International President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car porters and Civil Rights Leader, C. L. Dellums
III Alameda County Labor
HendersonAfter that agreement was signed, did you turn your attention toward labor here in Alameda County? I notice that in 1936 you were elected to the Executive and Arbitration Board in Alameda County's Central Labor Council.
Dellums
I had been involved in the local labor movement before we signed this agreement. Soon after we became chartered by the AF of L, I became active in the labor movement and was a delegate to the Central Labor Council. By 1936 I was one of the best known labor men in the county.
The county Central Labor Council is the official body of delegates of the various unions in the organized labor movement that are affiliated with the AF of L, now the AF of L-CIO. Richard Groulx is the executive officer now in Alameda County.
Henderson
Was this election in 1936 that I've heard about just a re-election?
Dellums
No, I had never run for an office of any kind before. I wasn't even certain of the year. I thought it was before '36. I think Bob Ash once told me that it was 1936. He got elected to a committee that same year and that's how he remembered it. He remembered me because I was the Negro. He didn't say that but I think that is how. I didn't remember Bob Ash until years later when he became the head of the Labor Council himself. He brought it up in a bar, I think, in Sacramento. He brought it back to mind.
You were the only Negro on the council?
Dellums
No, Ishmael Flory was in then, representing the Dining Car Cooks and Waiters. When I went to the election that night I recall there were two leaflets in each chair, and each gave a full slate of candidates. One was called, I think, the progressive slate. The other one was called the administration slate. Nobody said anything to me about running on this slate. As I recall, the tickets were put together by a committee. Nowadays we nominate one week and then elect the next week. But in those days slates were put together in caucuses. So when I looked at these two slates, my name was on the administration slate for what then was called the Executive and Arbitration Board. Then I looked at this progressive slate and nearly everybody that I fought with weekly there—we fought together on the same side—was on that slate. But my name wasn't on it.
While I was looking at it, three or four fellows came over to me and they were surprised. They spoke to me about it. I told them I didn't know any more about it than they did. Nobody said anything to me about it. Then one fellow spoke up and said, "Well, the progressives had a caucus and they decided against you." So I said, "Why?" He said, "Well, you're not progressive enough to go on our slate." I won't use the language to you that I used to him then, because I was a very hot-headed man. I've worked hard all my life trying to control it. I still haven't controlled it entirely. But I turned on him like a flash and I told him, "Let me tell you damn Commies something, every damn one of you, I'm more progressive than most of you Commies ever will be! You don't want me on your ticket because you can't control me. I'm not a stooge and you know it and I'll tell you off as quick as I would anybody else and I'll fight you as quick as I will anybody else. And when I say fight, you can choose the weapons and you know I mean it!" Then I turned and walked away from them and that was that. So the administration ticket won, of course.
But I guess '36 is correct because the CIO-AF of L split came right after that and the charter
Henderson
The charter was lifted because of the CIO-AF of L split?
Dellums
Because of the AF of L-CIO split largely. But that wasn't really all of it. There had been some trouble in the Teamsters Local 70. The Teamsters had been thrown into receivership—that is, the international leadership had taken over and had abolished all of the local officers in the Teamsters Union, and the international president appointed Charlie Real as the conservator to run the local. Charlie Real was the executive officer of the teamsters at the time. They abolished everybody else for practical purposes except him. Then he named all the officers he wanted to work with him while it was under international control. He removed all of the delegates from the Central Labor Council and he named some new delegates.
Well, the teamster delegates to the Central Labor Council had been elected by the membership and by secret ballot and so there were two or three bitter fights in the Central Labor Council over it. We refused to unseat our delegates in order to seat some people that had been appointed by Charlie Real because we considered them stooges of Charlie's. And we wouldn't seat them. Finally a man came out representing William Green, President of the AF of L, with instructions to us to unseat those delegates and to seat the new Teamsters' delegates or—this man's name was Watson—as he told us, "If you don't do it, I'm going to walk out with the charter!"
So the three or four of us who generally led the fights blasted away at it. It was my position that we were better off to remain united without a charter than to sacrifice our principles and be split and have a charter. I believe the charter was restored to the council after about six months, but not all of the old delegates were allowed back, including me. I think this was in 1937.
Now where do the Communists come in? Were they with the Teamsters?
Dellums
No, no. They were just other delegates from various unions. They were infiltrating the labor movement in those days and there were a number of delegates in there that I believed were Communists. Now I've never even seen a Communist membership card in my life!
Henderson
I've heard that labor was often supported by Communists.
Dellums
Oh yes, and we know that they played a major role in the sit-in strikes and in helping the CIO get developed. We knew, and John L. Lewis knew, that they were doing it! It was my opinion that John L. knew what he was up against, the same as I knew what the Brotherhood was up against. We not only had the handicap that all workers had in the twenties in trying to organize a union, but we had the additional handicap of being Negroes. Therefore, I would accept help from anybody. I knew Commies were helping us at various times, that is, people. I believed were Communists. I might have been naive or egotistical, I don't know, but I had enough confidence in myself to believe that they could not outsmart me, and that I would use them while they were hoping to use me. I think that time has proven that I was right. They finally gave up and let me alone.
Henderson
In 1936 Earl Warren was DA of Alameda County. What was his relationship to labor?
Dellums
Earl was a good DA and generally well-liked, but the militants in the labor movement didn't like him. There were no Negroes in his office and no Jews. I went on more than one delegation to his office to argue with him about it and finally Miller came along; he was Jewish.
Henderson
Are you speaking of Nathan Harry Miller?
Dellums
Yes. He was Jewish, active in the labor movement. He'd become a lawyer. So some of us got together and started talking. My memory isn't very good at
Henderson
This was the Alameda County Central Labor Council. A group out of that worked toward getting Miller in?
Dellums
Yes.
Henderson
What was your role in the Oakland General Strike of 1934?
Dellums
I had no policy making part. I have not sought nor held any office in the Central Labor Council since the charter was lifted in the nineteen thirties. I have been just a delegate supporting the action.
I served on the executive committee of Alameda County Labor Political Committee for quite a number of years.
Henderson
Were you aware of Earl Warren's role in the 1934 strike?
Dellums
I don't remember Earl Warren's role but, as a public official, he had to oppose such action.
Henderson
I see. Can you now tell me about the Tom Mooney rally held in 1939 at which I believe you spoke?
Dellums
Yes. I'm sure there has been enough printed about Tom Mooney and the Mooney-Billings Case. Warren Billings is still living. He was at the last AF of L-CIO convention in San Francisco last summer, and as soon as he hit the building he was looking for me. He came over. We've been friends since back in those days.
We carried out this fight for years to get Tom Mooney out of prison. He was innocent.
Some of our labor people went to San Quentin with the pardon, got him, and brought him out in a car. I was not in that group, but we decided that Alameda County would be the logical and best place to hold the mass meeting to welcome Tom Mooney back to the labor movement and back to freedom. We decided to hold the meeting in the Oakland Auditorium. Alameda County labor people got together in a special meeting—I don't even remember where the meeting was held now—to arrange for this rally to welcome Tom back, and I was the unanimous choice of all of these labor people at this meeting to be the master of ceremonies at the rally.
Henderson
Do you think that there was any special reason that you were chosen?
Dellums
It's always difficult to say how much of a part race played in those things in those days. It is easier now. Some things are done now because we are Negroes. Damn few things were done then because we were Negroes. They were done in spite of us being Negroes!
But being a Negro and so conscious of the racial struggle and then having to be in this fight for the Brotherhood which was more racial than a trade union, I had become quite a rabble-rouser. I think that was the kind of speaker they wanted. I think that Josh Rose, who is now on the city council, once said that in his day he'd been to thousands of meetings but the best master of ceremonies he had ever seen was C.L. Dellums. I was asked to chair meetings quite often for many, many years because they never got out of hand—I had that
Henderson
You said that you knew Billings personally—did you know Tom Mooney personally?
Dellums
Well, obviously I didn't know either one of them before they got out of prison. I never got to know Tom well.
Henderson
I heard that because Tom Mooney became the symbol of liberalism, that perhaps this went to his head. I don't know whether it was after or before he got out of prison.
Dellums
The reference is to after he got out and not before. I don't agree with that. I've heard it but my interpretation of the matter was that Tom had been in jail, I believe, from 1918 to 1939. You would have to do a lot of research to see the difference in the two worlds. There were no aeroplanes flying all over in 1918. The streets weren't cluttered with automobiles in 1918. All the automobiles I ever heard of in 1918 had to be cranked and it was hard and dangerous—oh, it was just a different world. Most of Tom's contemporaries were gone. They had either retired or died. The labor movement was run, controlled, and dominated largely by a group of people my age then. We were probably twenty years younger than Tom. On top of how the world changed, Tom really was just lost. He was out of place. Tom's ideas just didn't fit in! So I don't think that there was anything that had gone to his
Henderson
This really took place as sort of a celebration of his getting out?
Dellums
Yes. He was already pardoned and they brought him back to Sacramento when they got him out of San Quentin, of course. They got some publicity for the governor. We didn't have television, but we had some radio on it. From there they flew Tom to Oakland. Then they brought him to the auditorium for this big meeting to welcome him back to the labor movement and to freedom!
He didn't realize that he really wouldn't fit in as a leader, like he was when he left. I think it is contrary to the fact to say that he became swell-headed. I know people came to me and, in the short time he lived after he got out, would tell about the disagreements they had with him. But to me the problem was that it was just a different world for him.
Warren Billings, being a younger man, went on to work. He's been a member of unions ever since. He was a delegate to the state federation conventions many times and may be this year. That's how he came looking me up, because he had names of people who had been so helpful or active so long in getting him out. He came up and introduced himself to me once many years ago in one of the conventions just to express his appreciation for the part I played. Then from time to time we'd run into one another
Henderson
What statements did Earl Warren make about the Tom Mooney case?
Dellums
I do not recall Warren making any statements concerning the Mooney case.
In Alameda County I never felt that any of the leaders that we've ever had at the head of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County were personally discriminatory. When we first went in there, I think the most able man that's ever headed our labor council here was named William Spooner. I went to Bill Spooner in 1928 when we threatened to strike the Pullman Company, because I didn't know anything about strikes. I didn't know anything about how to organize or conduct a strike; yet I was determined to win the strike, as far as Oakland was concerned. So I went to Bill Spooner (he was the head of the Central Labor Council) to get advice and all. That's another story as to who he sent me to and how I got charges filed against me with Randolph as being a Communist because of the people that I worked with in getting ready for a strike. But Bill Spooner sent me to them. I believed, later, that they were Communists, but they were all right with Bill.
He sent me to the best people he knew, the most skillful that he knew, to organize and carry on a strike. The only thing that I can say about them is that the day before the strike they assured me that trains may leave the West Oakland yards, but they'd never reach the boats. We didn't have bridges across the Carquinez Straits and the trains had to be broken up and put on ferry boats and ferried across the Carquinez Straits. They were going on to Sacramento, north, and/or east. That's what they meant by saying the trains would never get to the boats. They may leave the yards but they'd never reach the boats.
So that was fine with me. I didn't want to know what would happen to them—didn't care! I was determined to win the strike. These people had arranged for soup kitchens. They just set this thing up for me so that any of the porters caught here wouldn't starve, they wouldn't suffer for anything. We'd have provided places for them to sleep (these were foreign porters, away from home; they would have been caught if the strike had gone on). We were certain to succeed here in Oakland. Our porters here and their families were roused up so that they would do anything I said do.
So Spooner was okay and so was the young man that was the president of the council, Mr. Fee. (Both Spooner and Fee have been dead quite a number of years now.) Fee was a young man in those days and he had to preside during all those rough days before the split between the AF of L-CIO came along.
Bob Ash was all right. I don't know where Bill Spooner was from, but Bob Ash is a Texan, a Southerner! And Bob was all right. I think that Bob was personally opposed to discrimination. He proved that in helping us in the fight for FEPC. There were some people in the labor movement whom I didn't have too much confidence in. They treated me all right. I got along with them but I felt they were rather shallow, and behind my back I wouldn't have trusted them.
Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb938nb6fv&brand=oac4
Title: International President of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and civil rights leader : oral history transcript / Cottrell Laurence Dellums
By: Dellums, C. L. (Cottrell Laurence), Interviewee, Henderson, Joyce, Interviewer
Date: 1970-1973
Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
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