Inspiration For The Book
Inspiration for the Book
In June 1963, my father had a chance encounter with a public servant that altered the course of my family’s destiny.
While working as a cab driver in Washington, DC, he picked up a man at the Capitol who worked for President Kennedy (and was on his way to the White House). After my father told the man of how his race was proving to be an insurmountable obstacle to obtaining employment in his chosen field (aeronautics), the man helped my father find a job at Grumman Aerospace where he worked his entire career.
That job provided our family with a ticket into the middle class. This encounter, which was chronicled in news reports at the time (see below), always underscored for me that the most important thing in the world is the outcome of an election.
An election result made my life possible and I wanted to remind people about what’s at stake when they enter a voting booth.
No Job in Washington, Negro Finds a New Life on LI
Long Island Press, Thursday, November 7, 1963
By Milton Jacques
It was a happy trip to the Grumman Aircraft Engineering plant in Bethpage, L.I. last year for an ex-Washington cab driver.
There was a job waiting there as a jet mechanic for Huwellett B. Collins, a 24-year-old discharged Air Force veteran.
Why drive all the way to Long Island when airplane mechanics are in short supply around the country?
Because Collins is a Negro, and the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity said yesterday in a press release Collins had difficulty finding work.
“He worked only two short stints as an extra mechanic in the Baltimore area, then gave up and went to work as a taxi driver in Washington.”
Collins picked up a passenger one day who wanted to talk about him. Did he have trouble finding work, was he trained in any other trade?
Collins told about his frustrating experience trying to get work as a mechanic. When the passenger got out, he handled the driver a card and said, “Come to my office on your day off.”
The passenger was in a position to help. He was Hobart Taylor Jr., executive vice chairman of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment opportunity.
The committee has been charged by President Kennedy with opening opportunity in American industry to all Americans, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.
“It is not the job of the President’s committee to place individual workers and we don’t normally do it,” Taylor said later.
But this young man had unique qualifications that matched openings in several companies. The just had to be matched up some way.”
Taylor notified several aircraft companies cooperating with the committee.
There wasn’t much doubt, officials said, that Collins was denied equal access to the kind of job he was qualified for because of his race.
Collins got three job offers, and decided he wanted to work for Grumman “because of the opportunity it offered,” Taylor said.
He is currently uncrating and building jet engine assemblies and is receiving on the job training with respect to the engine he is handling.
Ultimately this will lead to work on installation of these big engines.”
Taylor said the Collins story is “a perfect case history of the kind of discrimination and insensitiveness we encounter in our work.”
“He had done work on Super Constellation and F-100s in the Air Force and had received 140 hours instruction in maintenance on B-47 as a flight line mechanic. And he had completed and aircraft mechanic jet engine course.”
Collins is married and has a small child
It was a happy trip to the Grumman Aircraft Engineering plant in Bethpage, L.I. last year for an ex-Washington cab driver.
There was a job waiting there as a jet mechanic for Huwellett B. Collins, a 24-year-old discharged Air Force veteran.
Why drive all the way to Long Island when airplane mechanics are in short supply around the country?
Because Collins is a Negro, and the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity said yesterday in a press release Collins had difficulty finding work.
“He worked only two short stints as an extra mechanic in the Baltimore area, then gave up and went to work as a taxi driver in Washington.”
Collins picked up a passenger one day who wanted to talk about him. Did he have trouble finding work, was he trained in any other trade?
Collins told about his frustrating experience trying to get work as a mechanic. When the passenger got out, he handled the driver a card and said, “Come to my office on your day off.”
The passenger was in a position to help. He was Hobart Taylor Jr., executive vice chairman of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment opportunity.
The committee has been charged by President Kennedy with opening opportunity in American industry to all Americans, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.
“It is not the job of the President’s committee to place individual workers and we don’t normally do it,” Taylor said later.
But this young man had unique qualifications that matched openings in several companies. The just had to be matched up some way.”
Taylor notified several aircraft companies cooperating with the committee.
There wasn’t much doubt, officials said, that Collins was denied equal access to the kind of job he was qualified for because of his race.
Collins got three job offers, and decided he wanted to work for Grumman “because of the opportunity it offered,” Taylor said.
He is currently uncrating and building jet engine assemblies and is receiving on the job training with respect to the engine he is handling.
Ultimately this will lead to work on installation of these big engines.”
Taylor said the Collins story is “a perfect case history of the kind of discrimination and insensitiveness we encounter in our work.”
“He had done work on Super Constellation and F-100s in the Air Force and had received 140 hours instruction in maintenance on B-47 as a flight line mechanic. And he had completed and aircraft mechanic jet engine course.”
Collins is married and has a small child