Introduction: Legal History and the Death of Postwar Liberalism

Summary

It was the summer of 1943 and the scene at the Atlas Shipyard in Long Beach, California, was damn near explosive. Bob Jones' question to Madge had been a simple one. He needed an extra hand for a particularly difficult piece of welding that his crew was doing. As a leader- man, Jones' position entitled him to make the request, but Madge's response was harsh and instantaneous: “I ain't gonna work with no nigger.” Jones didn't miss a beat. “Screw you then, you cracker bitch.” Both statements hung in the air for a moment. Then Madge turned to the two mechanics sitting slack-jawed nearby. “You gonna let a nigger talk tuh me like that?” One of them started to stand, grabbing a metal bar, but he was a small, elderly man. One glance from Jones sat him back down again, and Jones stalked off.

Within hours, Jones had lost his position and the draft deferment that went with it. His boss was furious: “I'd figured you'd have sense enough to get along with the people you had to work with instead of running around with a chip on your shoulder like most colored boys. I'm not going to have you or any other colored boy in this department who can't maintain a courteous and respectful manner towards the white men and women you have to work with.” Jones' response was simple – “she called me a nigger” – but it had no impact. “You know how Southern people talk,” his boss had said, “how they feel about working with you colored boys.”

Jones seethed with anger at the injustice of the situation, but what could he do? In World War II-era California his options were limited. The shipyards were fonts of economic opportunity. For thousands of workers, impoverished by a decade of economic depression, they provided high-paying, skilled jobs that, in peacetime, many of them would have been excluded from because of their race or their sex. Yet they were also cauldrons of racial tension – black and white workers, many from the South, thrown together for the first time.