African Americans on the Home Front in Paterson, New Jersey: A WWII Lesson

A lesson plan from the National Park Service's series on Paterson, New Jersey, an American World War II Heritage City.

Teacher note: the historical sources use language and labels for race that are no longer used. Discuss this with students.

Objectives

Students will:

• describe what African Americans in Paterson experienced on the home front, and the challenges they faced;
• identify their contributions to the war effort;
• explain how faith and community groups, working together, challenged racism and discrimination.

Essential question: How did African Americans in Paterson contribute to the home front and the civil rights movement?

Materials: the three readings below, a map of Paterson, and the lesson's images in the NPS Paterson gallery.

Reading 1: A vocational school that trained no Black workers (1941)

Background: in 1941 President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802: "There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and in Government, because of race, creed, color, or national origin." It brought more African Americans into defense work but did not end discrimination. The C.I.O. (Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1935–1955) later became part of the AFL-CIO.

The Morning Call, September 27, 1941, reported:

• Irving Abramson, state C.I.O. president, threatened to ask the federal government to withhold funds from the Paterson Vocational School unless it stopped discriminating against Black students. He said the school's director had tacitly admitted that no Black trainees had been prepared for defense jobs, contrary to Roosevelt's July order.
• Director James F. Mason denied discrimination: the school trained only for specific jobs employers ordered, under a defense program begun January 2, 1940, and had graduated 3,406 men, all placed.
• Abramson answered that Mason did not deny that of 3,500 men placed, not one was Black, and called the school's reasoning — no point training Black workers if industry won't hire them — "a lame excuse." "The Federal government supplies the money and makes the laws," he said; without trained Black workers, industry had "an excellent excuse for not employing them." He also noted the C.I.O. had no seat on the school's advisory board, as the law required.

Reading 2: The first service flag to honor Black service members (1942)

The Morning Call, October 19, 1942:

• Paterson's largest ward, the Fourth Ward, unfurled a 24-by-30-foot service flag for 1,001 men and women — the most of any flag in the city.
• It was the first flag to officially recognize Black Americans' part in the war: the soldier on it, beside the Statue of Liberty, a worker, a nurse and a sailor, was Black.
• More than 1,000 people gathered at Carroll and Governor streets; $12,075 in War Bonds was sold and a fund begun for a service members' canteen.
• Abramson pointed out that all the flag's stars were alike: "There is no distinction in their size or their color… we recognize the equality of all races, of all creeds, of all colors." He called for a pledge that "there will be an end to discrimination" when the troops returned.
• Speakers and performers reflected the ward's mix: Rev. Charles Tarter of St. Augustine Church gave the invocation, Rabbi Reuben Kaufman of Temple Emanuel the benediction, and baritone John Fleming sang "Go Down, Moses."

Reading 3: A committee to combat discrimination (1945)

The Morning Call, March 19, 1945: about 20 leading citizens from Paterson's Jewish, Black and Protestant communities, alarmed at the spread of race prejudice, agreed unanimously that discrimination hurt the war effort by dividing Americans and contradicted the principle that "all men are created equal." Urging the state legislature in Trenton to pass a Fair Employment Practice bill without delay, they formed a Provisional Committee to Combat Discrimination, chaired by Rev. James Clair Taylor of the A.M.E. Zion Church, and called a public conference at the Y.W.C.A.

Teacher tip: connect this to the Double V campaign and to the companion Pittsburgh lesson on ties between Black and Jewish communities.

By the numbers

The growth came with war-industry jobs and Paterson's postwar boom.

Quotations to consider

• 1943: a forum speaker said that after a year of agitation by leaders "both white and Negro," industry and labor were learning that Black and white citizens "can work side by side in harmony," and that the Curtiss-Wright company "was a pioneer in placing Negros in production jobs."
• 1945: after the war, Wallace Cotton wrote that "it took a war to bring the Negro worker higher salaries," and that Black Paterson residents "want decent homes and jobs."

The lesson's images also show a diverse workforce in Wright's Division of Employment and a 1944 newspaper ad seeking Black workers for war work with "excellent post-war opportunity."

Discussion questions

• What order was the vocational school accused of violating, and what was the evidence? What challenges did African Americans face at home and in service?
• Why did some Black workers and families move to Paterson? How do the quotations show the complex realities of seeking economic advancement and equality?
• What was significant about the soldier on the Fourth Ward flag, and about Abramson's reading of its stars?
• What role could conferences like the one at the Y.W.C.A. play in bringing racial and religious groups together? Why did the group link ending discrimination to winning the war and a just peace? How might such partnerships have fed the civil rights movement?

Closing

How did African Americans in Paterson contribute to the home front and the civil rights movement? How did faith and community groups, working together, challenge racism and discrimination?

More: the Paterson Museum's timeline of African American history in Paterson · Migration North after World War II (Library of Congress) · previous lesson · next: women on Paterson's home front

Sources

Based on "(H)our History Lesson: African American Contributions on the Home Front in Paterson, New Jersey, WWII Heritage City," written by Sarah Nestor Lane for the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education under the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service, quoting The Morning Call (Paterson), 1941–1945. The newspaper readings are summarized with short quotations. The lesson's images — a mid-century postcard, a Paterson Museum photograph and a 1944 newspaper advertisement — are left out.