Justice Promised, Justice Denied? Black Workers, Racial Justice and the American State during the World War One era

Abstract

During World War I, the United States not only faced conflict on the battlefields of Europe, but also labour conflict in workplaces back home. In 1917, the year America officially joined the war, over 1,500 industrial strikes swept across the nation, putting in jeopardy the mobilisation of America’s economy to support their war effort. In response to this labour crisis, President Woodrow Wilson enacted a series of radical labour reforms that utilised the rhetoric of ‘industrial democracy’ to attempt to end labour conflict for the duration of the war. As part of his program of reforms, President Wilson created a multitude of federal agencies in order to support America’s mobilisation. Among these agencies, the National War Labor Board (NWLB), created to adjust labour disputes in essential wartime industries, and the United States Railroad Administration (USRA), which operated and managed the nation’s railroads after a transportation crisis threatened to halt operations, were particularly important. Although President Wilson’s labour reforms intended to stabilise labour relations and minimise labour turnover during the war period rather than promote racial equality, African American workers greeted the reforms with enthusiasm and raised expectations for racial justice in the workplace. My thesis examines the relationship between black workers, the NWLB and the USRA during the World War I era. By investigating the nature of the relationship between black workers and the two agencies I ask how and why black workers failed to achieve any concrete gains from either agency during the war period. I look beyond the results of black workers’ engagement with the NWLB and USRA and suggest that their experience not only sheds light on the nature of their expectations of racial justice, including their desire for full citizenship rights, but also motivated them to act on the opportunities provided by the state to do so. The World War I era stood as a significant period in African American history. Although black workers proved unable to achieve racial justice during World War I, their experiences pioneered the development of a broadened political consciousness that acted as an antecedent to the work of the men and women who finally achieved full citizenship rights for African Americans in the post-World War II civil rights era.