Tag: construction trades

It has been 45 years since my mentor, Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher, implemented the Philadelphia Plan. This was a federal program used to integrate unions. From the beginning, the construction trades resisted with violence and Jim Crow style segregation. Then why do most civil rights organizations and local Black elected officials support such instruments of racism? That is simple. They take donations from the very construction locals who discriminate against us.

African American contractors are more likely to hire workers of color, so a barrier to the contractor has a broad impact. Now a new initiative in Oregon is working to stop the lockout of Blacks from construction.