Lee Brown - Strong in the struggle: my life as a black labor activist

Cover

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My Life as a Black Labor Activist

Lee Brown with Robert L. Allen

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham Boulder New York Oxford

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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America

by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706

http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com

12 Hid's Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ, England

Copyright 2001 by Lee Brown and Robert L. Allen

All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Lee, 1921

Strong in the struggle : my life as a black labor activist/Lee Brown with Robert L. Allen.

p. cm.(Voices and visions)

ISBN 0-8476-9191-8 (alk. paper)

1. Brown, Lee, 1921 2. Afro-American labor leadersBiography. I. Allen, Robert L., 1942 II. Title. III. Series.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

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In memory of my grandfather, Lee Brown, my first teacher, and Grace, my wife and sister in the struggle.

Lee Brown

For my mother, Sadie Sims Allen, with love and gratitude for all she has given to me, and for Janet Carter, my best friend and partner in life.

Robert L. Allen

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JULIANNE MALVEAUX

Lee Brown is a bear of a man, a gentle giant with an imposing presence, a ready smile, a gravelly voice, and, most importantly, an unwavering focus and an unwavering commitment to justice. One of Lee's special gifts is his ability to take a meandering conversation and either subtly guide it or bluntly redirect it to the pressing matter of the peoplethe least and the left out, the elderly, the poor, and working people. I thought I knew Lee well because of our mutual involvement in the San Francisco NAACP in the 1980s, but reading his autobiography has given me new appreciation of his walk.

It is also clear that his life fully represents the history of African American workers and activists in the twentieth century, the transformation of our presence from a rural to an urban one, and the impact that the Industrial Revolution, the trade union movement, World War II, and the civil rights movement have had on the way we live and we work. This book is especially important because we have so few worker biographies, so few life stories of the people that Lee Brown has always been ready to represent. It is important to see history from this prism, to view our nation's evolution through the life of a man whose voice, strong and authentic, is amplified through this powerful, absorbing, and detail-rich autobiography.

I was especially riveted by Lee Brown's story because it reveals so much hidden history, a story that we ran the risk of losing were it not for the diligence of Lee's scribe, the scholar Robert Allen. It is useful for us to have a work history of an African American man that contrasts sharply with the revisionist

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vision of the good old days of industrial work. And it is important, in the postindustrial context, to be reminded of what work has been for so many people. With the proliferation of technology and the boom of jobs in the computer industry, it is important to remember that, once upon a time, people fought for the right to do backbreaking work and fought to improve the conditions of their employment. When people talk about the good old days for workers, they are often referring to the days when people held their jobs for thirty or forty years, starting off in a factory right after high school and working there until they received the gold watch of retirement. They are, perhaps, referring to the days when men with modest educations could find jobs that paid decent wages. Lee Brown's story makes it clear that the good old days weren't good for everyone and that African American men, especially southern African American men, faced an array of challenges even during the economic expansions that came with World War II and the postwar period.

Brown has held an array of jobshandyman, actor, longshoreman, railway porter, waiter, and union organizer. He worked because he had to, and he was attracted to organizing because it was a way to bargain for fair pay from his employers. Gifted with an innate sense of self and of fair play, Lee Brown never let his work define him. Instead, he struggled to define the terms and conditions of his work and his life and to improve the lives of others.