Labor, Civil Rights, and the Hughes Tool Company

Acknowledgments

acknowledgments THE ORIGINS OF THIS BOOK go back to the spring of 1993 when I was a graduate student at the University of Houston trying to find a topic for my master’s thesis. My original intention was to write the labor history of the Armco Steel Corporation’s Houston mill that was opened on the eve of the Second World War. I gravitated toward that topic and company because I had been a steelworker for nine years, a union man, and now was one of the forgotten, faceless multitude of American blue-collar workers who had been downsized out of a job during the country’s deindustrialization of the 1980s. Writing about the historical experiences of a group of blue-collar workers that I knew something about, and whose livelihoods were and continue to be under siege, was the only topic I was willing to devote myself to in order to complete my thesis. I also came to regard the project as a catharsis in helping me bring closure to the latent rage still lurking in my psyche eleven years after being cast out of industrial employment. I have written a history but it is not about Armco Steel. In the course of my initial research I discovered only a scant paper trail on the labor history of Armco’s Houston mill. Panic began to set in until my investigations uncovered a large and promising paper trail, the twenty-pound sledgehammer in the historian’s toolbox, tracing the labor history of another and much better known Houston firm, the Hughes Tool Company. Indeed, over time it became clear that the documentation of Hughes Tool’s contentious labor history was enormous and I had found my topic. Even more importantly, the documentation chronicled the struggles of black employees to eliminate job discrimination and Jim Crow segregation. The two topics of most historical interest to me and the only two in my mind that would justify putting xi up with the indignities of graduate school any longer—labor and civil rights—were there at the Hughes Tool Company just waiting for me to write about. More than eleven years later that paper trail has helped produce my master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation, and now this book. In the course of that journey I have incurred the debt of numerous people who have helped me along the way. Bringing it to publication reminds me how much this has been a collective effort and how reminiscent it is of the working-class spirit of solidarity. Several scholars have read the manuscript or parts of it and given generously of their time, expertise, and knowledge in helping me complete this book. Joe Pratt and George Green allowed me to tap into their immense knowledge of Texas business, labor, and political history , and their unwavering support and enthusiasm for my book has sustained me when my energies waned and I was on the verge of just giving up. They along with Virginia Bernhard energized my interest in Texas history and inspired my scholarly forays into the Lone Star State’s past. I am grateful to them for encouraging me to challenge popular myths that pass as Texas history. My gratitude extends to Robert Buzzanco, Truman Clark, Charles Robinson, Jack Sheridan, and Amilcar Shabazz, who read all or segments of the manuscript, and to Emilio Zamora, my thesis adviser. Chris Drake, East Texas Renaissance man, Texas liberal in the best tradition of John Henry Faulk, colleague, and friend offered invaluable insights into tightening up the introduction and conclusion. I could not have completed this project without the enthusiastic support I received from former employees of the Hughes Tool Company who graciously consented to be interviewed and tell me their stories: Allison Alton, Harry Callender, Ivory Davis, Wayne Dearman, Maurice Easterwood, Chuck Hamilton, C. Columbus Henry, Arthur Hensley, John Gray, Halbert Mabry, George McMahon, Lonnie Rhone, Bill Stewart, and C. D. Wilson. Jack Golden, former director of United Steelworkers of America District 37, opened up the union hall for a group of us to meet and then afterward treated us to lunch. I owe a special thanks to the members of the Hughes Tool Company Over the Hill Gang, an association of retired employees. They welcomed me to their meetings, made me feel right at home, and let me talk to them about this project. The late Chris Dixie, prominent Houston labor lawyer; former NAACP labor secretary Herbert Hill; and Robert Kuldell generously allowed me to interview...