Sometimes there seems to be a lack of communication between

employers seeking "qualified applicants" and those who could qualify for the jobs. Calvin Rolark, editor of the New Observer, was asked whether qualified Negroes could be found for positions on The Evening 3/ Star, which had expressed its näed and willingness to hire them.

*** I think it would be no trouble at all * * *
no trouble whatsoever.
*** If the Star would utilize these papers to let their
wishes be known--that they were looking for qualified Negroes--
they would find them. 4/

We have three Negro newspapers here

When asked whether in his opinion, there were qualified Negroes

in D.C. to fill positions in the whole range of news media, Mr. Rolark

answered:

I have always been a little reluctant answering any questions when the word "qualified" is mentioned. I know that there are numerous Negroes here who pursue journalistic fields, have degrees in journalism, have degrees in business administration, economics, etc. We will find these "qualified" people on the police force, in GS-3 clerk-typist jobs *** These doors are shut in their faces. 5/

Mr. Rolark acknowledged that talk about qualifications means one 6/ thing for the Negro and another thing for the white applicant.

"Qualifications" are used in two ways to restrict Negro employment: both as an overt weapon of discrimination, and as a sincere but shortsighted personnel policy which refuses to assume responsibility for the training of applicants who have been injured by a lifetime of prejudice. It is easier to formulate solutions for the discriminatory application of more exacting standards to Negro applicants than to whites. Imagination and responsibility can reveal solutions for the subtle problem of

3/ Id. (See P. 2 of statement of John H. Kauffman, Evening Star Newspaper Company.)

Id. at 8. (Testimony of Calvin W. Rolark for the National Capital
Voters Association.)

Ibid. at 9.

Ibid. at 9.

the "not-quite-qualified" workers. Philip Stoddard Brown provided a

starting point:

Persons capable of education must be trained and advanced to
create openings at the lowest levels (for the untrainable and
the inexperienced). This I believe to be the only way by which
we can surmount our unemployment problem. Now, whose business
is it to train people for skilled and professional work? Is it
the schools', the business firms', or the parents'? I think
the only answer to that is that it is everybody's job. 7/

7/ Id. at 81. (Testimony of Philip Stoddard Brown.)

Perhaps no single factor is of greater importance in ending discrimination in the trades--particularly the building trades, where it has been most persistent--thon the establishment of full equal opportunity in apprenticeship.

Numerous witnesses before the Conference indicted the current
"To date," said Aaron

apprenticeship programs as discriminatory.

Goldman of the Commissioner's Council on Human Relations,

"we have

not made any progress in breaking down the obstacles to Apprenticeship 1/

trades."

He was supported by Victor R. Daly, deputy director of the

USES for the District:

Local efforts to place qualified Negro applicants in Appren-
ticeship training with the craft unions have met with "Massive
resistance" by the organized building trades *** Currently
there are 66 registered apprentices in the skilled construc-
tion trades *** 44 are in carpentry, 16 are in operating
engineering, 4 are metal lathe apprentices and 2 are train-
ing as reinforced concrete rodmen. To our knowledge one of
these young men, in carpentry, is nonwhite. In nearby
Montgomery County, 128 registered apprentices are enrolled
in the county schools. There is not a single Negro * * *
in this group.

3/

Later in the Conference the figures cited by Mr. Daly were questioned by the Executive Secretary of the Washington Building Trades Council. He had conducted a telephone survey of the locals affiliated with the Council and had been informed that Negro representation

in the unions and their apprenticeship programs was more extensive than the above figures indicate.

1/

D.C. Employment Conference (p. 3 of statement of Aaron Goldman). 2/ Id. (p. 3 of statement of Victor R. Daly).

The Cement Makers have many. The Carpenters had four the last
time I talked to them *** The Electricians have two *** The
Engineers have 19. * * * but I will say that (the program) is
overwhelmingly made up of whites. 3/

Although there is little doubt that Negro participation in the apprenticeship programs has increased in recent years, the persistence of the exclusion was vividly illustrated by the Howard University gymnasium case. Students at this Federally-chartered, predominantly Negro, university noted the absence of Negro craftsmen from the work force on the construction of the gymnasium and bought a detailed description of the situation to the 4/ attention of the Conference.

After the Conference the students appealed to the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity to take all necessary steps to bring Negroes

into the four craft unions which the students accused of total exclusion or

5/

"tokenism". With public interest aroused in the Howard case, the Secretary of Labor called the contractors and unions involved in the Howard project together and warned them that unless Negroes were bought into the crafts, either as apprentices or from other sources, strong measures would be taken by the President's Committee. As of this writing there are reports of

some initial efforts by unions to bring Negro apprentices on to Federal 6/

construction jobs.

The persistence of discrimination in work under Federal contracts, all of which contain non-discrimination clasues, dramatizes the need

for more effective compliance machinery and enforcement.

37

Id. at 205-06, 211-12. (Testimony of Joseph Curtice, Washington
Building and Construction Trades Council.)

4/ Id. at 21. (Testimony of Stokely Carmichael, Howard University
Non-Violent Action Group.)

Love

Washington Post, March 22, 1963, p. 1, sec. C.

Washington Post, May 25, 1963, p. 1, sec. D. Negro craftsmen were
solicited for the Howard project by advertisements appearing in
local newspapers, including the Afro-American.

Under Secretary of Labor John F. Henning announced at the Conference a long range program by the Federal Government to stimulate a fair apprenticeship program for the District. He explained as background that since 1961 the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training in the Department of Labor has been requiring non-discrimination clauses in the apprenticeship agreements of firms handling government contracts and in the registration of new apprenticeship programs with the Bureau. Mr. Henning announced that an Industrial. Training Adviser had been appointed in the Washington Office of the Bureau to coordinate equal opportunity programs of the Bureau in the Washington area, and that:

*** the Department of Labor expects to move ahead as promptly
as possible with the establishment on a demonstration basis of
an apprenticeship information center in the District. This
should be a joint enterprise of the Bureau of Apprenticeship
and Training, Employment Service, the schools, the D.C.
Apprenticeship Council, and employers and unions. Its
experience in determining apprenticeship opportunities and
in counseling young people regarding them will contribute
knowledge that can prove invaluable in determining other
actions that may be needed. I

Establishment of the information center, which is still in the planning stage, should do much to increase communication between the trades and the Negro community. As the Executive Director of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department put it, "one of the central things

is that the veil b torn of secrecy and silence about what goes on in

8/

Id. at 272. (Testimony of Boris Shishkin, Director, AFL-CIO
Civil Rights Department.