Memorandum on Excerpts from Reports on Discriminatory Practices of Shipyards in the Southeast

In keeping with our conversation on the above date, I am submitting this material which I hope will be useful:

During the month of September, 1944, 25 Negroes employed as riveters and reamers at the Wainwright Shipyard in Panama City, Fla., were chased off the job by 100 whites. The J. A. Jones Construction Company which owns the yard, charges that it wishes to make full use of Negroes but is prevented from doing so by the Boilermakers Union.

On December 7, 1944, Regional Director Dodge was told by Mr. J. Rae Simpson, business agent for the Jacksonville Metal Trades Council that:

“Negroes would not be accepted as welders and burners in the St. John River Shipbuilding Company and violence would follow attempts to place them in these jobs.”

In justifying a move to house whites in a project intended for Negroes at Tampa, Florida, the F.P.H.A. in a report dated December 18, 1944, states that:

“The Don Thompson Vocational School of Tampa has trained 231 Negroes in a year and a half but none of these obtained employment in Tampa Shipyards and had to go elsewhere to work. The F.P.H.A. has already housed 50 white families in the 500 unit project originally built for Negro immigrant war workers. It is expected that a total of 220 units will be used by whites.”