Working for Equality

The Narrative of Harry Hudson

Harry Hudson, Randall Patton

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780820348384
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

"When I went to work for Lockheed-Georgia Company in September of 1952 I had no idea that this would end up being my life's work." With these words, Harry Hudson, the first African American supervisor at Lockheed Aircraft's Georgia facility, begins his account of a thirty-six-year career that spanned the postwar civil rights movement and the Cold War.

Hudson was not a civil rights activist, yet he knew he was helping to break down racial barriers that had long confined African Americans to lower-skilled, nonsupervisory jobs. His previously unpublished memoir is an inside account of both the racial integration of corporate America and the struggles common to anyone climbing the postwar corporate ladder. At Lockheed-Georgia, Hudson went on to become the first black supervisor to manage an integrated crew and then the first black purchasing agent. There were other "firsts" along the path to these achievements, and Working for Equality is rich in details of Hudson's work on the assembly line and in the back office. In both circumstances, he contended with being not only a black man but a light-skinned black man as he dealt with production goals, personnel disputes, and other workday challenges.

Randall Patton's introduction places Hudson's story within the broader struggle of workplace desegregation in America. Although Hudson is frank about his experiences in a predominantly white workforce, Patton notes that he remained "an organization man" who "expressed pride in his contributions to Lockheed [and] the nation's defense effort."

Chapter 1

My father and I operated a service station on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, in partnership. On the second Sunday of August 1952, one of my regular customers came into the station to get gas. Bobby Kennon asked me how I would like to work for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. He stated that Lockheed was looking for Negroes with mechanical ability and a college degree.

Well, I was not unknowledgeable of Lockheed because the first model planes that I had made during my childhood had been Lockheed models—the Orion, the Vega, and the Electra. I did not know at the time that Lockheed had opened the old Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, Georgia, and started modification of the B-29 Bell Bombers. Bobby said that he worked for Lockheed and that he was searching for qualified African American applicants because the good government had come to the conclusion that they would not be awarding federal defense contracts unless the companies awarded same had nondiscriminatory hiring practices. Another first for democracy.

When Lockheed opened the plant they used the old philosophy of hiring a local dealing wheel to get the right community result and attitude to establish a firm base community-wise. Naturally, most of the skilled people (management that is) would come from the home base, which was the West Coast. The local fellow put in as general manager happened to be Jimmy Carmichael. Jimmy had not too long before run for governor of Georgia. He did not win the election. He was a successful businessman and well known in the political circles. His personal views on segregation were also well known. With the opening of this helluva big plant and the economic result Jimmy made the statement (according to the grapevine) that as long as he was manager of the facility no “niggers” would ever hold a higher position than that of a janitor.

This was strictly propaganda for the locals. This could not sit with the powers that be in Washington so Bobby was hired to go out and find some “super niggers” (with mechanical ability and a college degree) who had a desire to drill holes and shoot rivets in airplanes. Bobby was that lonesome one held up to say, “See, we have a Negro recruiter desperately looking for qualified Negroes.”

Most Negroes were either overqualified or underqualified so poor ole Bobby was running all over the southeastern states looking for Negroes with a college degree interested in drilling holes and shooting rivets in airplanes. The going salaries (like $54 a week) during the early 1950s do not seem as impressive now even though one was able to live fairly well with that income at the time. I was not happy with the pay I was making at the service station nor with the relationship my old man and I were having. My hours were too long and the atmosphere was becoming strained. I wanted to expand to several stations and my pappy and his banker friend could not see the advantage of having more than one station (be free of debt first was his philosophy). My family was growing and I needed more income at a faster rate than the single service station was providing.

With a degree in biology and a minor in chemistry I figured I had at least the first part of the qualification requirements. My studies and background were in the pre-med area, but I did not have the money to go to medical school. My GI Bill funds were practically exhausted. I had to realize that my livelihood would be in a different area. My surgical hands had turned out to be pretty good in the manual dexterity field (mechanical that is). Hell, it dawned suddenly on me that I had the required qualifications.

I told Bobby that I was interested and after a few days of thinking it over and talking about possible hardships, I informed him that I would fill out an application and follow through with it. Well, the old boys had to move fast to show that all effort was being made to prove that they were sincerely looking for qualified “Neegros” to fill these highly skilled positions.

I filled out an application form, which was a typical form requesting your race. At the time in the United States no one was an American, they were a race. We were all Americans but were known as races, as that information was required on all legal forms. Naturally, the number one race was Caucasian (preferably Anglo-Saxon), Italian, Irish, and on down the line to “Negro” (black) and last but not least the only American, the American Indian. This classification process was necessary because then your position and pay scale could be established. Damn the qualifications, full speed ahead.

I was instructed to report to the Lockheed employment office on the comer of Peachtree and North Avenue, Atlanta. The time was about 7:00 p.m. on the fifth of September 1952. This was the testing location for all new hires. On entering the office, I found that the testees consisted of ten Negroes and about fifty whites or Caucasians. There were no Chinese or Japanese and no Indians (natural born). We looked at them and they looked at us. They sat on one side of the room and we sat on the other. This probably was to prevent contamination, to whom I never did figure out. The ten Negroes consisted of one fellow who was six hours and a thesis short of a master’s in math; five fellows with degrees ranging from English, math, sociology, physics, biology, and chemistry; and four fellows who had no more than one year to complete for their degrees. Bobby had failed to attain his goal of ten college graduates. Anyway they figured we had enough intelligence to at least get past the test. It never was determined how many degrees the white fellows had because we later heard that you automatically qualified if you were white. By the way, all the whites were white, pink, or anemic. The Negroes were from almost white to black according to the melting pot of their ancestry.

The Negroes in the original ten were indicated as the “super Negroes” with the ability to shoot rivets and drill holes in airplanes. They were J. L. Hicks, B. R. Petty, Alburt Burt, Esterest Smith, Mac McMorris, Lou Morris, Robert Gist, H. L. Hudson, G. L. Kelly, and Ike Jones. Since all of us had finished the sixth grade, we had no problems passing the qualification test. We later found out that we had very good IQs. One fellow had an IQ of 87, another was 101, and mine was very high, 113. Hell, I had an IQ of 132 according to the navy (when I was trying to play crazy and get out) before I went to college. I decided that the test examiners could not rate anyone with a higher IQ than they had. We all passed, including all the white guys, and were instructed to report to the Bomber Plant the following Monday.

If you have never seen the Georgia division of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, then you have missed the thirteenth wonder of the world. Until much later it was the largest aircraft manufacturing plant in the world. It is 76 acres under one roof, air conditioned, and with 27 miles of neon lights. You have to go inside to actually be impressed with this gigantic structure.

We had to proceed through what is called a “head house.” This is the entrance past the guards. We all got extra-long looks because it seems none of the guards had ever seen “super Negroes” before. We were instructed to follow the yellow line. The yellow line led us through the tunnels of the dungeon to the identification office. There we were fingerprinted, photographed, and identified. We then went to the medical department for our physical examination. Having studied pre-med, I was impressed by that industrial medical center and over the years have come to recognize it as one of the best in the industrial world. We passed through the preliminaries and were found to have all the required features of the human anatomy. We were certified that we were ourselves. At last we were told to proceed to the training department and, you guessed it, to follow the yellow line.

The yellow line ended in the training department. We were shown into a room similar to an average college classrooom. We were instructed on what an airplane was (I often wondered what them noisy things floating through the air were). Orientation consisted of a tour through the plant. The biggest exhibits were the tools crated and greased, awaiting shipment to some destination. Some B-29s were in different stages of modification or repair. There were two B-47s on the line, and this was the plane that (with our skills) we were going to produce for the good old air force. The size of these aircraft was very impressive as I had been in the navy and never seen aircraft this large up close. Looking up over 64 feet to the crane rails overhead was a sight to behold. The building was over 2,000 feet long and 1,000 feet wide. One got the feeling that he was somebody. After all, one was now employed at the Bomber Plant.

We were herded into a room to meet the department manager we would have after finishing the training period. This husky fellow of about 5 feet 6 inches walked in with personality oozing from every pore. We took a liking to him immediately. He was from the California division and seemed to be honest and straightforward. We did not know that he was the only manager that would take the first colored (Negro) department to be established (skilled that is) at the good old Lockheed Georgia division. No other manager would accept the responsibility because the knowledge at the time was that no Negroes could build airplanes (and the damn fools believed it). This may not have been the attitude in California, but in Georgia it was a fact based on the average level of thinking at the time.

Our foreman’s name was Lloyd DeWester. His confidence and respect for us and the respect we developed for him proved in later months helped create one of the best department teams in the history of the company. This statement was made by a number of instructors in much later classes in training and also in management development classes, and that’s the truth. DeWester was known as “Dee” from then on throughout his stay at the plant.

When Dee finished his greetings, another fellow took the rostrum that everyone seemed to be apprehensive about. Of course, by “everyone,” I mean the training instructors and Dee; we did not know enough to be leery of anyone. I was the first person this person shook hands with and that was the beginning of one helluva relationship. We learned that he was the superintendent of assembly. We found that this was on the hipbone of the hog as far as the level of management was concerned. This person will be found throughout this narrative as he was somebody plus being one prime SON OF BROTHERHOOD. His name was H. Lee Poore and I can only compare him to General George Patton. Both of these gentlemen had many good points, but on most of the points they were very blunt. We called H. Lee old “Blood and Guts” or BG. Naturally, never to his face.

After orientation we were sent to our classes. These classes would consist of aircraft blueprints from preliminary to advanced design, aircraft math, aircraft terminology, and NAS [National Academy of Sciences], MS [margin of safety], and AN [Army-Navy] standards. Since we would be building a Boeing-designed aircraft it would also include Boeing prints and design specifications. We would be instructed in the design and use of thousands of aircraft fasteners, some electrical and hydraulic training, and riveting and drilling of close tolerance and other types of holes. As you can see, being ignorant as hell, we were going to get some of the best training ever given to workers before actually performing the job. We were told that the overall cost was better than $10,000 per worker. It took about ten weeks and you can bet that we took full advantage of the opportunity. As everyone was segregated, the white fellows that came in with us on that training period were always interested in our progress and gave us all the advice they thought we needed to succeed because they wanted to help us in this equal but separate training. Since they had the advantage of completing the fourth and fifth grades and up to the twelfth, they had a better education.

At the time a degree from a black college was considered equal to a diploma from a white high school. Any white person that had some college education or an undergraduate degree was automatically considered as management or salaried material. We never knew what the white fellows’ marks were and ours were never mentioned except as noted on the certificates that were issued. Everyone seemed to be happy as we rolled along, so now let’s go into the classrooms see what fun we had in learning the essentials of building an airplane.

The best way to start an education is to progress from ignorance to knowledge. Therefore, let’s start with our most brilliant instructor, that is, if we are starting from the lack of qualifications for the subject he was supposed to have been teaching. This fellow, we’ll call him “Blue,” gave us all the fundamentals of fractions and decimals and their relationships to measurements. By the time we had finished fourth-grade math, old Blue came to the conclusion that his eleventh-grade education was not exactly teaching us ignoramuses any aircraft math. He did not seem to understand any form of higher math and that was the level we were trying to attain in order to tie in with aircraft-building. Blue got real teed-off with us and became frustrated. After two days Blue walked out and probably told the bosses that he could not teach us anything. We had no intention of embarrassing him because it was the fault of the training management to put him into such a situation. We did not have a math teacher for two days.

On the third day in walked “Pop” Keller, a retired professor from the University of Georgia. He was one fine fellow. Pop smoked a pipe and, to demonstrate the respect we had for him, we kept cups of water handy to put him out every time he put that lit pipe into his coat pocket. His first words to us after looking at our records were, “Gentlemen, there is nothing to be taught to you on this level, so why don’t we discuss the merits of math and its relationship to the manufacture of aircraft?” We really learned from Pop but he was only temporary for this assignment. We had him later on in a number of classes, as he specialized in other subjects. Math was not one of my best subjects, but under Pop I made an 87.

One of the most impressive people I met in this industry was our drilling and riveting instructor. His name was R. R. Brown, so naturally we called him “Railroad.” I don’t think that Lockheed ever realized the value they had in this man as an instructor. Sometimes (in later years) I wondered if Lockheed (management) recognized any of the potential of some employees. After this period of time it would be very hard to repeat verbatim the talk Railroad gave us as his initial instructions, but with the following I will try:

You people are now coming into the business of building airplanes. They may be for the military or commercial use. Remember one thing, without quality the product is not worth the effort or price put into it. If airplanes were built like automobiles, they would not fly. For the cost of an aircraft the product must last almost twenty years to realize a profitable return. No businessman can afford to invest in the cost of an airplane without a guarantee of reliability that we build into it. You must remember that people fly in our products and therefore we have to guarantee their safety. You may have a kinsman with the air force. Would you jeopardize their life with poor workmanship or quality? Could you, honestly within yourself, do a job you were not satisfied with and pass it on knowing that someone’s life might be in danger because you thought that it was sufficient? No one in this company will ever criticize you for stopping a line to guarantee quality and safety. Without quality you will not get reliability. Quality and reliability are the integrity of what you produce. Engineers can design all of the factors into an airplane, but if you can’t make it to meet those standards your product is worthless. If you don’t get satisfaction in what you have done, don’t buy it! You will have times when you will make overtime and get more money. Live within your normal pay range and save your extra money. In this business there are ups and downs. Now let’s go to work and learn how to drill holes and shoot rivets.

Well, old Railroad put us through the ropes. We learned all about hole-drilling and the installation of rivets. He kept up a steady stream about quality, reliability, and the integrity of the job. For the ten people who studied under him, they came out with a thorough indoctrination in the right attitude of the professional aircrafter. I never forgot the basics of quality that Railroad instilled in us, though he was promoted to supervisor and moved to the production floor about two-thirds of the way through our drilling and riveting course. Those lessons have followed me throughout my career as an aircrafter.

Railroad will show up in later episodes, but it saddens me to say that he died in his early forties from alcoholism. At least that is what we heard, for he was one helluva drinker. If you know any aircrafters quite a few of them can move the booze (not at work but on weekends). Managers and union officials are included. If you think that this is an indictment of aircrafters, think again. About 40 percent of most industrial workers do likewise. The pressures that these people work under in meeting delivery schedules and commitments are, at most, just plain stupid. The military way is that everything must be done on schedule. My experience with the military has been to hurry up and wait. This idiotic philosophy has not changed one iota since I left the service after World War II and the working pressures are a result of this intense follow-up. All old veterans and aircraft workers can certify that quite a few military officers, aircraft managers, and union officials drink like hell. They get inebriated. A hell of a lot of enlisted men and aircrafters also drink heavily, but they get drunk. Big difference. Regardless, all of them do some tremendous jobs. Railroad was one of the first people up there I met who did not seem to be bothered by racial prejudices. We respected him highly and a lot of people were really saddened by his premature death.

Two or three classes were taught each day. The next class we had was blueprint reading. All aircraft blueprints are basically the same as to interpretation but there are differences in information and the way certain aspects are governed by patents and company policies. In basic blueprint you start out with putty, mud, or crazy dough. It holds the shape you make and you can see the object you are trying to make as you work. A lot of people can’t make a ball. All squares turn out to be rectangles, perspectives turn out to be perceptions. Eventually, you learn the difference between a solid line and a phantom line. Before you know it you are able to visualize the object. As Gray’s Anatomy is the Bible of the medical student, blueprints are the same to the aircrafter. With the ability to read blueprints one can build all of the engineering requirements developed to produce the high-quality, reliable, and safe end product we know as the airplane. It takes hundreds of people in engineering (design, methods, structural, stress, electrical, electronic, hydraulic, and many others), planning, tooling, quality control, materiel handling, purchasing, plant layout, production control, scheduling, shipping and receiving, and the thousands of other necessary functions required to complete the building of an airplane. All of the above starts with an idea, then a blueprint. It ends with the most important people required, the aircraft assemblers. If the assemblers cannot glue all of the materiels together correctly the first time, then the efforts of all the preceding people are worthless.

Sealing is the method one uses to make sure an aircraft does not leak. Sealing prevents leaks in fuel, oxygen, water, air pressure, and any other damn leak that may occur. It also prevents mixtures of those elements that could be dangerous to the operation of the aircraft. Sealing compounds consist of rubber, glue, and other chemical combinations of specified compounds with resistance to the different problems arising within the areas to be sealed. The same precise methods are used to make sure that quality is attained on the first application of the sealing compounds. Engineers are responsible for the compounds and the method of application. You can always blame one of the engineering groups if the gunk does not work. In the beginning sealing was a very messy job but improvements over the years had made the application of sealants a relatively easy job. Anyway, we learned all about the different types of sealants and their application at the time.

All in all, we covered the training period, which included basic arithmetic, basic blueprint reading from primary through some advanced design, and all the other subjects listed previously in this chapter, including processes like coin-dimpling. Coin-dimpling was a method of preparing the aircraft skin and thinner understructure holes for receipt of flush rivets or screws by heating sheet metal and applying a coining die to the surface. Altogether, this was over two hundred hours of classroom and practical study. Finally the time arrived to fire us or put us to work. We went up to the production floor to see if we could build airplanes. Since it was said that it cost $10,000 per person to train us it was time to produce something. The first week in November we presented ourselves on the production floor at the grand pay of $54 a week (before taxes). The ten weeks we had spent in training was a very enlightening and, most times, a pleasant experience.

Chapter 2

The following Monday morning after finishing training we went to the floor. We had been on a floor all of the time but it was in the basement. The main floor, which was the manufacturing area, contained most of the tooling (called “jigs”) arranged in an order indicating progressive assembly. One group started with the small jigs for the components to be assembled. These were passed to the next group, who assembled them to other small assemblies, resulting in a larger unit consisting of several assemblies. This was the beginning and start of that section of the airplane. In our first job we started on the nose or front end of the fuselage.

Dee brought a young fellow over to us and introduced him as our new supervisor. His name was Buck. If you have ever seen a young child on his first visit to the zoo, then that was the expression on Buck’s face. All of management had followed the progress of the “super Negroes” while we were in training and there were ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Editor’s Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty One
• Chapter Twenty Two
• Chapter Twenty Three
• Chapter Twenty Four
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Index