[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 2 (Friday, January 5, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E13]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E13]]
                 TRIBUTE TO MARE ISLAND ORIGINAL 21ERS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 4, 2007

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
invite my colleagues to join me in honoring the Mare Island Original 
21ers for their efforts to end racial discrimination at Mare Island 
Naval Shipyard.
  On Nov. 17, 1962, twenty-one African American workers at Mare Island 
Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, CA, took a historic step by filing a racial 
discrimination complaint with President Kennedy's newly created 
Committee on Equal Job Opportunities. The complaint quickly helped lead 
to sweeping changes locally at the shipyard and nationally at military 
installations, including early Affirmative Action-type programs. All 
the men wanted was a wage comparable to their white co-workers and to 
be treated equally. What they started was a chain reaction that 
reverberated around the country. The group would become known as the 
Mare Island Original 21ers, and would forever change the base's social 
landscape.
  Despite these pioneering steps, their early civil rights efforts 
remain in obscurity. The group's surviving members still talk about the 
movement, but the full story was buried in the 1960s and only recently 
came to light as a result of a series of newspaper articles by Vallejo 
Times Herald reporter Matthias Gafni.
  Their story is typical of the time. Vallejo was a Navy town, and a 
separated one. With its naval shipyard, Vallejo has always had a 
population reflecting a wide range of ethnic backgrounds; but it was 
not always harmonious. In the late 1950s minorities were mostly working 
in unskilled positions at Mare Island as sandblasters, laborers and 
cleaners, with efforts to keep them out of certain positions. The 
discrimination was not restricted to withholding promotions and unfair 
hiring practices, according to one of the workers. At every phase of 
each work day they faced discrimination.
  By 1960 the Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy and the African 
American workers were losing patience. In March 1961, President Kennedy 
issued an executive order establishing a sweeping, government-wide 
Equal Employment Opportunity Policy. Twenty-one workers began 
organizing under the leadership of Willie Long, meeting in complete 
secrecy to protect their safety and their jobs. A complaint was drafted 
and twenty-five workers ultimately signed it. The complaint covered 
deplorable conditions for black workers, involving promotions, the 
apprenticeship program, and general unfair treatment. The shipyard 
commander found no pattern of discrimination, but President Kennedy's 
committee was inundated with similar complaints from around the country 
and changes were finally made after several years. Almost everyone who 
signed the original complaint was promoted to supervisor and 
fortunately escaped any of the serious reprisals they feared.
  Their quiet but risky fight for equal treatment helped change our 
Nation. These heroic men included Willie Long, Boston Banks, Jr., 
Matthew Barnes, Louis Greer, Jake Sloan, Charles Fluker, Clarence 
Williams, James Davis, Thomas King, Robert E. Borden, James O. Hall, 
Matthew Luke, Herman Moore, Jimmie James, John L. McGhee, James J. 
Colbert, Virgil N. Herndon, Eddie Brady, Brodie Taylor, W.J. Price, 
Levi Jones, Herbert H. Lane, Kermit Day, and Charles Scales.
  Madam Speaker, in tribute to these men and their fight for equal 
rights, it is proper for us, and it is indeed my honor, to formally 
recognize the Mare Island Original 21ers, and thank them for their 
heroic actions.

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