1963 Racial Justice Sit-Ins

When the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter was adopted in 1951, it established a new governmental body specifically tasked with ending race discrimination in hiring. But a decade later, little had changed. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) took on the fight to change this.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hello and welcome to the Labor John Podcast. God damn it, Gabe. God damn it. God, is it the lag or is it the disrespect that makes you interrupt me? The disrespect. Hello and welcome to the Labor John Podcast, where we do it like they do it on the History Channel. The Working Class History Channel, to be specific. The Working Class History Channel of Philadelphia. Channel, to be exact. My name is Seb Hey man. I get paid very little for this. My name is Sam. And I think I make more than Gabe on this program, but here is my co-host. I'm Gabe. Hi Gabe.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

And uh yeah, this is LaborJohn, where we talk about the working class history of Philadelphia and the surrounding world. Channel. Channel. And uh yeah, so we have I have a presentation for you this very fine evening.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

You're a crumb creep.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

I don't think he shows up in this. I could be wrong. I wrote a time ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I'm gonna use that to replace all the police brutality that's gonna be in this episode, Gabe.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Because today's episode is all about the 1963 racial racial justice sit-ins in Philadelphia. Cool. Let's get into it. So, first, some backstory. Uh, because this is Labor John, and we have to do a lot of backstory. We love the backstory. So Philly has always been a city with a very strong black tradition and a fairly large black population for a northern city.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

And this goes back to both kind of the early tradition of Quaker abolitionism, which made it safer, which a big asterisk on that. Uh, but it was one of the safer cities uh for either enslaved folks who self-emancipated uh or uh uh black folks that were born free. And so there was a already by the early 1800s, there was already a like standing tradition of uh a large free black community in the city, uh, which also then made it safer for uh people who are self-emancipating themselves to come and blend in with the free black population, which thus you know made the free black population even larger. And it was also uh tied to the Underground Railroad. Uh Pennsylvania was one of the earlier colonies or earlier states to they didn't abolish slavery, they had the Manumission Act, which like gradually got rid of it, but not until the 1830s. But anyway, uh for the purposes of our story, even in the early 1800s, Philly had a uh large black, larger black population than most northern cities. And so while the city, like I was saying, was one of the better cities, it did, you know, still have a lot of issues. Uh and despite having a large free black population, or a large black population by the end of the 19th century, it was still a like very heavily segregated city, despite segregation never having been officially enforced. Uh, you can see this with like the 1890 cloakmaker strike, where black women had been excluded from the cloak making industry, but were brought in to scab on uh mainly Eastern European Jewish strikers, uh, which both opened their opened up access to the industry for uh these black women who were at this point mostly coming up from the south, from my understanding, because it was through uh there was one church pastor that brought a bunch of people uh up to do this work. More recently, to the summer of 1963, you also had the 1944 transit strike, where white workers did a sick out strike in protest of eight black workers being promoted to trolley drivers. Uh and uh on the right hand of the slide, you can also see the lovely Philadelphia redlining map, which was the one of the instances where segregation was like officially enforced just by banks rather than, or banks and insurance companies rather than city law. Uh, it was basically that the redlined areas were undesirable neighborhoods where you like couldn't get a loan to buy a house, uh, you couldn't get your home insured, and they would discourage people from moving there. Um where I live in Germantown was becoming undesirable because of an influx of Italian and Jewish immigrants.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Oh man, the Italians were still getting it at that time.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yep. And it still maps onto the demographics of the city fairly tightly. Uh yeah. Which is kind of wild.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Uh North Philly has changed, but But I do like from the strike, I hate that the strike happened. Girl, let me tell you, I hate that the strike happened. But the signs that came out of that strike were fucking amazing. They were. The WeDrive tanks, why not trolleys is probably one of my favorite uh protest strike signs. Uh that and race hatred breeds fascism. Yep, that's another good one. Um there's one about Hirohito, too, or something. Uh now we gotta look it up.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Uh so in the post-war era, after World War II, the city or Philly's black population more than doubled.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Hirohito's bullets draw no color line.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yes. I'm sorry, Gabe. Continue, buddy. No, that and thank you for interrupting me. That was a great friggin' sign. Um and uh so post-war city's black population more than doubles. Uh, this is both because of the post-war Great Migration, where uh black folks from the South were moving north uh for industrial jobs, uh, and there had also been during wartime because uh the NAACP and uh A. Philip Randolph and uh can't remember his name. Um uh Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin, yeah. Bayard Rustin.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Uh I mean we did a whole fucking episode about it. We're like, what is this gentleman's name?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

I am deeply embarrassed that I couldn't fucking remember. And Paul Prescott just wrote a book about him.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Do we leave Gabe's uh fumble in the recording? Audience? We do not cover up our mistakes like Sam.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Uh yeah, so basically, uh through the work of Bayard Rustin and uh A. Philip Randolph, uh war industry jobs were desegregated or were integrated. Um and so because of that, there was also even during wartime, if I'm to a lesser extent, but during wartime, there was uh an influx of uh black folks moving into northern cities because there were uh war industry jobs there, and then that industry continued after uh the war ended. Cool. So because of all this, there was also uh increasing pressure from groups like the NAACP to ensure that race or racial barriers were removed uh from basically everywhere possible. Um, because even though northern cities or Philly was a theoretically like relatively progressive city racially, ignore the redlining map.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah. Uh it there were still a lot of like unwritten racial barriers. Now we come on to the home rule charter of 1951, which uh fundamentally changed city politics and created a new government body. Uh the Philadelphia Council of Human Relations, which was charged with ending hiring discrimination based on race or religion in all city government jobs, and basically shifted uh hiring away from political parties that would hand out spoils after every election to an actual civil service exam system. So it took until 1951 for Philadelphia to have like a modern hiring system. Uh civil service jobs. Yeah. Um most progressive city in the world, yeah. Well I will die from the country. I I will also say Philly gets a feather in its cap for this, because despite it taking until 1951, uh, we were the first city in the country to amend its charter specifically banning racial discrimination.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

You know, this this this this is less than 100 years ago, everybody. This is not ancient history. This is like this is like your your dad's history, man.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yep. Okay. My dad was born three years after this, and my mom seven years after this.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

So my dad was alive during this. I mean, he was two, so I don't know what he could do, but I mean fuck get that toddler out there. Fight for fight for racial justice. Come on, Billy.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Not only did this like completely change how the city functioned, um it also uh solidified the New Deal Democrats as a political as like the political powerhouse in the city. Uh because now you had uh the a coalition of uh both working class black or black and white workers, and then like middle and upper middle class uh black and white liberals as well. Um and they elected the first Democratic mayor in Philadelphia since 1884.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

You're a crumb creep.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

It wasn't Rizzo. Not yet. So uh now the city had this new agency tasked with ending racial bias. Uh, and that worked, and that's the end of the podcast. So we don't have to worry about anything else. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Fit 15 minutes. God damn. That's good job, Gabe. Yeah, it was a good quick and easy podcast.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Cool. Uh the sit-ins were just a red herring.

unknown 12:33

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Did you um you got the payout, the pay, the Patreon payout, right? You got that? It's all cleared. Yeah. Check cleared. Okay, cool. All right, uh good.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

From the estate of Frank Rizzo.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Oh, uh, that's great. I'll see you in three months, Gabe. Well, psych.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Uh eventually.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

There's more? There's more.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

The Philadelphia fans went wild.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

More racial injustice. Yay.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Uh so the PCHR did start off uh with a lot of popular support. Uh and like and was greeted very fairly positively. Um it was led by uh Sadie T M. Alexander, who was the first name. Sorry? Yeah, good name. Uh first black woman to graduate from UPenn Law School and already a prominent civil rights lawyer by the 1950s. Nice. So she was one of its first commissioners, along with Nathan L. Edelstein, who was the president of the Philadelphia Jewish beautiful man? Well, I have should we Gabe, what am I looking at? Uh there are no images that I can find of Nathan L. Edelstein anywhere. Uh so right now we have no image available. Uh how does it feel?

SPEAKER_02 14:09

How does it feel, Gabe? If someone, if someone sends that in, if someone finds one and sends one in like a minute when we release this episode, how you gonna feel?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

If they send me a Google link that has his video or his image, uh, I'm I'm gonna be very pissed off. Uh but if they send me a like call number at the temple archives, then I will be less angry. Uh so we I mean, we have the lovely Sadie T.M. Alexander from her uh graduation photo from Penn looking fantastic. And then, yeah, I don't know what Nathan Edelstein looked like.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Um let's just say Sadie was so badass that she was also Nathan.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yes. She like she served in uh federal civil rights positions into the Reagan administration. Damn. And like this lady did a lot. She's done. Yeah. Uh so throughout the 50s, um the uh council, the Philadelphia Council on Human Relations, uh helped push back against racial discrimination and city hiring for clerical positions. Uh they also started pressuring unions to change their apprenticeship and membership practices, forcing them to allow black, yeah, forcing them to allow black members, or trying to force them to allow black members. Um but by 1957, the council itself admitted that the complaint procedure alone cannot accomplish the elect the objective of full equality of opportunity. So the way the system was set up is that in order for the council to do any review, someone had to like apply for a union apprenticeship, get rejected, make a complaint to the council, the council would review the evidence of the complaint and then issue a ruling saying, like, yes, this was discrimination, no, this wasn't discrimination. So, and then the council itself didn't have enough like regulatory teeth to actually solve the problem by itself. Because they couldn't go and like decertify a union if it was being racist. They could just issue a recommendation to the city and being like, hey, uh, just to let you know these guys aren't playing by the rules, you can do with that information what you will. And that was kind of it. So by the 60s, it had become increasingly clear that while the council was doing what it could, both private employers and unions had learned how to get around their regulations. Uh, and there were still lots of both like uh civil service jobs, uh private employer jobs, and union apprenticeships that effectively barred black workers from entry. Um there were sporadic boycotts against retailers and businesses that engaged in discrimination. Uh, and you started to see pressure campaigns mounting against both the PCHR and Mayor James James Hugh Joseph Tate. Uh and basically there were pressure campaigns against him to, you know, actually do something about all of these businesses that were being discriminatory. So our story really starts in March of 1963, when the Philadelphia AFL CIO's Human Rights Committee released a finding from a survey uh from that they'd conducted over the past two years looking at racial bias in unions. They determined that attempts to end racial bias in membership and hiring had failed, and that this was especially bad in the building trades. This was followed up by the April 1963 Philadelphia AFL CIO convention, where the results of the of the report were debated, and it almost immediately just turned into a shouting match between black delegates from the steel workers and white delegates from the plumbers, pipe fetters, electrical workers, and the teamsters.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Oh God.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Uh surprisingly, the Carpenters were actually praised for their efforts at integrate at integration and were called a shining beacon of light. One of my favorite bands.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

They could stop a nuclear war.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

They could.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

When's the last nuclear war we've had, Gabe?

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Exactly. Thank you to the carpenters. So the convention ended uh without any clear resolution to the conflict. Um but there were yeah. Uh uh, there were surprisingly deep issues within Philly, or there were clearly very deep issues within Philly's building trades and the construction industry as a whole. Now, while all of this was going on, there was also a major city construction project underway, building the new municipal services plot building on Rayburn Plaza. I like a good building. Yeah. And many of our listeners who work for city government today are very familiar with the MSB because they now have to work there. Yay, hate it. Um, and the fact that it's like now full of rats because it wasn't properly maintained during COVID, and then everyone was forced to come back to work for kind of no reason. Uh and but that anyway, MSB was of course being built uh using union labor from a number of different uh building trades unions. Um but the Philadelphia branch of the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, claimed there was claimed that there was severe racial discrimination among the contractors working on the project. On April 12th, COR announced that they would picket Mayor Tate's office, uh, demanding immediate action on the discrimination. Tate had previously stated that he would investigate the claims of discrimination, but that didn't go anywhere. I looked. I looked in the envelope. I investigated myself, and I've done nothing wrong. Okay, there's Philly Mayors for you. So Cor wanted, you know, actual action on this, not just words. Uh the next day, Sunday, April 25th, or April 13th, 25 core pickets showed up in front of the mayor's usual entrance to City Hall. Uh, interestingly, 24 of them were white. Uh so they were core did a very good job of making sure that it was always an integrated crowd protesting. Yeah. Seven other pickets actually gathered outside of Mayor Tate's home at 4029 North 7th Street. Yeah, I knew they were gonna roll up that cannon. Yep. We're gonna fort Wilson your ass. Uh picket signs saying, Tate, act now. Uh, freedom can't wait, Tate. The freedom can't wait, Tate is we should do that next May Day.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

We're bringing freedom can't wait, Tate signs. No one will know what the fuck we're talking about, and we won't explain any of it. Uh should have listened to Labor John episode all about it.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah, clearly. Uh, gotta educate yourself. So uh however, Tate was actually in Malvern for the day with his 17-year-old son Francis. Uh they came home about 20 minutes before the demonstration ended. And Tate got out of his car, was very clearly pissed off, uh, and ordered the police that were there to question every single person uh present for identification.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Uh so all but one of the pickets at the mayor's house refused to answer any questions. The only one who did was Lewis Smith, who identified himself as the chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of Core. Uh he was also a vacuum me vacuum machine salesman and a repairman. So good, hardworking dude.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

You were Philadelphia's outstanding citizen.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Yes, he was. I like that one. Uh so Tate stated that the city's Bureau of Labor and Standards was looking into the claims and that he awaited their verdict before acting. That didn't really, you know, satisfy Corr or Lewis Smith. So the next week, the uh but they they at least had made their point saying, like, we're going to picket you. They showed up, they picketed, uh, and now it's the next stage in the fight. So the next week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their groundbreaking report. Recommend their primary recommendation to the mayor was find someone else to deal with this. It's outside of our jurisdiction. Tate then went to the press and said that he did everything he could, he had acted promptly, uh, and that he shouldn't be held responsible because the Bureau of Labor Statistics told him that they can't do anything.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah. Freedom can't wait, Tate. Exactly. So surprisingly, uh Corr was not satisfied with that response. Yeah. Uh and just to give like a little bit of uh just to set the scene so you understand what Philly was like in the summer of 63, uh, you had these protests going on. And at the same time, there was uh also uh protests led by the NAACP at UPenn charging the school with racial bias. Uh and in their both I think both in their hiring and in knitting practices. I thought like everybody liked knitting.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

So Gabe's so done with me right now.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

It's been a long day. I canned so many pickles.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Gabe, Gabe. No. Even for the Patreon.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

That's not a euphemism.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Gabe, respectfully, that's the most Jewish thing you've ever said.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Uh up to I mean, I'm fine with that. So additionally, uh, so you have NAACP protesting Hu Pen, Cor protesting the mayor. Uh, there is also a new bill that uh was intended to ban racial discrimination making its way through city council, um, which had support from a number of civil rights organizations in the city, as well as the president of the Philadelphia AFL CIO.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

So we should have another convention about it. Another convention about it. Yes, I think we should have another AFL CIO convention about.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Well, that would be an ecumenical matter.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Father Ted, everybody. Stop listening to us and just go watch it. They have the whole fucking thing on YouTube. Watch it.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah, whatever you do, watch it in a I was gonna say whatever you do, watch it in a way that doesn't give any money to Graham Lynum. Who's Graham Lynham? He's the writer, and uh I think one of the producers for Father Ted, but he's now a like crazy insane turf. Oh, Gabe, why did you ruin Father Ted for me? The show itself is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Uh the writing is like half of a fucking show, Gabe, and the other half's acting. Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

No, you're right. And like Graham Lynham is funny. He's just he turned into an asshole later in life. And that's my solution is if there if there's a show that you you enjoy, but you know was written by a shitty, shitty person, pirate it. And that way no money goes to that terrible person. Also, Artolo Hanlon has some crazy range because he shows up in the like Australian cop procedurals that despite being Irish, uh being Irish. Uh the random cop procedurals that Ella watches. Um and it's really weird seeing Dougal because he has the exact same face and expressions, but playing like a very deadpan serious role.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

He's good in Derigirls, too. Yeah. But that's more of a Dougal-esque role, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I am so excited for Wildwood. It had better not.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

We're supposed to be talking about something. Um, uh President of the Philly AFL CIO supporting the anti-discrimination law. Uh, but construction of the municipal services building continued, and there was still no resolution on the claims of discrimination by uh both the unions involved and the contractors. So Corps declared that they would continue their pressure campaign against Tate until some actual action was taken. And on Friday, April 19th at 3 p.m., 13 members of Corps appeared in the mayor's reception room at City Hall, staging a sit-in. Shortly after they showed up, George Schirmer, who was president of the Council on Human Relations, uh arrived with a letter from Tate that instructed him to hold public hearings on the issue. He declared that uh at that, or he declared that the moment he could secure an adequate venue, he'd hold the hearings.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

If if we don't, but if we don't get Shy Park, it's not happening.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah. You know, it's kind of like you need good acoustics, you need to have good hors d'oeuvres, it's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

We're not talking, we're not talking about Shy Park, are we? Oh well, that's true. I I would have loved to know in the acoustics of Shy Park, but I don't know.

unknown 29:59

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Everything's on these old timey black and white videos.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

You probably considering that, like, well, I guess the people watching from their rooftops were probably listening on the radio. Mm-hmm.

unknown 30:14

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Until they heard that one crack of the home run, and the ball comes over and the crack. Gabe, I was painting a picture. You goddamn. Of Philadelphia life.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Dead air.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Fucking good. I'll tell you the story.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

I love you.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

I love the tradition of, especially from the Shag Park era, of people building bleachers on their roof and then charging people to go up onto the bleachers on their roof.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Philly entrepreneurs, man.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah. Uh I I would not sit on those bleachers, but I love the tradition of it. Uh so next week, uh April 25th, um, there was a call for public comment that went out, and they did actually hold hearings. Uh the commission was supposed to submit its findings within 30 days at the end of the hearings. So, another delay. April turns into May. The Commission continued its internal continued its internal deliberation. Meanwhile, construction on the municipal services building, which Corps still claimed was being done by companies who had biased hiring practices, continued. So, in the afternoon of May 14th, 1963, 16 members of Corps came back into City Hall. This time they entered the mayor's reception room and declared that they would not leave until construction on the municipal services building was halted, and any firms who engaged in racist hiring practices were removed from the project.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

So initially, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

That poor secretary, but cool. That secretary is a cow. My day just got longer.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

God damn it. So the mayor initially responded by directing the Human Relations Committee Commission to review the claims and meet with the Building Trades Council to come to an agreement. Uh then Sadie T. M. Alexander, who's one of the commissioners, as we discussed, and agreed. Yeah, and Nathan. Uh Nate Edelstein agreed and was setting up the meeting, but it was effectively ended up being inconclusive, uh, in part because some of the Building Trades Council members weren't available on short notice. She stated that a meeting would be set to meet uh later with the whole of the Building Trades Council. This, understandably, did not satisfy the core members in the reception room. So they laid out three demands. One, Mayor Tate publicly retracted statements to the press that he did not have the ability to solve the problem. Two, that he commit himself to ending the racial discrimination on the municipal services building construction project. And three, take steps to ensure that there's no hiring bias in all future city construction projects. Okay. So, yeah, like that's fairly standard. I don't, nothing too crazy there. Um, the mayor was supposed to host a press conference at 3 p.m. that day, but canceled it without stating a reason. It was probably, though, that the press conference was supposed to happen in the reception room uh where the protest was going on. So he didn't want to hold the press conference there.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

You know who the strongest supporter of civil rights right now is in this story? It's that secretary. She's like, would everybody just get out of my reception room? Everybody, the mayor, everybody, just get out of here. Seriously. Let me go home. I want to go home. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I actually I want to look up who Mayor Tate's secretary was.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

If she's a raging racist, this is gonna ruin everything, though. This is gonna ruin everything.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

I'd feel like she was probably relatively connected. Well, I don't know if is the mayor's reception room secretary a civil service job, or is that an appointed part of the like mayoral cabinet? I'm trying to Google sepuku, but I can't, I don't know how to say it.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Is there a U after the P or is there two O's? Can I use a jagged PBR can? Is there any other way to do it?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

It's the Philly way, it's a citywide. Okay, so it was clear that protest was, you know, fucking up this day. By 6 p.m., security came in to clear everyone out, but the repro the protesters responded to that by breaking into song. Uh first singing freedom, freedom, what we're sitting for is freedom. Uh, and then followed immediately by we shall not be moved. Yeah, baby, fuck them up with a song. Uh so security responded to that by locking the Sing it back, sing it back, sing it back.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Oh, yeah, you shall be moved.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Security agreed. They will not be moved. They locked them in and uh turned out the lights.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

What?

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

No, yeah. Fire hazard, first of all, first of all. Uh-huh. So that's this is a crime.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

This is a crime. Yes. Like they endangered these 13 people. Um or 16 people. So two hours later, uh, I think they realized that. Uh, came back in and turned the lights back on. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Shit, I left a kettle on and I left 16 corps members in the fucking mayor's office.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Uh so the protesters were told that they were allowed to use the bathrooms and water fountains, but no one else was allowed to join them. So yeah. Well, it because you had to leave the reception room to go to the bathroom. So the police were like, you can go walk down the hall to the bathroom and use the water fountains and then just come back in here. They got kidnapped. A little bit. So, yeah, it's I think they they recognized that like if they came down too hard on them, there was going to be even more problems. So they're trying to be nice about it right now. Um lights for you. Yeah, but that also means that this was an effective protest because Corr was able to like fully disrupt the functioning of the mayor's office. Um and was at so far getting away with it. So at 1 45 a.m. on the 15th, uh, on May 15th, the protesters received a visit from Frederick R. Mann, who is the city representative, uh, who urged them to call off the demonstration until he could discuss the issue with the mayor, but CORD did not budge. Now, all of that happening in City Hall. Over at the Philadelphia NAACP offices, Cecil B. Moore, uh newly elected president of Philadelphia NAACP, announced that uh they would hold a mass meeting on the 15th at 1 p.m. to discuss how they would also fight for an end to job bias in the city, uh, specifically in school construction projects. Because that was Moore's kind of focus at this point. So that he announced that early in the morning uh on the 15th. Then at 10:15, Mayor Tate finally met with the sim sit-in demonstrators. Uh he basically just like casually walked into the reception room uh and asked, What seems to be the trouble?

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Cockney police officer, cool.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Are you still here? Oh.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Well, free to make an await, Tate.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Exactly. So uh he then proceeded to discuss the issue with the demonstrators. After 21 hours in the reception room, uh Mayor Tate made an announcement. Well, after the protesters had been in the reception room for 21 hours, Mayor Tate made a public announcement that construction on the municipal services building would be halted until a review of racial bias claims by the Council on Human Relations. So at 1220 p.m., May 15th, Corps accepted these terms and uh the sit-in at City Hall, or the 15 uh sit-in demonstrators left City Hall. We shall not be moved until we win, motherfucker. Yeah. And they did. So shut down orders went out immediately to contractors and unions working on construction. Uh the contractors implicated in these uh claims were John McShane or the John McShane Company, the general contractor for the site, Daniel J. Keating and Company, who had a $2,136,000 uh heating and ventilation contract, the W. M. Anderson Co. uh company with uh $449,000 plumbing contract, and the Willard Electric Construction Company with $1,522,000 in electrical contracts.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Uh orders also went out, or stop work orders also went out to sheet metal workers local 19, steam fitters local 420, IBEW Local 98, and Plumbers Local 1690. Oddly, uh John McShane, the general contractor, actually hadn't had any allegations of racial bias discrimination against him or against his company, uh because all of their work was interconnected with everyone else. It was determined that they'd have to halt uh their or basically halt their operations as well until a solution could be reached. Uh John McShane also like built a whole bunch of stuff down at the National Mall. And this weirdly important construction guy from Philly that ended up doing a whole bunch of municipal work kind of everywhere. Um it was just a weird thing that Philly produced, and then we never talk about. Um and he at least wasn't a like raging racist.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

So the bar is so low.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Yeah. I mean, for a white business owner from Philly, we take what we can get in the 50s. Yeah. Uh so a hearing was called for Thursday, where union leadership would testify before the commission and answer the accusations of racial bias. All seven labor leaders denied any bias in their apprenticeship and hiring practices. The sheet metal workers argued that they simply gave preference to the sons of members and employers. Uh yeah, so that of course effectively meant that the same white families got hired over anyone else. Uh they also, you know, just casually posited that maybe there weren't any qualified black candidates who applied.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

So also it but again, every time there's anything like this that we read about, it's so frustrating that the arguments have not fucking changed at all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

And that I it's I was thinking about that. I was thinking about that when you you were talking about like strikes from the like not even 20th century, 19th century. The bosses always use the same goddamn tactics to divide us. And they're still doing it, we're still falling for it. It's so sad. People, we gotta you gotta know your history, man. And you need some critical thinking. Those two, those two together. And that's why we're here sharing these stories. That's right. That's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

So uh IBW local98 testified that no applicant had reached the executive board in the past five years. No black applicant. Um, the legal counsel for the commission responded that there had been an earlier witness who testified that he, a black applicant, hadn't been given any names of the executive board to speak to, and that he wasn't even given the right time of day when he had tried to apply. Damn. That's cold. Yeah. The union responded by stating that they had never heard such an accusation and demanded to know the witness's name. Oh, no. Thank you. Next question. So Sadie Alexander told him he had no right to question the commission in that manner. Uh and IVW then responded uh by comparing the commission to Senator McCarthy's HUAC hearings. Oh, oh God. Uh and then finally, SteamFitter. Local 420s business manager argued that any apprentice who can pass the test can be a journeyman. Uh, and that therefore there's no possibility of racial bias because it's just an unbiased test. Bootstraps, Gabe. Bootstraps. Always bootstraps. Uh so a week later, on Thursday, May 23rd, it was announced that work would resume on the municipal services building, but three contractor firms would be excluded, and only the John B. McShane company, who is the general contractor, uh, would be allowed to continue because the commission found no evidence of hiring discrimination in his staff or in his employees. So uh basically they kicked out all of the racist hiring firms. Uh the unions named in the commission were allowed to resume work uh because basically the city recognized that this is a the union problem was a much more delicate situation than they were willing to like start a fight about. Um and this is also tied into like because of how the New Deal coalition was built, you needed the building or the mayor needed the building trades unions to support him. And he knew that if he came down too hard on them, even if it was for a justified cause, then that he might lose union support and the whole like democratic establishment in the city would collapse.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Um I hate it here, Gabe.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Yeah, it was real complicated. Um and there was also like there's at this time there was also a concern that going the like legalistic route to integrate unions was also giving potential ammunition to uh groups like HUAC or to like something like HUAC or any anti-union argument, because then you could basically bring in someone to make a racial bias accusation against the union and use that as a way to decertify it, even if it was bullshit, if you like stacked the courts the right way. So it yeah, it's I'm obviously the actual solution is that unions should not be racist. Um, and that would solve all of these problems, but uh that is apparently too much to ask in 1963. Uh so CORE, for its part, uh responded to all of that by issuing a demand letter to the mayor saying that they wanted at least 15% black workers on all city construction projects, uh, and uh they wanted 60% of all apprenticeships uh in the union, or yeah, 60% of all apprenticeships in every union named in the commission's report uh to be black. Uh yeah. So they argued that the 60% black apprenticeship was because uh, in the words of Lewis Smith, they had some catching up to do.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

I mean if you put it that way.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Um so the next week, May 27th, an ultimatum went out to three companies that had a combined $685,000 in city contracts, including work on the municipal services building. Uh they were told they had 48 hours to outline how they're going to solve their racist hiring practices over the next 30 days, or they would face losing all of their contracts with the city.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Uh how do you stop being racist in 48 hours, Gabe?

SPEAKER_01 48:45

You risk losing a lot of money if you don't, so figure it out. Uh so Lewis Smith, chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of Corps and organizer of the sit-ins and the protests, uh came out and said that uh he declared this was a victory. They had shown that they could indeed force the city to actually act on racial discrimination and had won honestly pretty surprisingly large concessions uh from a mayor who was pretty adamant that he didn't have anything or he had no power. Um, obviously this didn't solve the problem overnight, and it's solved in a two minutes, 48 hours, baby. Ba-b-b-bomb racism is solved. Uh so uh affiliate NAACP under Cecil B. Moore uh was actually starting to pick up some of the tactics that COR had started. And throughout the summer of 63, they started picketing school construction sites uh that had where there had been accusations of racist hiring. So COR demonstrated the F the efficacy of this tactic with the municipal services building, and then the NAACP was like, all right, we're gonna take that and go with it. And probably, I mean, to ass uh this also probably led to the Gerrard College protests as well. Interesting. Uh so yeah, but uh that was the 1963 racial justice sit-ins in Philly. Um 1963 was a very big year for Corps. So did we did we just do a prequel for our other episode, the Gerard College episode? I think we did. Uh, and also a like a hint at an episode that I need to write about the NAACP uh school construction protests, because there were a whole bunch of them. And it's a lot of Cecil B. Moore com around and being Cecil B. Moore and not taking shit from anyone.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

It sucks to be named after a street, though. It does. It's a little weird. Yeah. Like I don't know if there was the hospital in that street where that was born, and like maybe his parents didn't really, you know, didn't think of it too much, you know.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

They might have like messed up the birth certificate where they were signing it, and they they thought that the the name line was the address for the hospital.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

You never know. Stuff happens. Childbirth is crazy.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Yes, it is, Gabe. And so is the working class No, let me finish this. So is the So is the working class history of Philadelphia and the surrounding world, Gabe. Thank you for that episode. It was beautiful. I love you.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Thank you. I love you too.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

Do you have anything else for us? No.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

What's this one do? London, England, tea time, 19th September, 1975.