American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, D.C., 1941--1981

This study explores the history of black workers in Washington, D.C.'s federal sector from World War II (WWII) to the early 1980s. Many blacks viewed government employment as a welcome alternative to the limited job prospects and career trajectories available in the hostile and discriminatory private sector. As their numbers in the public sector in Washington increased, African-Americans gained a measure of economic security, elevated their social standing, and increased their political participation, primarily through public sector unions and such civil rights groups as the National Urban League (NUL) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).;However, the growth of racial liberalism in the post-war era did not do away with discrimination in federal employment. In contrast to their white colleagues, black federal workers consistently faced lower wages and slower promotion rates, despite presidential commissions and laws intended to eliminate racial inequities in the workplace. Gradually, black workers improved their status through collective and individual activism, within a context of official support for their rights.;To tell this story, the study draws upon many previously untapped resources. Federal grievance hearings, records from several government commissions and correspondence between federal officials bring to light efforts to acknowledge and address racial frictions within the federal workplace. The papers of such local activists as Julius Hobson and such organizations as the NAACP and the Urban League document black efforts to compel the federal government to uphold its Constitutional responsibility for fair play. Both black and "white" newspapers along with black trade union newsletters and black magazines illustrate the narrative.;Public employment is an understudied source of African American, labor and institutional history; many blacks used it to escape economic oppression in the South. With a heavy concentration of both black workers and federal agencies, Washington, D.C is an excellent site for a monograph on this subject. Moreover, the tensions between the stated, anti-racist policies of the government and the continuance of discriminatory patterns has implications for other urban areas in which African-Americans moved in large numbers during and after WWII.