rker f o t e new 1 · ~o O

black plat orm operators when th h po 'tcy there re 7° ere ad b

~e inning of the war. een none at the beg M . h' .

I 1943 at the anns 1p yard m Sausalito wh

11 • • 11 . , ere workers' d .. . had been umntent1ona y mtegrated afte . . orm1-

tofles d b r recruits arrived t 'dly to be separate y race, half of the African A .

00

rap1 h mencan workers fu

ed to pay dues to t e segregated branch of the B ·1 k re s . . . o1 erma ers. The . 011

then demanded that Mannship dismiss the deli'n Af . uni . . quent ncan A

..,ericans, and the shipyard complied. The California atto 11• • • rney gen-

eral and the navy admiral in_ charge of the area's shipbuilding pressed the workers to abandon their protest and rejoin the segregated aux- iliary, but when they refused, the officials urged Marinship, without success, to cancel the layoffs.

At an FEPC hearing, the union argued that it was in full com- pliance with the president's order because no African American was denied work if he paid his dues, the same requirement that applied to whites. The FEPC rejected this claim but suspended the ruling pending a company appeal. The black Marinship work- ers then sued, but a federal judge concluded that the workers had no relevant rights under the "federal constitution or any federal . statutes."

The African Americans then took their case to California state courts, where a judge suspended the firings, pending a company appeal. Eventually, in 1945, the California Supreme Co~rt ~p~eld t~e order, stating in unprecedented language that racial discnmm~- tion is "contrary to the public policy of the United States and

th1 s

state " Th . . . h d · · but they had · e Boilermakers complied with t e ec1s10ns, . come too late. At the time of the California Supreme Court ruling, 25 oo Af · . h' ds but the war

' 0 ncan Americans worked 1n area s ipyar ' Was d' h d d ped to 12,000,

en mg. Eight months later, the number a rop

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h the shipyards shut down and . . e mont s, V1rt d in another nin . 1 . d off, llalJy

an . were a1 . 1 h 11 .ts employees . .1 ly ineffective e sew ere. Lockh a 1 s simt ar . eed

The FEPC wa . . • n Los Angeles and Boeing in Se 1

and . Av1auon t att eo I

North American . s as janitors; when labor shortages f n y . American h . ore d h. red Af ncan to open ot er categories, the co e

t ntractors . Illpan· these defense co t' on and job rights to the black w k ies

1 compensa t d h or ers denied equa d d Steel responde to t e FEPC by . · c· Stan ar say,n In Kansas ity, Ne ro working in twenty-five years and g, "We have not had a g do

"We Fight for the Right to Work as well as Die for Victory for the United Nations." In 1942, demonstrators proteSt t~e refusal of the St. Louis Small Arms Ammunition Plant to hire black workers,

· unition not plan to stan now." In St Louis the Small Arms Amm d I . ' W r II an pant employed 4°,ooo workers at the height of World a •

1 il

initially refused t h' Af • . onded to ci 0 ire ncan Americans. It resp • e for rights demon t t' b • d duction hn s ra 10ns y settmg up a segregate pro

..,nyyrc;:,:,t'U lncomes • l67

kers and agreed to include them . ,, wor . d' on an •nt blac~ war was win 1ng down and mo egrated lin

the . h h st Workers e only 1beO rnpliance wit t e president's n d' . Were laid off

~ronco . , f d on tscrun. . . i~ ffect companies e eral contracts I tnatton Ord ·d ot a . , h . , pan y bee er

d1 o drninistrauon s ent us1asm for racial . ause the Roo- lt a M • equality h'l se"e lukewarm. ore important was the 'd , w I e genu-

. "'as . pres1 ent's . . ,oe, dispute, that every other obJective had b convict1on d to to e sub d' , bar . . ng the war. But even granting this p . or tnated «inni f . rem1se, the u

t 0

. 1 treatment of A ncan Americans called f _nconsti-uona h f or remediat. 'f tll d • ng the war, t en a terward, yet the fed I 10n, 1 ot un . . era govern '

n }'city in the suppression of Afncan American I b . ment s colllP

1 dd a or rights and tunities was never a ressed, not then and n t .

oppor b k d d o smce. A government- ac e ual labor market contin d f . ue a ter the 's end. In 1944, the G .I. Bill was adopted to support .

war l . . returmng Vl·cemen. The VA not on y denied Af ncan Americans th ser . e mort-

gage subsidies to ~~1ch they were entit!ed but frequently restricted education and tram1ng to lower-level Jobs for African Americans who were qualified to acquire greater skills. In some cases, local benefit administrators refused to process applications to four- year colleges for African Americans, directing them to vocational schools instead. Servicemen with dishonorable discharges were ineligible for benefits under the G .I. Bill, and African American sol- diers disproportionately received dishonorable discharges-some for protesting segregation in army towns.::•

At the end of World War II, dishonorable discharges were issued to African American soldiers at nearly twice the rate of white sold~ers. In 1944 Jackie Robinson was arrested and tried in a general court-martial when he was an army lieutenant stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. His crime was refusing to move to the segregated section of a bus. Robinson, who three years later woul~ be th

e first African American to play major league baseball, was already nauo~- al!y kn • h h f d using unrest rn own as an athlete, and the army m1g t ave eare aro . . the Afri A . . d Al during his tnal, h can mencan community if he were conv1cte · so, Id' t e arrn fi 11 h ported so iers. P b Y na Y prohibited segregation on buses t at trans . b ro ab[ f b . d H d Robrnson een d' h Y or oth of these reasons he was not conv1cte · a di h e 18

onor bl d' ' Id undoubte Y av refu d a ! 1scharged, the Brooklyn Dodgers w_ou . th century se to h h' f . ·1 . h n the twenue ""ould h ire 1m, and the trajectory o c1v1 ng ts 1

ave been retarded, at least.

VI

ry J'ob seekers depended . h centu ' . on st •d-nvenuet f ls to vacancies and traini' ate

a E 1111 £ re err a . ng p IN T t offices or . 942 these agencies were put ro, Joymen sure in 1 ' Und emP ,. a war mea . ation the U.S. Employment S . er

ms ns 1 organ1z ' erv1 gra . trol of a federa d nroll African Americans in tr . _ce, the con fuse to e ffi a1n1n

h . h generally re . tions to local o ces advised th . g

w 1c k I s 1nstruc . . . at 1f [ skilled wor . t 'f racial exclusion in its request for w ka ior ·1 d to spect y a . h or - ompany fa1 e 1 · 't one assuming that t e firm might h

c ce should so 1c1 ' . ave ers, the offi nity to state 1t. overlooked the_opportut'nued after the war, when placement a d

rh racuces con 1 n ese p . turned to state control. In 1948, for exampl raining services were re . h M. h. e,

t f II . b rders placed with t e 1c 1gan State Employ- 5 percent o a JO O • 1 b 4 . for whites only, despite a severe a or shortage

ment Service were . . . . h f the postwar period; although Af ncan Americans

dunng muc o . . . ·1 ble many J. obs went unfilled. M1ch1gan did not adopt were ava1 a ,

a Fair Employment Practices law until 1955, and even then it was poorly enforced. ·

A 1960s executive order covering contractors on federally funded construction projects prohibited racial discrimination and required

1

affirmative action to recruit African Americans. Yet when a new ' central post office was authorized for Oakland, California {on land cleared by displacing more than 300 families, mostly African American), not , a single black plumber, operating engineer, sheet metal worker, ironworker, electrician or steamfitter was hired for . ' its conStruction. When the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system (BART) was built i 6 · · · k'll d

k n 19 7, not a single Af ncan American s 1 e

wor er was h · d k . C 1

. ire to wor on It. The Office of Federal Contract omp 1ance blam d h •

admitting bl k e t e unions, all certified by the NLRB, for not ac members Th B 11 wed

that although BART · e ART general manager a 0

was "co · • " 'twas unwilling to · • mmitted to equal opportunity, 1 1ns1st on nond · . . . h ro-

voke a union w k iscnmination because that mig t P bl . , or stoppage and "r ., 'b'l' to the pu 1c • .. is to del' h LoJur prime respons1 1 1ty

iver t e syste siblY m · · · as nearly on time as we P05

Suppressed Incomes • 169

h federal regulations provided for term· . }lotlg . mat1on of a

,, j\lt f failing to comply with the nondiscriminat' d ~o· r or ion or er CP tO d ' otra' as impose . c0 lt" A · · ..,eJla I d A frican mencans continue to have lesse . h 11 0 r tO ay r ng ts

eveJl ti6ed unions. In 2015, New York City's sheet m 1 0

13,cer . h' .11 . eta . rJLJ:' . began paying t 1rteen mt 10n dollars in compe 1

11 t1n10Il nsa- 10rkers {rican Americans wh~, although union members, received tio!l t~ A ·gnments than whites from 1991 to 2006. Ongoing liti-

ob ass1 . . . . b . fewer J • rtiilar discnminatton y NLRB-certified unions that . over Sh•~ . .

gat10ll .. ate in government contracts involves Chicago pipefit- parucip . . a!s0 •

1 delphia operating engineers, and New York City iron-

phi a . . . . . cers, for many Af ncan American workers, the discnmmation rkers. . . . h w0 h t unlike white un10nists, t ey were never able to afford ant t a ' [Ile . · n integrated middle-class communities.

housing 1

VII

AFRICAN AMERICANS could save less from their wages because in some (perhaps many) cities, discriminatory property assessments left them with less disposable income than whites with similar earnings. A homeowner's property tax is calculated by taking the property's assessed value, usually set by a county tax assessor, and multiplying it by the tax rate set by a municipal government agency (city, county, school district, water district, fire district, etc.). The total tax rate is the sum of rates set by each of these public entities. Each one sets its property tax rate by dividing its total budgeted expenditures-how much it expects to spend in the coming year- by the total assessed value of all properties in its jurisdiction.

Assessed values do not have to be the same as market values, but afairand d' · · · 11 · b non 1scnm1natory system requires that a properties e assessed h t at t e same percentage of their market values. Whether a ax assess h f ke

1 or says t at assessed values should be 20 percent o mar-

t va ues h sam d ' or 200 percent of market values, homeowners pay t e e 011ar a f · I d If the cit , mount o tax after the calculations are comp ete ·

y s total assessed value is high, dividing it into the budget will

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If the city's total _assessed value is Io.....,, . , Yield a low rate. d will yield a high rate. A low rate d1v1d;h

e bu get l\ilJ[f ''!i into the sam . . Id the same tax revenue as a high r 'Pli~ t hi h value will y1e ate l\i11Jti _bl

a g l . Pl1, 1 by a low va ue. undermine tax fairness by using d'f essor can . t f e

But an ass k lue in different communities. By d . tent Pe f mar et va o1n t, centages

O • h ntury, city and county governrnen g this i

. d-twenuet ce . h ts e:q the mi f African Americans. T ese governni taqeq

. taxes rom k . hb ents d'd excessive . perties in blac ne1g orhoods and 1 s 0 b assessing pro und

Y over . h'te ones. Although assessors may have h eras. . g them m w I • ad ab· sessm ess houses of lower-income families of i~ that led them to ass . k 1 h any rac

. tage of their mar et va ues t an houses f e at a higher percen . o affli

L

f .1. f any race this alone cannot explam the differe · ent am1 1es o ' l . nces. A d f Chicago assessments, for examp e, included a st . . 1979 stu yo h . atist

1 •

l 1 · demonstrating that the chances of t ese d1ff erences b . ca ana ys1s . . ~n! attributable to social-class bias alone were less than one in a hundrej

Homeowners have no way of knowing about the under~ss: ments in other neighborhoods. African Americans felt that theii property taxes were excessive but typically could not identify the cause. This made racial discrimination by assessors especially )ltr· IllClOUS.

Taxpayers have a natural tendency to be pleased when the asses- sor gives a high value to their property. It makes them feel wealthier, increasing their equity on paper. But what an assessor says about property value can't affect the potential sale price of a home; high• assessed values only mean that tax payments will be higher if oth• properties are not overassessed in the same way. Whether some neighborhoods are overassessed and others underassessed is dilfi- cult to

st udy. It requires painstaking property-by-property c~m-

parisons of assessed value and market value. Since it is impos~ble to know wi

th certainty what the market value might be of ' P':'P-

~ty th

at has not recently been sold, studies can't be terribly P"0''. Wonehtheless, studies of Albany, Boston Buffalo, Chicago, for

Ort , and Norfolk h d , . ropertY tax b d b ave ocumented the higher eff ecuve P ur ens orne b A£ .

A • . . Y rtcan Americans. for n invest1ga1>on of 6 . . B s1on, 1 9 2 assessment practices m 0

I

Suppressed Incomes • 171

d that assessed values in the African A . f oun f merican corn 111ple, bury were 68 percent o market values wh .

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eti f RoX . 'ddl l , i e assessed oitJ O earby white m1 e-c ass community of w, 111t1 • the n k I west Rox- Illes 111 ercent of mar et va ues. The researche Id

vi e 41 p . h . rs cou not rY ~er . I explanation for t e difference, btJ o11rac1a 1 . f . cod a n years later, an ana ysis o Chicago assessments f d r• nteen . hb h d oun

5eve derassessed ne1g or oo to be Bridgeport th II st un . h d 1 , e a -he m

0 f Mayor Ric ar J. Da ey, where resistance to Af •

t . home o . . ncan white as among the most violent 111 the nation Bridg · cans w · eport ~r/lert d values were about 50 percent lower than the legally pre- assesse .0 of assessed-to-market value; in the nearby African 'bed ratt scfl . North Lawndale neighborhood, they were about

200 American 1 11 'b d . higher than the ega y prescn e ratio. ercent I U S . . h f

P 73 study of ten arge . . c1t1es, t e ederal Department of In a 19 . g and Urban Development (HUD) found a systematic pat-ffousin . I . Af . . f overassessment m ow-mcome ncan American neighbor-

tern ° d' d . h' 'ddl hoods, with correspon mg un erassessment m w 1te m1 e-class nei hborhoods. The study revealed that in Baltimore, the property 13}burden in the white middle-class community of Guilford, near Johns Hopkins University, was one-ninth that of African American East Baltimore. In Philadelphia the burden in white middle-class South Philadelphia was one-sixth that of African American Lower North Philadelphia. In Chicago the burden in white middle-class Norwood was one-half that of African American Woodlawn. The report provoked no action by the U.S. Department of Justice. Con- sidering all these studies, the differences are too stark and consis- tent to make benign explanations likely.

The higher property taxes paid by African American owners- and through their landlords, by African American renters-contrib- uted to the deterioration of their neighborhoods. After taxes, families had fewer funds left for maintenance, and some were forced to take 1n hoarde d . •

rs or exten ed family members to pay their property taxes. In Chic · · f h b Af . c ago, excessive taxation also led to loss o omes Y n-

an America b · d ff d l' q ns ecause speculators were perm1tte to pay o e m-Uent tax li b'l• . . h and h a i ities and then seize the properties, evict t e owners,

t en resell the houses at enormous profit. Because African

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HE COLOK Ut- LAW 172. • T

s were of ten higher relative

A ricans' property taxe more likely to be delinquent . to lllarl me f 'lies were 1 1n ta et 1 e black am 1 be prey for specu a tors who )( Pa" va u ' likely to could ,,

ments and more . off the taxes due. There are no c Sei~e f ter paying 1 . b onteh\

their houses a d-to-market va ue ratios y comm . ·••Po, d. f assesse d' . . Unity rary stu 1es O whether 1scnm1natory tax a and

cannot say . h. h ssesslll by race, so we . e and if so, 1n w 1c communit • ents

he present um ' f . ies. In . persist to t d Cleveland, however, A ncan Ame . Cit,

. B It. more an h ricans ies hke a 1 h bites to lose homes t rough tax-lie are still more likely t an w n repos.

sessions. t. on attributable to discriminatory asse Costs of segrega 1 b f . ssrnent

. ff d by an unknown num er o African Amer· Practices, su ere 1 f leans, . . 1 This was not simply a resu t o vague and ill-defi d are not tnv1a . f ne

1 · m" but a direct consequence o county assess , "structura rac1s . . . . ors f their Fourteenth Amendment respons1b1ht1es anoth contempt or . ' er

expression of d-e jure segregation.

VIII

THE CREATION of racial ghettos was self-perpetuating: residence in a community where economic disadvantage is concentrated itseli depresses disposable income, which makes departure more difficult Restricting African Americans' housing supply led to higher rents and home prices in black neighborhoods than for similar accommoda- tions in predominantly white ones. If African Americans had access to housing throughout metropolitan areas, supply and demand b~- ances would have kept their rents and home prices at reasonable levels. Without access, landlords and sellers were free to take advantage of the gre~~ deman_d, r_elative to supply, for African American housing, a

is explo1tat1on persisted throughout the twentieth century an_ was well understood b . s AfrJ· can A . Y economists and social welfare expert · hy

mencans of c b · grap Langston H h' dours_e, understood it as well. In his auto 10 I nd

ug es escnb d h . . . d . Cleve a in the 1910s la di d e ow, when his family live in frof11 , n or s could . h rent African Ameri· h get as much as three times t e fe«

~mtuili "~ · ey could get from whites, becau

Suppressed Incomes • 173

'}able to black families outside a few integrated urban es 1'ere avat Landlords, Hughes remembered, subdivided apart-

1.otJ'l hoods, f ·1 · fi · · ,, , bbor d c r a single am1 y into ve or six units, and still Afri- eig · ne 10 b d' • fl ts desig , . comes had to e 1sproportionately devoted to tent

111et1 • ans in d · · · J,.((leric 1 r little had change . In its 1947 bnef to the Supreme cit1 des ate h ordeca l'' v. Kraemer, t e U.S. government cited half a dozen

fo · she ,ey d h "r J 1 d coort 1J1 f which demonstrate t at Lc o ore people are forced • each 0 • b h ·

t0 d1es, nts and housing costs y t e semi-monopoly which

s b' her re . . to paY ~g c ters." In 1954, the FHA estimated that African Ameri-

uon1os h r . h segrega crowded at more t an rour times t e rate of whites ere over

cafl5 w, d bled up at three times the rate of whites because of the d ere ou ail -w_ ts they were forced to pay.

ssive ren bl' If exce h' 0

Department of Pu ic We are report in the mid- AC 1cag .

ted that African Amencans were charged about 20 percent i9.2os .

st a nt than whites for similar dwellings. It also observed that

more in re . . hborhoods undergoing racial change, rents increased by 50 10 neig f . A . . d h

P ercent when A ncan mencans occupie apartments t at

to zz5 • Th 1· . d I f h . formerly housed whites. e 1m1te supp y o ousmg open to African Americans gave property owners in black neighborhoods the opportunity to make exorbitant profits.

A 1946 national magazine article described a Chicago building where the landlord had divided a 540-square-foot storefront into six cubicles, each housing a family. He had similarly subdivided the sec- ond story. Total monthly rent was as great as that generated by a lux- ury apartment on Chicago's "Gold Coast" along Lake Michigan. The a~icle recounted another case where rents were so high that thirty- eight people lived in a six-room apartment, sleeping in three shifts. In 1947, after a Chicago landlord converted his property from white to black tenan fi k'll d f . . h . cy, a re 1 e ten A ncan Amencan tenants. T e inquest revealed th h. rn h at a w 1te tenant who had been paying fifteen dollars a

Ont Was • d sixty d ll evicte so that the landlord could charge a black family

0 ars for th · · 'bl only b e same apartment. Such explo1tat10n was poss1 e ecause p bl' 1 · . . to Part' . . u ic po icy denied African Americans opportumt1es ic1pate in th . ' h' .

Other b e city s w 1te housing market. PL-i ur an h · · d A tllJadelph' ousmg markets were similarly d1storte • 1923

Ia survey £ d h . . d d oun t at as the First Great M1grat10n procee e ,

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174 • THE COLOR OF LAW

. any African American as white tena rly twice as m . nts had nea . h evious year; the average increase for Afr. faced rent hikes t e pr . I lean A..

8 cent for whites 12 percent. n 1938, African A lll.erj, cans was I per ' h .Q.Iller· . . Manhattan was as muc as 50 percent grea icatls' median rent in . . ter th • .c h • tes although African Amen cans had lower . an the

median 1or w 1 ' d d . 1nconi . 'ties were exacerbate unng World Wa I es. These inequi . . . r I and .

h h n the Office of Pnce Administration f its af term at , w e . l . roze r . 'd Without violating regu attons, landlords s bd· ents nationwi e. u 1vid

• . already-crowded urban areas and then char d ed apartments m ge lll.o Th h . h r costs accumulated throughout the twentieth re. ese ig e . . centur

k . • more difficult for African Americans, even with Y, ma mg 1t . d . l stable 1 ment to save Reduced savings ma e 1t ess likely they emp oy , · . could

afford even modest down payments for ~ouses m middle-class neighborhoods-were such homes made available to them.

IX

THE RICHMOND, ·California, Ford plant had a sister facility in Edgewater, New Jersey, on the Hudson River just south of the George Washington Bridge. The same technological factors that made the Richmond plant obsolete in the 1950s affected the Edge- water plant. Locked in by the river on one side and the Palisades cliffs on the other, the facility had no room to expand to serve a growing customer base in the postwar boom. New highways made it no longer necessary for the plant to have its own deepwater port, so its inefficient elevator system was a needless burden.

When Ford shifted the Richmond plant to Milpitas in 1955, it also moved the Edgewater plant to the suburb of Mahwah, about twenty-five miles to the northwest. The Edgewater workfo:ce, older and mostly white, was able to commute to the new plant wirb-

d 'ffi these out great 1 culty from homes in the Edgewater area. But as • w k . d . f . Amen-or ers retire , their jobs were taken by younger A ncan d'-

h 1. . · or 1 cans w O · ived in Newark and New York City. With zoning · [ nances th t l'k . h d a rac1a . a , 1 e many 1n the country may well have a ·

11 mt M h h ' rrucno ent, a wa and surrounding towns prohibited the cons __j

,, .,

suppressed Incomes • 175

O uld be affordable to working-class fam 1· t · 1 that w . . . 1es. n

tl sitlg ,T'lple the m1mmum lot size for house constru t '

f JlO for e,ca••· ' . c 100 o 1..~ab, B cause many of the new African American wo k ,Ka'' re e l r ers JV' foll ac · fi"'d housing for sa e near the Mahwah plant th

as a ble to •· , ey i 011a enty miles each way or depended on carpools a d iere . to seV . n

ve 51itY 'd s Some rented single small apartments in nearb JfO btJS rt e . . . y

g tbY . to their families on weekends.

JeJl etorning h "' 11

s, r rican autoworkers w o commuted from distant co . n Arne 1 Africa. hb rhoods incurred annua costs attributable to the

\) rbafl Jleig

O to $l 500 each in 1970, or about 10 percent of their f $1,000 ' . . travel O • comes far more than if they had lived in Mahwah

1 ross in ' . ' . annua ~. . The African American autoworkers mcomes were . v1cin1tY• . l .b . or its d because the excessive trave contn uted to Job losses depresse . also kers were fired for absenteeism that was partly attribut-

hen wor 1 F d . w sportation obstac es. or executives complained of ble to tran a ver and later, when they closed the Mahwah plant and

hiuh turno , . i, ed it in Mexico, high absenteeism was a factor executives

reopen d . . Th ' bl . . d in explaining the eeis10n. is was not a pro em umque to cite · 'd Af . A . h d d' workers in Mahwah. N auonw1 e, ncan mencans a 1spos- able incomes that were lower than those of the whites with whom they worked, because of higher commuting costs from segregated neighborhoods to jobs that were now found in the suburbs.

It is certainly true that one cause of segregation today is the inability of- many African Americans to afford to live in middle- class communities. But segregation itself has had a high cost for African Americans, exacerbating their inability to save to purchase suburban homes. Income differences are only a superficial way to understand why we remain segregated. Racial policy in which gov- ernment was inextricably involved created income disparities that ensure resident· l . . . h' d ta segregation, contmumg to t 1s ay.