Come Celebrate Juneteenth In Salem!

 

Doing Black History In Oregon With CBTU

We are fortunate to have a state chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) here in Oregon with strong leadrship and participation. The Chapter draws its energy from the spirit of the founders of CBTU, the victories and advances being made by Black union members and leaders nationally, and from members of AFSCME, AFT, SEIU and other unions here in Oregon. This blog often highlights CBTU events for the good and simple reasons that Black lives matter and that we can't have union growth and stability without mass participation and leadership coming from Black workers. Please notice that a standing item on this blog is an advertisement for the KMUZ Community Radio show produced by CBTU members and for the KBOO radio show that CBTU members help produce and lead.

I believe that we could talk and post all day about the Oregon CBTU Chapter and its great leadership and accomplishments and that we would still be remiss if we did not give readers some idea of what a CBTU event looks and feels like. The Chapter did a compelling series on Black history last month---not totally on what happened in the past, but on what is carried forward from the past into the present and what challenges are facing us as all of us work to construct a better future for all. If all you did was read about CBTU here you would not get the full flavor of what CBTU does, what a CBTU event looks and feels like. You might go away thinking that it's just another organization and later for that. But hold on.

Vinnie Blanco, a Labor Relations Director at Blanco Labor Solutions and a CBTU leader here in Oregon, has sent around and posted the photos below. Here we see Brother Blanco with State Senator James Manning, Chapter President and AFSCME retree leader Tina Turner-Morfitt, and State Representative Travis Nelson with many others. This event was the Chapter's final salute (for now) to Black excellence during their 2024 Black History Month Celebration. The photos remind me that we should be fully about making every day about Black history and advancing the shared interests of people of color and labor.

This is a view into the future of Oregon, progressive politics, and the labor movement. This strength and joy is what you will see at every CBTU event and meeting. Now that you know---join and show up!  

Black History Movie Night In Portland On Thursday, Feb. 29 at 7:00 PM

 

Join SEIU Local 503 AFRAM Caucus, the Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and Portland Rising for a Black history movie night at the SEIU Local 503 office on 2/29 at 7pm. Representative Travis Nelson and Oregon AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Sarina Rohrer will be leading the event.

An Important Discussion On Labor & Civil Rights

The following comes from the latest issue of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association (PNLHA). I highly recommend joing and supporting the PNLHA and using their magnificent wall calendar for educationg yourself and others about labor history in the Pacific Northwest. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is one of our great union organizers and thinkers. His books and articles are especially important to building our labor movement.

On Martin Luther King Day, January 15, Michael Honey and Bill Fletcher discussed the state of labor and civil rights on the Tavis Smiley talk show on Los Angeles radio KBLA 1580. Here are parts 1 & 2 of their conversation. https://p.ftur.io/kblaam/13770 https://p.ftur.io/kblaam/13772 The International Labor Organization purchased 500 copies of Martin Luther King, Jr., All Labor Has Dignity, edited by Michael Honey (Beacon), and James Lawson, Revolutionary Nonviolence; Organizing for Freedom (UC Press) with Michael Honey and Kent Wong, has gone into a paperback edition and circulating throughout the California labor movement. *James M. Lawson, with Michael Honey and Kent Wong, with Forward by Angela Davis, Revolutionary Nonviolence, Organizing for Freedom: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520387843/revolutionary-nonviolence In Jacobin, 55 years Since King, by Michael Honey https://jacobin.com/2023/04/mlk-death-memphis-strikers-labor-civil-rights

Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists: Black History Month Events

Black History Month

Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists: Black History Month Events

Ongoing throughout February both on Zoom and in person in Portland

The Oregon Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) cordially invites you to join us for a month-long recognition of Black excellence in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association, Portland Rising, Oregon AFSCME, and AFRAM/SEIU Local 503. The primary focus is health care.

February 8, 2024 at 6:30pm: Black Relevance in Politics Forum

February 15, 2024 at 6:30pm: Health Care Forum

February 22, 2024 at 6:30pm: Labor History Workshop (In Person at Oregon AFL-CIO)

February 29, 2024 at 7:00pm: Movie Night (In Person at SEIU Local 503)

Click here to learn more about these exciting events!

Black History Month Movie Night Coming Up

 

AFSCME is asking for your help!

 

AFSCME is asking for your help!

The United Mine Workers is supporting AFSCME by voting for their "I Am Story" limited series podcast at this year's NAACP Image Awards.

The 1968 Memphis sanitation strike is a powerful example of the change working people can make through collective action. Thirteen hundred African American sanitation workers, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, put everything on the line for dignity and respect, marching with signs that declared their humanity with the slogan, “I AM A MAN.” It is one of American history’s most compelling fights for labor rights and civil rights.

Last year, to mark the 55th anniversary of the strike, AFSCME President Lee Saunders produced a five-episode podcast called “I AM Story” that introduced a new generation of activists to this iconic struggle. The podcast has now been nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Podcast – Limited Series/Short Form category, and we can vote to determine the winner.

VOTING IS EASY!

1. Click on this link.

2. Click on the “Outstanding Podcast – Limited Series/Short Form” category under the “Recording” header.

3. Click the “Vote” button located underneath the “I AM Story” podcast—please note that this does not officially count your vote!

4. You must click “Back to Categories,” which will return you to the original page.

5. Finally, scroll to the bottom of the categories page and click the “Submit Your Votes” button.

6. Enter your email into the pop-up window, and once it says, “Vote received,” your vote has officially been counted.

At a moment when issues of racial and economic justice are again front and center, it is more important than ever that we honor the Memphis strikers, raising their profile and telling their remarkable story.

Thank you so much for helping us carry on the legacy of the Memphis sanitation strike. Our union siblings at AFSCME, the strikers, and their families appreciate your vote.

In Solidarity,

UMWA Activist Team

A very special Black History Month Movie Night & Discussion will be presented by CBTU, Portland Rising, and SEIU AFRAM on Feb. 29

The Oregon Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) is pleased to announce a very special 2024 Black History Month Movie Night presented by CBTU, Portland Rising, and SEIU AFRAM (African American Caucus). We hope you will join us and let others know about the program. Please forward this post to others.

Thursday, Feb. 29 from 7-9 pm
SEIU Local 503 Office
525 NE Oregon Street, Portland 97232

The program will focus on the intersections of black history with labor organizing, women’s work, and health care. It promises to be an excellent night of learning and fun.

We’ll show two short films:

“I Am Somebody” (1970) is a 30-minute documentary about black hospital workers on strike in Charleston, South Carolina, made by Madeline Anderson, a pioneering African American director. As the civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer described it: “This film packs a tremendous punch and is deeply moving at the same time. The fact that 400 black women were able to take on the power structure of the state of South Carolina - and win - is of decisive importance to all of us.”

“The Politics of Race and Medicare for All” offers a brief history on the creation of Medicare in the 1960s

Then there will be a special panel moderated by Vinnie Blanco, Jr.:

Travis Nelson, RN, State Representative, House District 44, will talk on health care inequities and efforts to create a universal health care system, and

Sarina Roher, RN, Secretary-Treasurer, OR AFL-CIO, will discuss bargaining challenges for health care unions and the challenges of being a healthcare worker.

All are welcome. We encourage mask wearing to address the cold and flu season, but masks are not required. CBTU, JWJ and Health Care for All Oregon will have information tables at the event.

The song remains the same...

This photograph was taken in Richmond, VA. around 1940. The woman with the sign was a member of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA-CIO). FTA-CIO was a great union and far ahead of its time in many ways.  
 

Black History Month with the Oregon Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

The Oregon Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists CBTU) is having a dynamic series of learning opportunities as part of Black History Month. No union person should miss taking part in these events. A list of what's coming is below. If you can't read that, try clicking on the image to make it larger or go to the Oregon Chapter of CBTU Facebook page or contact us and on the blog and I will send it to you.

A reminder from the Communications Workers of America

 

On this day and every day carry the message on!

 

Some quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. to live by

Two upcoming events in Portland honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a reminder about the Seattle event

And please remember the related Pacific Northwest Labor History Association event in Seattle!
 

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. 

An Important Black History Event Happening This Week