Shameful local history

[LanDroid]

D-Day, one of America's proudest, if bloodiest, moments in World War II, was one of the most shameful days in Cincinnati's wartime history.

While tens of thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, more than 15,000 workers at the Wright Aeronautical Corporation plant in Lockland walked off their plane-engine manufacturing jobs in a strike precipitated by management's decision to upgrade a handful of black workers in a nearly all-white department.

After a four-day strike ended by a work-or-be-fired ultimatum issued by the War Labor Board, the Wright employees finally returned to their jobs -- but not before being roundly denounced both locally and nationally as unpatriotic.

"You Wright strikers, what will you say to the fathers and mothers of those men who fall in France?" The Post thundered in a front-page editorial on D-Day. "Will you -- keep this un-American prejudice alive at the expense of American soldiers and sailors?"

Source: Cincinnati Post

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<font color="#000002" size="1">[ June 06, 2004 10:26 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>

[Lew]

I had never heard that story before, but assuming it's true, I will agree it is disgraceful by any stretch of the imagination (and, quite honestly, not surprising).

My grandmother worked at Crosley during the war making field radios for the military. Each morning they had to start off with the pledge, but there was an indian who worked there who refused, and surprisingly no one seemed to give him a hard time about it. I would have expected more of a harsh response from the workers, but she said that most of them understood. She, herself, always said that she never blamed him.

[Emperor Napoleon]

They were lucky they didn't get drafted on the spot. During the war working in a war critical industry gave workers draft exemption, if they quit (or were dismissed) they faced the draft board pretty quickly. My grandpa told me it made for some real asshole supervisors at times because they knew they had you and there was nothing you could do about it...