Joyce Provost Wheeler, the labor movement and labor history, and some lessons for today

Many years ago when I was working in Baltimore I got in a car with Joyce Wheeler on a Baltimore-humid day in August and went somewhere---I don't recall where---and listened to her talk about the how-tos of organizing and movement-building. I tried hard to take it all in. Joyce was energetic and was focused on teaching while I was trying to drive and learn from her at the same time. Some of what she had to say seeped in, but I was a poor student and a not-so-good driver. Joyce passed on in 2019. She lived a full life, but she is very much missed by those who knew her and learned from her.

What follows comes from Joyce's husband, Tim Wheeler. Tim says that "Here is a condensed version of one of the last chapters in my book, 'The Man From Lonaconing: The Life & Times of George A. Meyers.' I just finished it and added it to the book today. Joyce was such a quiet, unassuming, fearless, hero!" Tim carries on as a writer and as a source of knowledge and experience that should benefit young people finding their paths in the labor and progressive movements. I am posting this account by Tim because it describes aspects of the labor movement that I grew up in and some of what I have taken for granted. My intent here is to carry forward something invaluable from Joyce and Tim. The activists and leaders who are at the base of our labor movement and who are working for progressive change have to be creative, selfless, dedicated to our goals and focused on them, and willing to touch the hearts and lives of the young and those who face discrimination. They need to roll with the punches and understand that there are times of victories and defeats and still keep going forward. The labor movement needs to continually uplift and celebrate their diversity and spirit and make this our emblem. I think that Joyce was trying to say all of that in my car so many years ago.

 

IF FBI GETS IN THE WAY WE'RE GOING TO ROLL RIGHT OVER THEM!

Joyce Provost Wheeler earned a degree in anthropology at the University of Washington in 1963. A gifted dancer, she planned to do graduate work in ethnomusicology to preserve all the precious folk dances of isolated tribes around the world. Her career path veered suddenly when we met at a Student Peace Union meeting and got married. She ended up a kindergarten-First Grade teacher at Grove Park Elementary School on Baltimore’s far west side in 1970. I am to blame. I became a full-time reporter for the Worker, paid the minimum wage.

Joyce went to work as a classroom teacher to support the family. In all her forty years, she always taught “structured phonics.” Mack B. Simpson, the principal of Grove Park ignored Joyce’s use of a banned textbook, her insubordination in using phonics to teach her children to read. She invariably earned “Superior” ratings as a teacher. Teachers in the upper-grades would comment to Joyce, “I don’t know how you do it, but every one of the children who was taught by you, knows how to read!” Bored after fifteen years of teaching, she turned her classroom into a mini-zoo. Bunny rabbits hopped around her classroom, two orange and white guinea pigs that looked like miniature Guernsey cows, gerbils, a tiny female mouse with a brood of baby mice, a pair of Terrapin turtles, a huge tarantula spider that Joyce placed on her shoulder as she taught the children to read and write. The crown jewel of her animal collection was “Nagayina,” a lovely red-tailed Columbian boa who also liked to sleep wrapped around Joyce’s shoulders when the tarantula was in her cage.

She told her students they must feed the animals, clean up after them, and keep a log measuring their weight and behavior. She assigned them to write essays about the animals. Soon they all became pets. The children loved Joyce’s classes.

She decided to produce a play with all her children playing roles in this drama. It was performed in the big multi-purpose room. The play she chose was “Wagon Wheels” about African American pioneers, freed slaves, who emigrate to Kansas after Civil War Emancipation and establish the town of Nicodemus, an all-Black community in the middle of the prairie.

I attended an evening performance and I will never forget the expression on the faces of the parents, all the people from the Grove Park community, when they saw their youngsters perform in that marvelous play, the parents’ faces filled with joy and amazement. Dressed in their western costumes up on the stage, the children gathered round the camp fire, belted out their lines loud enough for everyone to hear. They sang cowboy songs like “Git Along Little Dogie” and “I Ride An Old Paint.” They were bringing to life a chapter in the history of the African American people deliberately erased by the white supremacist ruling elite. The children were depicting their ancestors--- pioneers, cowboys, frontiersmen, trekking into the wilderness, fearless and brave!

In the spring of 1974, Baltimore teachers walked out on strike. It lasted one month. Joyce was the picket captain at Grove Park Elementary. Virtually all the teachers joined the picket line. Baltimore teachers did not win that strike but Joyce played such an outstanding role in uniting the faculty and community, she was chosen ever after as the union “Building Rep” at Grove Park. Teachers would come to her, sometimes on the verge of tears, to complain of this or that grievance, Joyce would take them by the arm and lead them down to meet with the principal to resolve the issue. An active member of the United Action Caucus she and other UAC members in Baltimore worked hard and won bargaining rights for the Baltimore Teachers Union, AFT Local 340. Joyce Wheeler was elected and reelected without opposition as BTU Treasurer.

She was held in such high esteem at Grove Park that she was asked to write a centerspread article in the Baltimore Afro-American about the history of the school. The article, co-signed by Joyce and Principal Simpson appeared in the June 23, 1979 edition of the Afro under a headline,  "Once Upon A Time.” They wrote: “This is the 25th year of the Supreme Court Desegregation Decision, Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education. Grove Park School and the surrounding communities have witnessed block busting by real estate interests, the upheaval surrounding the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…The school is like a living organism. It has experienced both good times and hard times. Grove Park is on course, providing an excellent education for the children….”

Events moved swiftly in the years that followed. Principal Mack B. Simpson left Grove Park School. His successor was Margaret Mitchell, a gifted, progressive educator. The clouds of political strife were turning dark and ominous. Republican, Ronald Reagan, the smooth-talking Grade-B Hollywood cowboy actor won the 1980 Presidential election and within months fired 12,500 striking air traffic controllers in August 1981.

As a member of the Baltimore Teachers Union Executive Board, Joyce was urging strong action in defense of public education and the rights of school workers. As a member of the Baltimore Communist Party, she was meeting, often in the living room of our home, or in the home of Jim and Margaret Baldridge, to plan all this fightback.

One spring day in 1981, Mrs. Mitchell looked out the window of her Grove Park office facing on Kennison Ave. Parked directly across the street was an unmarked sedan with two white men sitting in the front seat. They were parked there all day---and the next.

What is this? Mitchell called School Police at Baltimore schools headquarters on North Ave. She spoke to one of the commanders she knew well. Please send a squad car to find out who these men are, she told the officer.

Within an hour he called her back. “Margaret,” he said. “They are FBI agents assigned to keep one of your staff-members, Mrs. Wheeler, under surveillance.”

Mrs. Mitchell’s jaw dropped. “What? My Joyce Wheeler? You mean the woman who has been teaching children at Grove Park to read for the past ten years? Well Mark, you send your officers back out and inform those FBI agents to leave immediately and don’t return!”

Captain Mark did. The FBI agents disappeared and never returned.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Mitchell called Joyce on the intercom and asked her please to drop by at the end of the day. When Joyce sat down in front of the principal’s desk, Mrs. Mitchell asked her, “Joyce, by any chance, have you noticed the car parked across the street with two men in it for the past three days?” Joyce shook her head. “Well, we now know who they are. FBI agents. According to Baltimore School police, they were assigned to spy on you. I arranged to have them removed. If ever you are accosted by these or any other federal agents, please let me know. I will do everything I can to protect you from this kind of outrageous harassment and intimidation.”

A few months later, the entire labor movement of Maryland, African American, Latino, and white, was mobilizing in solidarity with the striking PATCO air controllers fired en masse by Reagan and his union busting minions. The AFL-CIO Executive Council had endorsed “Solidarity Day,” a plan for tens of thousands of union members to gather in Washington D.C. September 19, 1981 and march in support of PATCO and all other workers fighting to defend their union.

Joyce and fellow BTU Local 340 members, marched proudly with the American Federation of Teachers. More than 500,000 union workers and their allies marched that day. Joyce played a leading role in pushing a UAC resolution through the AFT National Convention in Denver endorsing Solidarity Day and she worked tirelessly to fill BTU buses for that march and rally Sept. 19. She was Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid" who never was afraid of goons and ginks and FBI finks who made the raids.

Joyce Wheeler. Photo from Tim Wheeler.