Labor Front Honors Black History Month
February is Black History Month where we recognize the many contributions black men and women have made throughout the history of our great nation. It is also very important to understand and acknowledge the role that many African American’s played in the country’s labor movement.
While most people know many of the Civil Rights icons that shaped the modern-day union very little is known about their predecessors. While researching for this article I was amazed to read about Mr. Isaac Myers. He was born to free parents on January 13th, 1835 in Baltimore, Maryland. His minister taught him to read and write. When he turned sixteen, he became an apprentice caulker for a ship building company where he learned how to caulk planks to prevent ships from leaking. By the age of twenty Mr. Myers oversaw a crew that caulked large clipper ships.
At the time the Baltimore Shipyards employed both freemen and slaves that were leased to the ship builders including a slave named Frederic Douglas who worked as a caulker shortly before his escape to freedom. Prior to the Civil War there was plenty of work for white dockworkers and most freemen worked as caulkers, carpenter, or longshoremen. In 1838, African American workers formed the Caulkers Association which was one of the first black trade unions in the US. The Caulkers Association negotiated with the ship builders. Historian Bettye C. Thomas wrote in the Journal of Negro History in 1974 that the “Caulkers were paid very well and were seldom refused wage increases since the Association monopolized the market,” and “they were also able to dictate the conditions under which they would work”.
By the late 1850’s, the caulkers were being paid $1.75 per day which was more than most of the white workers were being paid. By the mid 1860’s tensions over wages and working conditions led to riots by the white workers and with the help of the police the black caulkers were driven from the shipyards. Isaac Myers organized meetings with his fellow caulkers where he suggested they form their own union and buy up a shipyard and railway line. If they could find the funding they could run their business as a cooperative. The Baltimore blacks responded by investing $10,000 and Myers borrowed an additional $30,000 from a ship captain and in 1866 the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock opened.
The business was so successful that they were able to pay off all loans in less than five years and paid their three hundred workers an average of three dollars per day. Myers also organized the Colored Caulkers’ Trades Union and was named its first president. As president through political activism Myers called for civil rights and ending black suffrage.
In 1868 Isaac Myers was one of nine black union leaders invited to the National Labor Union. At the time the NLU was the largest white labor organization in Philadelphia where in his call for unity he said, “I speak today for the colored men of the whole country when I tell you that all they ask for themselves is a fair chance; that you shall be no worse off by giving them that chance…The white men of the country have nothing to fear…We desire to have the highest rate of wages that our labor is worth”.
Myers calls for unity with white workers was met with a tepid response however, Isaac Myers continued speaking around the country where he told his audiences that labor could succeed only if both races united.
More than 150 years ago at a time when racial strife was at its worst Isaac Myers was preaching what we all know to be true. We are in this together and when we put our collective efforts together we can overcome almost anything. Brothers and sisters we should all strive to be more like Isaac Myers and find ways to overcome our differences and work in unity to end all racial divisions.
