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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Negroes were hired. We had an awful time, a dreadful time! It was just one of those things that eventually petered out, but there were great difficulties at the time. Finally we did just exactly what the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recommends against doing, which was that we showed the employer how to make a kind of segregation in the factory, particularly with regards to toilets. You were running there so deeply into projudice that you had to do something. You were dealing with something so deeply ingrained in people, a fear, that you couldn't stop right then to cope with it. That was the way we did it. We never said anything about it, or put in the paper that that was the way we wokred it out. That was settled and that was that. That was the biggest strike that we had over the question of employment of colored people.

The feeling ran so deeply in Baltimore that you just couldn't cope with it. That was the most serious work stoppage that we had in connection with it. That wasn't a strike of colored people, but a strike of whites protesting against having colored people come in.

The phrase Fair Employment Practices Commission was borrowed from the fair practices commission in the NRA. I really don't remember how it started. Gradually there were more and more colored people brought into work. You had to train more people to do skilled labor. Naturally,





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