Double Victory (4 page)

In Chicago Fannie Currie and Hattie Alexander went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad in 1943. They were part of the first group of women hired by the railroad to be section hands—“shoveling cinders, swinging a pick and in general doing a man's job for a man's wages.” When the railroad foreman saw the group of “ten husky, cheerful Negro women,” he was skeptical. “When I first saw the gang, I nearly dropped in my tracks,” he commented to a newspaper reporter. “I didn't know how much work we were going to get done with women, but they sure surprised me. I wouldn't say they are as good as men yet, but they seem to be doing all right and they certainly are good natured. They even sing.”

Fannie and Hattie both enjoyed their work.

“My arm gets a little sore slinging a shovel or a pick, but then I forget about it when I think about all those boys over in the Solomons,” Fannie said. (American armed forces were fighting the Japanese in the Solomon Islands.) “We women have to
pitch in now and do our men's work until they come home. I was a maid in a hotel before I took this job and this isn't any harder than that. Besides, I like to wave at the railroad men as the trains go by,” Fannie told a reporter for a black newspaper, the
Chicago Defender.

Hattie added, “I never get tired and I like being out in the open. I enjoy shoveling. ‘A heavy hand with a shovel and a light hand with a biscuit,' I always say. When I go home tonight, I have to bake a batch of biscuits for my man's dinner or he won't be happy. They'll be good too.”

The railroad hired women between the ages of 21 and 47 to work as section hands, where they were responsible for an assigned section of the railroad track. The newspaper reported that the women who could afford to would “dress for their role as carefully as actresses, donning overalls, railroad men's caps, and bandannas.” Others wore “men's trousers, old sweaters, and scarves around their heads.” It was reported that the women “permit themselves one feminine touch—nail polish.”

In Chicago a YWCA established a counseling center for women working in war plants and offices. The center was designed to “aid women to make the most of their present opportunity.” Roberta Bell, a counselor with the program, said many of the women “feel they are attempting to establish themselves in a working world that is primarily for men.” She added, “This feeling together with the fact that they are inexperienced and are Negroes keeps many from making the most of their opportunities.” Roberta said she encouraged the women who came to her to ask themselves several questions: “Am I making the best possible use of work experience I am getting right now?” “Am I fitting myself for advancement?” “Am I taking special training in any new skill?” Roberta advised the women about training courses and trends in business and industry.

Workers Unite

Labor unions of the 1940s represented the voices of the workers. But few unions allowed black members. And even fewer allowed black women. In some cases, auxiliaries were formed for black workers. They were segregated groups that operated outside the regular union. Even the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first labor organization led by blacks, did a poor job of representing black women.

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, however, encouraged black membership. The
Afro American
newspaper admitted that the garment industry unions had “commendable records on the matter of taking colored workers into the unions.” And it encouraged women who were going into the garment industries to join the unions.

Although many black women left jobs as domestics during the war years, working conditions for those who remained in domestic work improved somewhat as a result of the war. With the pool of women willing to work as domestics shrinking, employers were forced to pay more and offer better working conditions in order to convince women to take the jobs. And in 1942 a historical event took place—one that dramatically affected domestic workers.

For five days in November 1942 the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) held its annual meeting in Boston. Rose Burrell of Baltimore was described by a newspaper reporter as “one of the happiest delegates” at the convention. Rose was a member of the CIO's new United Domestic Workers Union. Earlier in the year the first branch of the new union had been organized in Baltimore. All the members were black women. Rose was at the annual CIO meeting representing that local
union as their president. She was happy because in Baltimore the union wage scale was $3.20 for an eight-hour day. Full-time union domestics earned $15.50 for a 48-hour week. And Rose and her union “sisters” would get Sundays off. The union's goal was “to protect and dignify the maid.” A month after the Boston convention a second local of the United Domestic Workers' Union was organized in Washington, DC. The union wage was $20 a week for a 48-hour week. Inexperienced union workers earned $15 a week. Unlike the Baltimore local, the Washington membership consisted of both black and white women. In Washington the union tried to place workers in homes where the husband and wife both worked outside the home. The union considered this their contribution to the war effort—taking care of housework and children so wives could work in a war industry. The organizer of the Washington local said, “The organization of domestic workers should result in an attitude of mutual respect between a servant and employer, which is of prime importance in a well-run home.”

Rebecca Eaton, a field worker for the National Negro Congress in Wilmington, Delaware, helped set up the Domestic Workers Alliance. The alliance acted as combination union/
employment agency. Members paid dues of 25 cents per month. In addition to helping women find domestic positions, the alliance worked to improve wage levels and working conditions. It also helped women who wanted to leave domestic service find jobs in industrial plants.

Not a Social Experiment

Always hanging over the heads of the women who worked in the wartime jobs was the belief that the jobs were only temporary. It was expected that when the war ended, women—black
and white—would give up their positions to returning servicemen. Black women especially feared the temporary status of their positions. For some white women it simply would mean they would go back to their former lives as housewives as their returning husbands once again became their families' breadwinners. But for those black women who had always worked outside the home—usually in low-paying domestic or service jobs—the postwar job situation looked gloomy. It would be ludicrous for them to go back to their former positions after holding well-paying war jobs. A well-known black leader, Jeanetta Welch Brown, reminded women of the difference between white and black women workers: “The employment of Negro women is not a social experiment but an economic necessity.” She predicted that, because many men would not return from the war, there would be a shortage of workers to fill jobs after the war. Historically, black women had worked outside the home in order to survive economically—and they would continue to do so after the war. She wanted to ensure that black women would be considered for any job opportunities after the war.

Life in a Castle

Some black women followed their soldier husbands to army posts across the United States until the men were shipped overseas. Those women worked in the post laundry on the graveyard shifts, in warehouses, and sometimes as clerks and typists. Some worked as maids in the post hospital or in white officers' homes. Salaries varied for these workers. Those who were lucky enough to get work as typists earned $120 a month. Laundry and warehouse workers made $50 to $60 a month. Hospital maids earned $90 a month, but maids in officers' homes made “whatever their employers felt like paying.”

It was the custom to segregate black and white soldiers, and that meant black soldiers were sent to military installations that housed only black soldiers. Fort Huachuca in Arizona was one destination for black soldiers. The women who followed their soldier husbands to the camp in January 1943 shared an “unpainted plywood shack” with 11 black soldiers. There were 11 rooms about seven feet square—each furnished with two army cots and bedding. All shared the same shower, toilet, and two sinks. The sinks served as laundry tubs as well. The soldiers and their wives were charged $12 a month for rent for these accommodations, which they jokingly called the Castle on the Hill.

A Woman with Her Head in the Clouds

Willa Brown of Chicago, Illinois, captured the attention of Americans because she broke through barriers that most black men and most women of any race were not able to breach. In the 1930s and '40s
any
woman who held a commercial pilot's license and a master mechanic's certificate was a rarity, but a black woman with those credentials was especially noticeable. Willa earned her pilot's license in 1938 and worked for a Chicago flight service. She took passengers who paid one dollar for a 10-minute ride. In 1939, she helped form the National Negro Airmen's Association of America. Membership was open to any “Negro pursuing work related to aviation.” About the same time, she started teaching aviation subjects for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a government program that provided jobs in public works projects. She became certified as a flight instructor by the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), a federal agency that regulated the aeronautics industry. And she taught aviation mechanics classes in Chicago public schools. In
1940, Willa and her husband, Cornelius Coffey, established the Coffey School of Aeronautics—open to both blacks and whites.

Willa fought for years to gain racial equality in the aviation industry. Government-supported aviation programs were closed to black pilots. Black men were not accepted in the US Army Air Corps. The government-funded aviation training program that was started to prepare a reserve supply of civilian pilots who could be called in the event of a national emergency, the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), was also closed to black pilots. Willa worked to change that.

Willa Brown was one of the first black women licensed as pilots in the United States. She directed a government-supported flying school for the training of black pilots for the war in 1941.
Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

“It was a discouraging process the first few years. For several years I wrote to aviation officials in Washington,” she told a reporter for the
Chicago Daily Tribune
when discussing her efforts to provide black pilots with training equal to that offered white students. “They were always polite but evasive, and it was significant that during those early years, we never received anything but promises.”

Willa Brown's persistence finally paid off in the winter of 1940. The CAA allowed her to set up an experiment with black pilot candidates. The government supplied the equipment, and Brown provided the training. The CAA said if the black pilots “measured up to comparable white pilots,” then “something more permanent” would be set up for the training of black pilots. On May 1, 1940, Willa introduced to the public 20 black men who had finished the experimental training course. She said they were “average American youth” between the ages of 18 and 25, recruited from across the country. After an inspection, the CAA officials concluded the men were “good.”

Willa's successful experiment resulted in the establishment of programs to train black pilots for civilian work and for the military. Two government-supported flying schools for the training of black pilots for the war program were established in 1941. The Coffey School of Aeronautics, with Willa as its director, was one. The other was a newly created military training field at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Coffey School taught men to be civilian pilots, and it provided preliminary training for men who would go on to military school. Those individuals who had completed their initial training at the Coffey School could take examinations to qualify for training as pilots with the US Army Air Forces at Tuskegee. The instructors there had been trained at the Coffey School. After successfully completing training at Tuskegee, the pilots were ready to go into combat.

The civilian pilot program administered at the Coffey School trained young people to become members of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). The CAP used civilian pilots to help patrol the shores and borders of the United States during the war. In February 1942, Willa became the first black member of the Civil Air Patrol in Illinois. She was assigned to the 111th flight squadron, an all-black CAP group based at Harlem Field in Chicago. The squadron included 25 pilots who flew planes provided by the government.

In 1944 the all-black National Airman's Association of America, with Willa as its director, began a drive to recruit young people—both boys and girls—10 years or older as junior airmen and as CAP members. The two-month-long drive was aimed at enrolling 5,000 young people. Youths aged 10 to 15 formed the junior airmen's group; those aged 15 to 18 became CAP cadets. Those over 18 were full-fledged CAP members.