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FREEDOMWAYS    THIRD QUARTER 1973

was a set back for black workers and a set back for the general thrust of the civil rights movement. As Rosen succinctly states: "And to the extent that the unions expelled had been the more militant and devoted advocates of racial justice, the cause itself lost much of its meaning and appeal."31 The cause of racial justice, indeed, became another casualty in the crusade against communism. The dominant forces within the labor movement were swept up by red hysteria. Here the effort has been made to highlight the linkage between the CIO purge and the black liberation struggle. To place in sharper focus this linkage, a brief look at a major civil rights conference sponsored by the NAACP in 1950 is in order.

One of the most significant civil rights battles waged during the post-war period dealt in the area of job discrimination. This battle manifested itself in the fight to secure fair employment practice legislation. In 1950, the NAACP, the oldest and largest civil rights membership organisation, held in Washington, D.C. At this conference, the NAACP officially joined the ranks of the Cold War warriors. Upon entering the conference, for example, delegates were screened to determine whether or not they were left-leaning or sympathetic to left thinking. This group included communists, alleged communists, and former Henry Wallace supporters. Naturally, no on-the-spot test was conducted. Instead, the credentials committee refused to seat large numbers or NAACP members who were suspected of being "red." Interestingly enough, the chairperson of the credentials was Willard Townsend, national executive board member of the CIO. One observer of the affair expressed the view that, in fact, the CIO engineered the move to exclude the left from the conference. This was done in a trade-off fashion. Thus, the CIO would moderate its stance on the passage of civil rights legislation in exchange for the support of the Dixiecrats in repealing the Taft-Hartley law passed in 1947. As Ralph Matthews, a writer for the Washington Afro-American, bitingly commented: "While the trusting souls of the NAACP were watching the front door to prevent infiltration from the Reds, the reactionary leaders of the CIO moved in and confiscated the mobilization." 32 It was worth noting that two major unions in the CIO the UAW and the United Steel Workers (USW) both had lily white executive board. So while trade unions were barred from this conference who had been in the forefront of the fight for black rights both within and outside the labour movement, those representing reactionary to conservative CIO positions were seated.

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