DR. KING VISITS SODERSTROM IN SPRINGFIELD

Bob Gibson, Reuben’s hand-picked Secretary-Treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO, was inspired. He’d heard all kinds of speeches and speakers; as an active member of the Young Democrats he’d listened to nearly every politician of note, from local legislators to U.S. Senators. He even introduced John Kennedy when he came to speak at Granite City in ’60. Still, none of them came close to the man he’d just heard – Civil Rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr. Gibson later recounted:

He was a spell-binder. He preached a sermon rather than just a speech. He had a…I don’t know what it was…with his voice that he knew just how to build you up. He’d zap you with something he really wants to accomplish.[1]

King’s entrancing style and provocative message, delivered just feet from the new Illinois AFL-CIO Secretary, had put Gibson in a heady mix of adrenaline and inspiration. The feeling continued as he sat down to lunch with King himself. The setting didn’t help the sense of the surreal. The Glade Room of the St. Nicholas Hotel was an otherworldly location, its outdoor theme complemented by woodland murals, a forest of artificial trees, and a frosted-glass terrace that shimmered like sunlight. Surrounding him were the members of the Illinois AFL-CIO Executive Board, still sweaty from the 90-plus degree heat.

At the head of the table was Reuben Soderstrom, deep in conversation with MLK. Although they’d only met once before—a Chicago event at Soldier Field celebrating the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act—they talked as if they were old friends. Their easy rapport wasn’t entirely unexpected; after all, they shared much in common. As King wrote in his “thank you” letter to Soderstrom after the event:

It is my firm conviction that the civil rights movement and the labor movement must be staunch allies. The forces that are anti-labor are usually anti-Negro and vice versa. So in a real sense, the labor movement and the civil rights movement are tied in a single garment of destiny.[2]

Soderstrom couldn’t agree more. He viewed the Civil Rights movement as the child of organized labor, a direct inheritor and beneficiary of the mission, principles, and tactics that movement pioneered—a connection Reuben explicitly made at that year’s convention:

The civil rights movement is using the tactics developed by organized labor. The protests, marches, assemblies and boycotts are entirely proper and fitting, so long as they are peaceful, without intimidation, coercion or violence. They focus and attract attention, interest and the effort of the American people, marshalling the moral, physical and spiritual support of an aroused national conscience. The civil rights movement is on the march and I think in the right direction and the right way. In my judgment, they are going to overcome the obstacles confronting them just as labor has done.[3]

Soderstrom and King chatted with each other, trading ideas in the modern room. The pleasant scene was soon interrupted, though, as the Springfield Chief of Police entered and quickly made his way over to their table. He went straight to Reuben and whispered in his ear. Soderstrom’s face grew sterner as the officer continued, his eyes scanning back and forth as he processed the information. As soon as the Chief left, Reuben turned toward the table and calmly told them “

I hate to tell you folks this, especially in the presence of our honored guest here, but the Chief just got a bomb threat; they are going to try to assassinate Martin Luther King this afternoon. That would be the worst thing that could ever happen to this organization and to the country, and we’re not gonna let that happen.”

Bob Gibson could hardly believe his hears. His dreamlike haze had turned decidedly nightmarish; he began to sink in his chair and stare blankly forward, swallowed by his own thoughts.

“Bob?” Soderstrom thundered, quickly jerking Gibson out of himself.

“Yes Reub?” Bob answered.

“I want you to stay with Martin Luther all afternoon. Wherever he goes, you go. I need to go find the Chief and deal with this.”

And like that, Reuben was gone, off to deal with the threat. Bob looked at Martin Luther King, overwhelmed both by the stature of his guest and the situation at hand. He genuinely did not know what to do next.

“It’ll be alright, son,” Martin Luther told Gibson soothingly, as if it was Bob’s life, not his, that was under mortal threat. “Now let’s see…do you know how to get to the Lincoln Memorial?”[4]

Reuben immediately proceeded to the police station while Gibson nervously sat with their VIP guest and talked him out of a tour around Springfield.

1965 LEGISLATIVE SESSION

Lie Detector Tests

The threatened attempt on MLK’s life that day as he visited Reuben’s Springfield was yet another example of the gnawing hatred that accompanied the passage of the Civil Rights Act. It was an animosity born of deep and abiding mistrust, a feeling that unsurprisingly found its way into the employment practices of business owners. By 1965 a disturbing number of employers had begun to mandate “lie detection tests” as a condition for hiring or continued employment. Spurred in part by the new polygraph questioning technique designed by Cleve Backster in 1960, these tests were, in the words of Soderstrom’s Newsletter, part of “an epidemic of test-enamored people (who) are asserting themselves by bedeviling wage earners in Illinois. Today decent citizens when seeking employment are having their dignity violated by physical tests, not always administered by doctors, lie tests and an endless number of other I.Q. tests. The testing craze is overdone and getting out of hand.”[5]

Of course, the unreliability of these tests and their practitioners was a matter of huge concern for the AFL-CIO. As a leading polygraph proponent testified before a House subcommittee that year, a full 80% of lie detector operators were without any qualification whatsoever, while the remaining 20% were considered by the American Psychiatric Society to be unqualified.[6] However, labor’s primary objection to such tests was, in the words of AFL-CIO President George Meany, “to the invasion of privacy—a right of American citizens we believe to be most precious.” He continued:

The lie detector is only one of many widespread and uncontrolled invasions of individual privacy…Of course, there are the justifiers—those who rationalize these actions on the ground of security, the prevention of pilferage and theft of money and goods, the production of ‘secret’ production processes and the ever-present quest of efficiency. Not one of these goals—important though they may be—is paramount, in our opinion, to the right of every American citizen to individual privacy of mind and body. That is a principle for which this Nation has fought many wars and suffered much. It cannot be bartered away; it must not be allowed to dwindle away….[7]

Reuben was deeply troubled by lie detector tests. In the 1965 legislative session he threw his full-throated weight behind House Bill 247, a law banning lie detector tests in places of employment. To him, the fact that these tests were inadmissible as evidence in court meant that they were not pursuits of justice but attempts at control. In his testimony before the House that March, Soderstrom stressed “Neither the government nor private employers should be permitted to engage in this sort of police state surveillance of the lives of individual citizens.” He argued passionately against the practice on constitutional grounds, telling the representatives:

There is always some humor associated with legislative work—one of my associates suggested that the “lie detector” test should be applied to the employer. Seriously, I do not want “lie detector” or “polygraph” tests used on the employer, despite the fact that some of them probably would not pass “cum laude.” I don’t want the “lie detector” test used on members of the General Assembly either, despite the “bad press” the Legislature at times is subjected to. And I don’t want “polygraph” equipment used on wage earners as a condition of employment or continuous employment...they infringe on the fundamental rights of American citizens to personal privacy.[8]

Reuben’s opponents struck back, with men like Chicago armored car company owner Robert Wilson claiming “The only beneficiaries of this bill would be the criminally inclined and the psychological misfits.” Soderstrom replied that Wilson and his like “ought to be ashamed of themselves.”[9] In the end, however, he was unable to stop his conservative opponents from killing the bill, ensuring that the policing of U.S. citizens by private companies would continue unabated.

Betrayed by Governor

Reub’s disappointment over the lie detector ban, however, soon paled in comparison to his raw anger over the defeat of House Bill 992. This legislation, designed to permit labor unions to enter into a contractual relationship with local governments, was vital to Reuben. Across the country, unions were making an epic transformation. In the private sector, union membership was declining; in the public sector, in contrast, union membership was exploding. The AFL-CIO was clearly beginning to view public sector union membership as vital to its growth, as did its state counterparts.

Soderstrom’s federation, however, faced a significant problem. Along with Ohio, Illinois was one of only two industrialized northern states without a law allowing public employers to enter into collective bargaining agreements with their employees. This was a huge black eye for Reuben; in 1945 he’d been able to pass such a law through the General Assembly, only to see it vetoed by then- Governor Green (a politician Reuben initially struggled with). In the past twenty years, he’d made some limited inroads on public labor statutes, specifically with respect to the Chicago Transit Authority, the University Civil Service System, and municipal fire departments. He also secured a law in 1955 authorizing the State Director of Personnel to negotiate pay, hours, and working conditions subject to the State Personnel Code. He’d even won statutes in 1961 and 1963 authorizing voluntary checkoff of union dues for state and local governmental employees. Still, no law requiring public employers to bargain or prohibiting them from interfering with the unionization of their employees existed.[10]

This political failure was due in large part to the “Daley Machine.” Chicago Democrats controlled the city through a system of patronage and they viewed public sector unions as the chief threat to their power.[11] This meant that for years Reuben was unable to depend on Democratic votes that had helped push such reforms through in other states. Still, after years of fighting, Soderstrom believed he had the votes needed to finally bring public sector protection to Illinois. HB 992 had 15 sponsors, 11 Democrats and 4 Republicans. He also had the support of Governor Kerner, who promised Reub he would send the message to his men on the House Municipalities Committee that they should pass it. He was confident enough in the bill’s passage to use its pending passage in a pitch to Clyde Reynolds, President of the East St. Louis Federation of Teachers, to join the State AFL-CIO. As he wrote to Reynolds that January:

A special effort is presently under way to secure the enactment of legislation which will enable unions of teachers to enter into a contractual relationship with school boards. Legislative work is costly. It is carried on in Illinois through our State Organization at the low per capita tax of less than one cent per week per member. Your membership should come into the fold and thus contribute their share of the money needed to secure and hold their legislative gains. [12]

Passage of key bills like this one was the very reason for the State Organization’s existence, according to Reuben. It was also the foundation of his leadership. It was his experience with the General Assembly, both as a legislator and advocate, which made him an effective President. As the bill’s hearing began on Tuesday, May 11, Soderstrom was supremely competent. He sent his lieutenant Stanley Johnson to the Capitol to see the process through.

Stanley came back with horrible news. In a surprise move, the Committee voted down the bill by a vote of 17-9.[13] It was a crushing defeat, and Reub immediately set out on the warpath to discover what had happened. Publicly, he blamed turncoat committee members, many of whom had relied on labor for their elections. His Weekly Newsletter excoriated those whom Reuben believed had betrayed labor with their vote:

The checking of roll calls reveals that a majority of those who voted wrong were supported in good faith by the labor movement in the last November election…The working people were defeated, downgraded and relegated to their usual subordinate position by some public officials who owe labor a great debt of gratitude.[14]

Privately, however, Soderstrom placed the bill’s failure at the feet of one man before all others: Otto Kerner. The Governor, Reub maintained, had given his word that the bill would have his approval. When Soderstrom cornered the Democratic defectors in the aftermath of the vote, however, they all told the same tale – that in the days before the vote, Kerner sent explicit instructions to kill the bill. Reub was furious. Still, he had to tread carefully. He already had a strained relationship with Kerner – a powerful politician who enjoyed popular support among the Democratic Party and organized labor, even within Reuben’s own Executive Board. To openly accuse the Governor of betrayal would invite a war that would benefit no one. Still, Soderstrom couldn’t let such naked disregard of labor go unchallenged. Instead, Soderstrom and his Executive leadership sent a jointly-signed letter to Kerner in the days after the vote letting the Governor know he, Reuben, knew exactly what Kerner had done, while tactfully placing the blame for the vote on “miscommunication” and undisciplined staff:

Our current gripe or trouble is undoubtedly traceable to mistakes of (your) legislative assistants of possibly someone who had ulterior political motives. In the General Assembly there is apparently a lack of military smoothness in carrying out the Chief Executive’s legislative desires or instructions.

On H.B. No. 992…the Governor’s legislative lieutenants disregarded his expressed desire made to our State President for favorable action on this proposal and they passed the word to Democratic House members to kill the bill. They did!

We can’t believe that you knew about the switch. It undoubtedly was unauthorized because in the past if a Chief Executive found a change in his position necessary it was always regarded as decent and a common courtesy to call in those interested and explain why the assured support had been withdrawn. Anything less than that even today with its low political standards, can be looked upon as very bad manners.

No notice of withdrawal of your support was transmitted to the proponents of H.B. No. 992 and labor received an undeserved and disgraceful committee clobbering as the result of a complete disregard or a deliberate misrepresentation of your position favoring advancement of this bill.[15]

As the letter made clear, as angry as Reuben was about the loss, he was even more disgusted by the lack of respect shown. He understood that a politician, even a friendly one, would have to occasionally act against labor to keep his coalition; that was politics. But for the governor to kill the bill without an explanation or warning was cowardly. This insult Reub considered even worse than the injury—the only thing he liked less than losing was being taken by surprise. It wasn’t the first time, either. Reub repeatedly heard from legislators that Kerner planned to support anti-labor laws or veto friendly legislation, only to have Kerner deny it when confronted. Soderstrom was owed, and if Kerner would not own his actions, he would pay in other ways. If not, Reuben vowed to drag his fight with the governor out into the public eye:

We have no desire to make a Statewide newspaper issue of the shocking treatment experienced. We do think this kind of “dirty pool” is unwarranted, however, and should never again recur. The Labor Movement is justifiably resentful and distressingly disappointed at the bill’s defeat and deeply offended by the shabby treatment received from those responsible for deceiving us as well as deceiving labor’s friends on the House Committee on Municipalities.

While legislation is desired no law is actually required for public bodies to enter into contracts with unions like they do now with everybody else, including contractors and employers. Organized labor is therefore requesting and sincerely hoping that the Governor of Illinois will try to make amends for the mess his meddling lieutenants have created. It can be achieved by urging all public officials to do what our late President John F. Kennedy did when he issued an executive order respecting the principle of collective bargaining and the signing of contracts with unionized public employees. This was the act of a genuine friend of labor.[16]

Reuben also characteristically doubled down on the seemingly lost cause, making it the cornerstone of labor’s legislative agenda. While he did not make his grievances with the governor known, he did start making a loud argument for public employee contracts in media outlets and appearances throughout the state. He wrote several articles making the case for the law, arguing:

The right of freedom of contract is a constitutional guarantee and it is inconceivable that the political subdivisions should withhold from unions the obvious intent that a contractual relationship must be general in its application…Labor people do have the same freedoms as other citizens – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press and the right of freedom of contract. The way to lose these precious freedoms is not to use them or to let some political overlord bluff their subordinates into believing that they are denied some of these freedoms.[17]

Soderstrom also made the proposed law the focus of his presidential address that year. “Union Chief Says New Law Needed,” headlined the Alton Evening Telegraph the day after Reub’s speech, quoting Reuben as he told the delegates:

Political subdivisions…are also employers and to the extent which they are employers, they should sign contracts with labor unions just as they do with service agencies, contractors or other employers. If we are to have a free enterprise system, labor also should be free to enter into contracts with public bodies.[18]

Reuben’s fight pitted him against powerful enemies, however—ones in many ways more powerful than traditional foes like the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. This was a battle within his own ranks, waged against the very Democratic politicians and interests labor so often relied on, a fact which sparked some opposition within labor itself. It was a move with the potential to cause considerable trouble in the years to come.

REUBEN REBUKES POLICE BRUTALITY IN STREATOR

Legal Worker Dissent Met by Illegal Police Action

While Reuben focused on his legislative efforts in Springfield, a separate crisis was brewing closer to home. In March of 1965 the Glass Bottle Blowers Association (GBBA) called for a nation-wide strike, idling 64 plants across the country. Two of those, the Owens-Illinois and the Thatcher Glass Manufacturing Company, were located in Streator. Some 3,000 Streator citizens established picket lines at the plants, and soon began an effort to block a C.B. & Q. railroad engine from picking up loaded cars of bottles from one of the local plants. As the Streator Times-Press described that March 22:

Several hundred persons formed a living barricade across the “Q” switch near North Shabbona Street before 8 a.m. today to halt the engine from access to the Owens-Illinois plant with hundreds of other persons drawn to the scene as onlookers. The regular train crew left the engine at this point, with supervisory railroad employees prepared to operate the engine, but the pickets refused to budge.

Chief of Police Andrew Kolesar mounted the engine and addressed the pickets. He informed them they were on private property and asked them to disperse. The pickets were also told that sheriff’s deputies and state troopers would be called and arrests made if the strikers continued to bar the engine.[19]

In response to Kolesar, President William Brown of GBBA Local 140 moved the protestors off private property and sent the protestors down to the Shabbona street crossing. The police, however, seemed intent on a confrontation, and the following morning a combined group of Streator police, La Salle county deputies and state troopers violently broke the human blockade. Brown fought back publically, protesting the way the picketers had been “manhandled.” He declared the protesting laborers had been “double-crossed” by the police chief and moved his men back on railroad property in response.[20] The C.B & Q. Railroad, meanwhile, used the incident against the unions in court, perversely arguing that the act of police brutality was an indication that the situation had grown out of control. Federal Judge Michael Igoe agreed, issuing an injunction against their respective unions, Locals 140 and 174, declaring “civil law in La Salle County and in Streator has completely broken down.”[21] Circuit Judge Leonard Hoffman soon followed suit, and a few days later the C.B. & Q. trains picked up the cars unimpeded.[22]

Reuben was outraged at the police actions in his own hometown. He immediately sent a note to Governor Kerner:

Strikes are sometimes necessary and the Streator walkout was more than justified. In the field of peaceful picketing during strikes there seems to be too many times when the wishes of the employer are carried out by the State Police and the desires of wage-earners disregarded. Rarely ever do the police respect a peaceful picket line. Will you please get in touch with (Department of Public Safety Director) Joseph Ragen and urge him to instruct his police officers that wage-earners have a right to picket peacefully as long as it is done without intimidation, coercion, or violence. I know the officers of the local union involved. They are good citizens and resent police brutality. I do too and I know the Governor of Illinois also feels that way. It should be stopped completely.[23]

Justifiably not content to wait for action from the Governor, Reub wrote to Director Ragen himself:

Labor desires no position over and above what is right and an equal freedom of all men. Police brutality is never exercised against the employer. It ought not to be used against peaceful pickets. Please do what you can to see that it is discontinued in the justifiable strike. Streator is my home town. Among these strikers are some of the finest people that God ever made and they naturally resent unwarranted and what seems to be unlawful and biased police action. I trust you will see to it that such action does not recur.[24]

Fortunately, outside action quickly overtook local events. The day after the altercation, the national GBBA struck a deal with industry management, bringing a quick end to the struggle in Streator.[25] However, the incident reinforced Reuben’s resistance to police unions. Historically, police not been unionized. Two previous attempts to organize, first in 1915 and again during World War II, had ended in failure. The general public, never fond of unions broadly, wholeheartedly disapproved of giving police the right to strike, leaving such activity illegal for police. Instead, a crop of benevolent associations existed to advocate for the health and well-being of officers. In the 1960’s, however, the leadership of these associations realized that their position had changed. Not only were white collar public employees increasingly becoming unionized, but the more violent side of the civil rights movement – particularly the race riots that had erupted in major cities like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York City – had generated considerable public fear. The police fraternal leadership used this to their advantage, threatening to engage in strikes regardless of their illegality unless their demands were met. A scared populace gave in, fearful what would happen if the police carried through on their threats. By the end of the decade, police forces had largely become formally unionized.[26]

Reuben strongly disapproved of this development. As his Secretary-Treasurer, Bob Gibson, later explained:

Reub never, ever thought police or fire ought to be in the union. More times than not the police will side with the management people every time. He said, “You just look at the history of these labor disputes and find out who got hurt. They’ve got police forces Bob, that just go around the country looking for these disputes.” And they did. That was their job. He said, “It’s really a military organization. These policemen do what they’re told. It’s not like you and I, (where) if somebody tells you go do this we say no you go do it. Forget it! It’s more a military operation, and if it goes into the union I don’t know what the consequences (will be). The best thing is to just keep them out.”

Police were used by the Mayors (for the benefit of) corporations. They would pay the Mayor off to send the police out to protect the company grounds and push the workers back or suppress a strike or arrest the strikers. The police were used more often by management to suppress labor complaints than they ever could be to support the laboring people. A lot of that happened during the Streator strikes during the 20s and 30s. Police were used and came in and suppressed the workers, so Reub had first-hand experience with police suppressing the workers’ needs and so I imagine that’s what carried through.[27]

The 1965 Streator strike and the police brutality the strikers encountered reconfirmed Reuben’s belief that allowing police into the AFL-CIO would simply be bringing wolves into the fold. Still, he was unable to directly oppose police unionization. According to Gibson, Soderstrom believed it was better politically to leave such opposition in Springfield to city and township lobbyists. It was a decision which would cost him (and labor) in the years to come.

“THE FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE”

Although Soderstrom opposed the unionization of police, he strongly supported the expansion of unionism to other professions that had been previously unorganized, particularly white collar jobs not traditionally characterized by manual labor. Such growth was sought not only out of desire but out of necessity. Simply put, the labor market was expanding, but organized labor’s number remained stagnant. This was an issue of considerable concern to Reuben, and was a major reason why he sought to unionize public employees. He viewed public employee organization as a gateway to broader unionization. To that end, much of Reuben’s rhetoric in 1965 focused on the broad social benefits of union efforts—language aimed squarely at courting the middle class. The improvements generated by organized labor, he argued, improved daily life and the standard of living for all working people, not just union members. Unions were not antithetical to the middle class, Reuben maintained; they created the middle class. As he told the assembled delegates that year:

Our great organization works not only for its own members to secure legislation, better hours and better working conditions and better wages, but we work in the interest of all people. This great organization of ours helps the young, it helps the old, and the middle aged; this organization of ours believes in education and in housing and in the anti-poverty program. It has done as much good for the millions who are not members of the labor movement, as it has for its own members. Friends, this is my conception of a great organization that really works in the public interest.[28]

In his Labor Day address, Soderstrom gave special attention to the broad impact of unemployment compensation and workmen’s compensation, writing:

Only one third of the millions of dollars paid to the beneficiaries of these laws are union members. Two thirds of the benefits will be collected by wage earners who belong to no union. This emphasizes the fact that the legislative work of the Illinois labor movement affects the organized and unorganized alike, with those riding ‘deadhead’ getting the lion’s share. Some of them seem to think that paying dues into a union is an unnecessary expense.

They should realize the union deals with the things that uplift humanity, that everything, every step that has been taken to bring about improvement for wage earners and workers generally has been brought about through the pressure of the movement of labor. And they pay dues. They pay their dues to the employer by accepting a pay check much below what it would be if such non-union wage earner was a union member.[29]

These sentiments were echoed by many of the religious institutions and organizations of the day, several of which Reuben highlighted in his Weekly Newsletter and the Illinois AFL-CIO convention. Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch, director of the Religious Action Center, Union of Hebrew Congregations and Central Conference of American Rabbis wrote in support of unions:

A strong democratic labor movement is essential to the well-being of American society and the American economy, because it is the primary means for giving workers the opportunity to deal with their employers on an equitable basis. Responsible employers and responsible unions engaged in free collective bargaining offer the greatest possibility for achieving the economic justice which is the foundation of social justice.[30]

Other religious leaders focused on the dignity of labor, especially those within the Catholic Church. Rev. John Brockmeier, a union printer, attorney, and chaplain of the Springfield Federation of Labor addressed labor annually as a featured convention speaker, throwing the Church’s full weight and moral authority behind labor’s cause. 1965 was no exception; as he told the delegates that year:

There are some who consider labor to be beneath capital and management. Labor and capital are equally important; the one cannot exist without the other. Organized labor is not anti-capital. Labor is for humanized capital. We want men and women who are fair to both labor and capital. Under our form of government and in our industrial system a man can be pro-labor and pro-capital at the same time if he practices the virtue of social justice. Labor says to lawmakers, “Don’t ask who is right, ask, what is right.”[31]

It was one of his finest statements, a distillation of decades of thinking around labor issues and the great global battle in the 20th century between competing economic systems. His position had remarkable insight, understanding and clarity.

MARTIN LUTHER KING ADDRESSES ILLINOIS LABOR

While labor benefited from such arguments, no one in 1965 spoke with greater moral authority to and for Illinois labor than the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. To have the famed civil rights leader address the crowd was an incredible coup for Reuben, who had been trying to bring the dynamic speaker to his convention since he’d first heard him speak at the National AFL-CIO gathering in 1961. Unfortunately, circumstances had previously intervened; the 1963 convention came too close on the heels of King’s March on Washington, while the 1964 slot had been filled by President Johnson. As the fall of 1965 approached, however, Soderstrom excitedly received word that the Nobel Peace Prize winner would be honored to attend.

King’s arrival was a celebration not only for labor but for the entire city of Springfield. Mayor Nelson Howarth welcomed the Reverend upon his arrival. “All of us live just perhaps a flash of an instant in the history of recorded time,” Howarth said as he presented Dr. King a key to the city, “and few of us have an opportunity to do much for mankind in that instant. One of the few who has been so fortunate is Dr. Martin Luther King, who is fighting for a cause.[32]” By far the most eloquent welcome Dr. King received, however, came from Soderstrom himself, who beamed as he introduced MLK to the delegates as:

A man whose voice rings loudest and clearest in this great civil rights movement, whose words peal and thunder through the minds and hearts of people, whose tremendous broadsides of facts and logic and rhetoric have brought nearly every Negro hurrying to his standard from far and near and have put into motion, into patriotic motion America’s mighty columns of freedom. He is a man who throws into the struggle not only the best and deepest longings of his heart, and pleads for the uplifting and regeneration of the masses and of labor, as a patriot pleads for his country and a Christian for the salvation of God. He is a man who is, I believe, through all of these multiple and overwhelming labors, animated not by consideration of sordid gain but by the loftier purpose of serving his race and honoring God by uplifting and blessing the toiling millions of His children.[33]

As he rose to warm applause, Dr. King returned the kind sentiment and warm welcome he’d received. He began his speech by eloquently highlighting the shared histories of the organized labor and civil rights movements:

There have always been two groups who have suffered at the hands of the writers of American history—the Labor Movement and Negro people. School children, from their distorted history books, even today, learn that our social pioneers and heroes were almost exclusively great presidents, generals and captains of industry. The contributions of the labor movement are so slighted that they appear as mere accidental phenomena, if they receive attention at all…

At the turn of the century, women earned approximately ten cents an hour, and men were fortunate to receive twenty cents an hour. The average work week was 60 to 70 hours. During the thirties, wages were a secondary issue; to have a job at all was the difference between the agony of starvation and a flicker of life. The nation, now so vigorous, reeled and tottered then almost to total collapse.

The labor movement was the principle force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation. They resisted it until they were overcome…

It is a mark of our intellectual backwardness that these monumental achievements of labor are still only dimly seen, and in all too many circles the term ‘union’ is still synonymous with self-seeking, power hunger, racketeering and cynical coercion. There have been and still are wrongs in the trade union movement but its share of credit for triumphant accomplishments is substantially denied in the historical treatment of the nation’s progress.

The other group denied credit for its achievements are Negroes. When our nation was struggling to grow in the 18th and 19th centuries, our place in international commerce was finally secured when cotton became king and the mills of Europe turned our abundant raw material. That white gold was the product of Negro labor. Even beyond that, the very bodies of Negroes, then called black gold, built the economies of many nations through the nefarious but immensely profitable slave trade. The clearing of the wilderness, the productivity of the plantations, the building of roads and ports all emerged from the toil of the grossly oppressed Negro, and on these foundations a modern society was built. None of this, however, finds constructive expression in our history books.

It is not a coincidence the labor movement and the civil rights movement have the same essential origins. Each is a movement that grew out of burning needs of an oppressed poor for security and equality. Each was denied justice by the dominant forces of society and had to win a place in the sun by its own intense struggle and indescribable self-sacrifice.

With the kinship of these two movements clearly established, however, MLK turned to highlight the hard truths that labor had to confront—truths that kept these sibling movements from achieving their true potential:

My brothers and sisters of the labor movement of this great state: I want to discuss with you this morning, honestly and frankly, some of the challenges facing the labor movement and some of the challenges facing the civil rights movement, and the opportunities that we have in the days ahead. And I say, I want to discuss the problems with you frankly and honestly because I think if we are to be friends, we must be honest with each other; and if we are to meet the challenges in the days ahead we must speak frankly to the issues involved…

Despite the striking similarities in the origins of the labor movement and the civil rights movement, there are features today that are markedly different. The civil rights movement is organizationally weak, amateurish, and inexperienced. Yet, it has profound moral appeal; it is growing dynamically, and it is introducing basic democratic reforms in our society.

The labor movement, on the other hand, is organizationally powerful, but it is stagnating and receding as a social force. As the work force has grown substantially in the past twenty years, the ranks of organized labor have remained stationary, and its moral appeal flickers instead of shining as it did in the thirties.

With all its power and experience, labor has been on the defensive for years, beating back efforts to outlaw the closed shop, interference in its internal affairs, and restrictions on organizing activity. Where once the anti-poverty fight was a product of labor’s creativity, now the federal government conducts it through agencies essentially apart from labor…Apart from this loss of influence and leadership the new technology is undermining its strength. The advance of automation is a destructive hurricane whose winds are sweeping away jobs and work standards…

I have attempted in this discussion to point up the common interests of labor and the Negro and to sincerely express the respect labor deserves for its creative role in history. Yet, I would be lacking in honesty if I did not point out that the labor movement thirty years ago did more in that period for civil rights than labor is doing today. Thirty years ago labor pioneered in the mass production industries in introducing new equal employment opportunities. It was bold when general support for equality was timid.

King’s truths were painful ones, ones that Reuben had been calling attention to with growing concern for years. Labor was growing stagnant, the victim of its own success as it became vested in the political and industrial order it was birthed to challenge. The events of the last few years alone—from the failed attempt to reform the work week to the political betrayal of labor by the Democratic Party on the state and national level—had exposed labor as increasingly unwilling or unable to meet the drastic challenges facing the nation today. This pernicious poverty and unemployment, Dr. King said, hit the Negro community the hardest, and if the forces of complacency failed to address these issues with the urgency they demanded the result could be bloody:

There were always people to tell labor that it should wait and be patient…Waiting submissively has always meant standing with an empty cup in one hand while the cup of misery overflows in the other hand. Negroes today are deafened with advice to wait, but they have learned from the experience of labor that to wait is to submit and surrender…

I am convinced that there are nonviolent solutions to these problems, but our experience in government and throughout this nation has been that nothing will be done until the issues are raised so dramatically that our nation will act. This was the lesson of both Selma and Birmingham where inhuman conditions had been allowed to exist for hundreds of years. Negroes in the north are not so patient. If a coalition of conscience between the forces of labor, the church, the academic community and the civil rights movement does not emerge to make these issues inescapably clear and demand their solution, then I am afraid that hostility and violence will breed a crisis of nationwide proportion. Anyone who remembers how quickly the nonviolent movement spread across the south, first in the bus boycotts and then within a year to almost 200 cities in the sit-ins, will shudder in horror at the thought of violence spreading with similar speed.

King’s message to the delegates that day, however, was not one of doom or dire prophecy, but of hope. Like Soderstrom, he was an optimist, filled with the conviction that the best days of both movements laid not behind but ahead. With an honest and infectious passion, he fired up the labor faithful as he called on them to join his “coalition of conscience” to seek their shared dream in solidarity:

The two most dynamic movements that reshaped the nation during the past three decades are the labor and civil rights movements. Our combined strength is potentially enormous. We have not used a fraction of it for our own good or for the needs of society as a whole. If we make the war on poverty a total war, if we seek higher standards for all workers for an enriched life we have the ability to accomplish it, and our nation has the ability to provide it. If our two movements unite their social pioneering initiative, thirty years from now people will look back on this day and honor those who had the vision to see the full possibilities of modern society and the courage to fight for their realization…

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. Yes, with this faith we will be able to speed up the day when men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation will not rise up against nation; neither will they study war anymore.

With this faith all over America of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

“Free at last; free at last, Thank God above, yes, we are free at last!”[34]

The speech elicited a long, loud ovation. “Oh Jesus, they tore the place up when he was finished,” one observer later remembered. “Everybody! I’d say he had a 15-minute ovation afterward.”[35] Reub rose to the podium to thank Dr. King, speechless:

The eloquence of Dr. King was of such a nature I actually forgot to think up something to say in reply. It was the most entrancing and attractive address we have ever heard in this great convention. I want to assure him the civil rights movement and the labor movement of Illinois will work together in closer unity than ever before to attain the goals he has outlined. And in order to help him, labor unionists are the kind of people who hate to go through the world without helping somebody, I will present to him a check for $1,500.[36]

Soderstrom then pinned a labor badge on the coat of Dr. King, seating him at the convention with full rights and privilege. It was a glorious day, a brief respite from the trials of the year. Still, the painful truths that MLK so forcefully articulated remained, glaring and dangerous. How would Reuben lead an organization through the great civil rights era? As the twilight of his leadership approached, the storied leader turned with greater urgency than ever to face the issue of racial acceptance and integration in union halls across Illinois, from Chicago in the north to Cairo in the south. It would be a bumpy ride.

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