Black Space in a White Workplace
The Good Neighbor Council's report on institutional racism.
The limited number of black employees who worked in public institutions came under increased scrutiny during the late 1960s and early 1970s with the passage of a number of civil rights and equal employment opportunity laws. The Good Neighbor Council, an advocacy group formed in 1967 by Chancellor John T. Caldwell to address racial tensions and discriminatory practices on and around campus, published a report identifying patterns of racial discrimination in the university’s employment practices. The report acknowledged that NC State made some progress in hiring black employees, but “the old pattern of black and white jobs lies not too deeply below the surface.”[1] The black workspace at NC State was limited or completely segregated while overqualified black employees were often stuck in menial job positions. Again, NC State’s black workers were not in a unique position. White employers often arbitrarily denied black workers employment opportunities for no reason other than their skin color. For example, black workers in the southern textile industry were often classified as unskilled workers or laborers but actually performed many of the skilled jobs. Management simply denied them classification for higher job positions, and as a result they were paid less for doing identical work as skilled white workers.[2] NC State’s job classifications were indicative of a much larger system of job segregation.
Not only were the positions black workers did occupy often segregated by race, but they were also separated by class distinctions. There is a long history of class tensions within the black community, and the jobs held by black university employees were often dictated by their status as middle- or working-class. Black faculty and academic staff were almost always from the middle class and had university-level education. The non-academic workers, however, often came from the working class. Many had at least some high-school education but were stuck in menial jobs and often overqualified for their position. Despite the history of class tensions, the black employees of NC State often tried to work together to improve their working conditions. Black faculty and academic staff served on boards and committees that directly addressed not only their own discrimination experiences, but also the working conditions of non-academic employees. Their cooperation was indicative of the larger Civil Rights Movement, which often times brought middle class and working class black community members together.
[1] “Racism in Employment at NC State—Patterns and Prospects,” October 1971, Folder 10, Box 2, UA 022.053, North Carolina State University, Committees, Good Neighbor Council Records, 1966-1979, North Carolina State University Special Collections, Raleigh, NC.
[2] Timothy J. Minchin, Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960-1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 157.