**Showdown Under the Arch:**

**The Construction Trades and the First \"Pattern or Practice\"**

**Equal Employment Opportunity Suit, 1966**

**By Robert J. Moore Jr.**

Thirty years ago, St. Louis was the setting for one of the earliest
legal tests in America regarding equal employment opportunity for
African-Americans. The case hit the city in a spectacular fashion, for
the project chosen for the showdown was the most visible and
eagerly-anticipated structure in the history of the city: the Gateway
Arch. Built with city and federal funds, the Arch was expected to draw
millions of tourist dollars and revitalize the blighted downtown area.
The suit made the Arch a symbol of the struggle of African-Americans for
respect and equality in the workplace.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance began an experimental attempt
at desegregating nationwide building trades unions in St. Louis on the
Arch project. Unlike many businesses and labor unions in the United
States, technical building trades such as electricians, plumbers, and
sheet metal workers continued to maintain memberships with little or no
African-American representation into the mid-1960s. The Federal
Government under Lyndon Johnson acknowledged the importance of
integration on all levels of society, and sought to enforce equal
employment opportunity throughout the nation by beginning with job
contracts they could control --- those projects which had federal
funding. The outcome of the Justice Department suit filed in 1966 in St.
Louis, the first \"pattern or practice\" suit ever launched under Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[^1] had ramifications which
continue to this day.[^2]

The America of 1965-66 was worried about the widespread rioting which
had ignited a series of \"long, hot summers.\" Ten years of social
unrest had produced a vocal African-American community, demanding equal
rights and social justice from the United States government. The passage
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had
left the leaders of various civil rights groups seeking new rallying
points. The most extreme among them, despairing of ever achieving a
truly just society, began to preach the doctrine of \"Black Power.\"
While some Americans worried that the rights of the ordinary citizen
were being dictated by an intrusive government, others wanted to try to
\"repair the damage\" of hundreds of years of racial oppression. \"What
we ought to be thinking about at home and abroad,\" said Vice President
Hubert Humphrey, \"is how do you build a relatively just society, a
society of opportunity, to try to adjust some of the imbalances and the
inequities so that these conditions that promote violence and that lend
themselves to demagoguery and disorder and lawlessness and rioting do
not occur.\"[^3]

One of the major civil rights problems was unemployment, and the
inability of African-Americans, due to the discriminatory practices in
many employment fields, to work in certain types of jobs and crafts.
Federal efforts to end employment discrimination began to accelerate in
1961, at the beginning of the administration of John F. Kennedy, who
established the President\'s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity
(PCEEO).[^4] PCEEO directed its efforts toward government contractors,
mandating nondiscrimination in hiring policies and requiring them to
take \"\'affirmative action\' with respect to providing employment
opportunities for minority groups\.... The President\'s Committee could
apply the sanction of contract revocation if the equal employment
requirements were not met. In practice, however, the committee depended
almost exclusively upon persuasion and conciliation as the means for
encouraging compliance with the Executive Order.\"[^5]

By 1963, major American cities were finding the task of integrating
construction trades unions particularly vexing. After a riot in
Philadelphia in June 1963 President Kennedy issued Executive Order
11114, which extended the authority of the PCEEO to include
federally-assisted construction projects.[^6] After the assassination of
President Kennedy in November 1963, Lyndon Johnson assumed the nation\'s
highest office with what he considered a mandate to continue unbroken
the policies of the nation\'s fallen chief. But Johnson actually moved
farther and faster than Kennedy could have imagined, engineering the
passage of bill after bill, most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Johnson dedicated himself to \"the opportunity to move not only toward
the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great
Society.\" He asked Americans if they would \"join in the battle to give
every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires,
whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin\...\"[^7]

In 1965, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was
established under the Civil Rights Act of 1964[^8], and President Lyndon
Johnson abolished the PCEEO.[^9] Johnson designated the Labor Department
as the lead agency in coordinating contract compliance, under the direct
responsibility of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
(OFCC). An African-American administrator, Edward C. Sylvester, Jr., was
appointed to head the OFCC, and faced a very difficult task.[^10]

Workers in the construction trades were difficult if not impossible to
coerce into adopting equal employment opportunity, since they were not
hired from the street but by low bid contractors from union hiring halls
under prior and exclusive work contracts. Contractors did not hire their
own workers, and workers were not permanent employees of construction
companies. Admission to the union hiring halls was controlled by the
feeder apprenticeship programs, which presented a bottleneck. In 1960,
for instance, there were only 2,200 active non-white apprentices in the
construction trades in the entire country. This accounted for only 2.5%
of all apprentices, the same level as existed in 1950. In 1963,
Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz issued anti-discrimination guidelines
for apprenticeship programs. Applicants were chosen from the top of an
ability ranking list, however, with final screening often including oral
interviews.[^11]

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went into force on July 2,
1965, and labor unions in the construction trades paid lip service to
its implementation in announcements and memoranda stating their support
of the legislation. In reality, no changes were made in the way the
unions operated or in their recruitment methods.[^12] By 1966, non-white
apprenticeships were up only to 4.4%.[^13] Meanwhile, federal funds were
reaching 225,000 contractors, involved in \$30 billion in annual
construction. Thus, the federal government was directly involved with
the livelihood of 20 million workers, nearly a third of the U.S. labor
force. The Johnson administration was challenged to come up with a plan
to use federal leverage to force the integration of the building trades
unions.[^14]

The Labor Department decided to begin the process with the desegregation
of the St. Louis construction trades locals, on the government project
to build the Gateway Arch for Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
(JNEM).[^15] Concerns about the Arch project went back to 1964, when the
PCEEO investigated and stated publicly that they were \"dissatisfied
with hiring practices\" there.[^16] Although African-Americans were
employed on the Arch as laborers, there were no African-Americans in any
of the skilled building trades working on the project. A source in one
of the St. Louis trades unions explained that \"there were black
laborers, because you didn\'t have to go through an apprenticeship
program to be a laborer. But there were no blacks in the building
trades. You have to remember that at that time the unions were very
powerful --- this was a union town.\"[^17]

As construction progressed on the National Memorial and new contracts
were signed, the National Park Service was careful to stipulate that
African-Americans would be expected to be part of the skilled work
force. Superintendent LeRoy Brown of JNEM told the *St. Louis
Globe-Democrat* that he had \"\'indicated to the NAACP, the Urban League
and CORE \[that\] we will accept only a contractor who has demonstrated
he will be in full compliance.\'\"[^18] The Park Service was already
embarrassed by informational picket lines set up by CORE outside the
nearby Old Courthouse, protesting the exclusion of black workers on the
Arch. It was being pushed by forces in the local community as well as
from above in the federal hierarchy. A dramatic protest was made on July
14, 1964 by local activists Percy Green and Richard Daly of the Action
Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes (ACTION) which received
much media attention. This organization had already been successful in
protesting the banking industry in St. Louis for fair employment for
African-Americans.

Percy Green told the story of his protest in this way in a 2004 essay:
"We spoke to the general contractor, MacDonald Construction Company,
which said that they had tried but could not find qualified black
contractors to do the work. Regarding skilled workers, the contractor
said that there were only a few blacks and they were all working on
other construction jobs; and that the unions were responsible for the
fact that there were so few skilled black construction workers. We did
not find these excuses acceptable. The question became: How could we
expose to the world that this national monument, the Arch, was guilty of
racial discrimination using federal tax dollars?

"During a strategy session, it was determined that an exploratory
reconnaissance was necessary. Richard Daly, a European-American, joined
me, an African-American, to test the waters by seeing how far we could
explore the Arch site without confrontation. A few days later we visited
the site at lunchtime. We were dressed like construction workers, in
Levis, T-shirts, and boots. We walked up to the North leg of the Arch,
and seemed to be viewed as regular workers. We walked around the grounds
and left without incident.

"At the next strategy session, we reported our experience, and after
some discussion, a direct-action protest plan was adopted. We decided to
climb the Arch to expose the fact that federal funds were being used to
build a national monument that was racially discriminating against black
contractors and skilled black workers.

"On July 14, 1964, as a diversionary tactic, ACTION announced to the
news media that it would be picketing at the Old Courthouse at Market
and Broadway about racial discrimination at the Arch. The Old Courthouse
housed the offices of the National Park Service, the federal agency that
was building the Arch. Binoculars were in place at the Old Courthouse
for the public to view the construction at the Arch site. The picket
line was set up at 10 a.m.

"At noon the two of us, dressed like construction workers, again
approach the Arch site. We walked by the workers having lunch to the
ladder on the north leg of the Arch. We climbed to the 125-foot level
and sat there.

"After observing through the binoculars at the Courthouse that we had in
fact successfully climbed the Arch and were in position, Robert Curtis,
an African-American attorney, informed the media that was covering the
picket line. They immediately ran down to the Arch grounds for pictures
and to get the story. We remained on the Arch for over four hours. When
we came down we were arrested by the St. Louis Police Department and
charged with trespassing on federal property and resisting arrest,
because we refused to walk to jail. All of the arrest charges against us
were later dropped by the Federal Government in Washington D.C."[^19]

As Green and Daly shouted their demands to the astounded workers, 120
feet below, insisting that at least 10% of the Arch workforce should be
African-American, the National Park Service braced itself for negative
publicity. Politicians and community figures, including the local
newspapers, lambasted Green and Daly as mere publicity seekers. \"Yet
the very vehemence of those condemnations,\" according to historian
George Lipsitz, \"focused attention on the arch and turned that symbol
of civic pride into a symbol of civic division over racism.\"[^20]

Yet when the Park Service came to the table to open bids for the
construction of the huge visitor center under the Arch, the contract was
awarded only after they were assured by the low bidder, Hoel-Steffen
Construction Company of St. Louis, that EEO hiring practices would be
followed.[^21] Members of the African-American community protested the
Arch project once more as it entered this new phase, finally yielding
after ten weeks to a public pledge by the Park Service that minority
firms would be employed on the project.[^22] This pledge included the
appointment of Woody Zenfell, chief engineer for the Park Service on the
Arch project, as a regional coordinator for OFCC. Zenfell \"pulled
together a contract agreement which stated that minority businesses
would be recruited to work on the Arch.\"[^23]

The St. Louis building trades union council, AFL-CIO, was reported as
favoring this working agreement of November 1965. On December 27, 1965,
however, the council put the matter to a vote and changed their
decision, declaring that they would not work where AFL-CIO journeymen,
apprentices and helpers were not used; in other words, anywhere that did
not entirely employ AFL-CIO workers. The business managers of the
council \"emphasized that the decision to supply no workmen was not
motivated by any considerations of race, creed or color.\"[^24]

Even if the AFL-CIO unions were sincere in pledging their support for
equal opportunity employment, the construction trades still had no
African-American craftsmen, and no programs were in place to recruit or
hire any. In addition, alternative unions such as the Congress of
Independent Unions (CIU), which was integrated, were being shut out of
government contracts by the actions of the Building and Construction
Trades Council, AFL-CIO. Local 99 of the CIU had been formed in St.
Louis in 1960 by a group of African-American contractors, prompted by
their desire to participate in an upcoming rehabilitation project in an
African-American neighborhood. Local 99 met with constant harassment by
the established building trades locals. \"When a group of electrician
apprentices sponsored by Local 99 first attended classes at O\'Fallon
Technical High School in October, 1961, the instructor, a member of
Local 1 IBEW, refused to let the group enter the class until he was
ordered to do so by the principal of the school. African-American
contractors in Local 99 were consistently forced to turn down lucrative
contracts as a result of AFL-CIO trade union pressure.\"[^25]

On January 7, 1966, the U.S. Government notified four of its agencies
pursuing construction in the St. Louis area that builders must show
affirmative action before any contracts would be awarded. Robert Hoel of
the Hoel-Steffen Construction Company was the primary contractor for the
interior finishes of the underground visitor center on the Gateway Arch
project. Under heavy pressure from the Labor Department, Hoel hired the
independent E. Smith Plumbing Company, a three-person African-American
firm without membership in the AFL-CIO Plumbers Local 35, but who
instead were members of the CIU. Hoel hired the Smith company because he
could not obtain an African-American plumber or apprentice from the
AFL-CIO plumbers union; there were none.[^26]

The appearance of the Smith company in the Gateway Arch visitor center
on January 7, 1966 to install plumbing in the rest rooms triggered a
walkout by five locals of the Building and Construction Trades Council,
who charged that the CIU were unfair competitors.[^27] The building
trades objected to working with the CIU, they said, because the latter
accepted \"wage rates from \$1 to \$1.50 an hour lower than the AFL-CIO,
except on federally-financed projects, operat\[ed\]
\'employer-dominated\' locals and \[ran\] an apprentice training program
that is not in compliance with federal laws.\"[^28] A proposal by the
Building and Construction Trades Council to end the walk-out by
accepting the three African-American plumbers into the AFL-CIO plumbers
union was rejected by the CIU, for participation in the Arch project was
the very chance the CIU had been waiting for: the ability to break into
large federal contracts. They were not about to lose their opportunity
by yielding to the AFL-CIO so easily. In addition, the incorporation of
three African-American workers in the AFL-CIO plumbers union would be an
insignificant step toward erasing the massive barriers to the general
acceptance of African-Americans in the St. Louis building trades
unions.[^29]

Work stopped entirely on the Gateway Arch visitor center project, while
the various factions prepared for a fight. The National Park Service was
dedicated to the ideals of affirmative action, and had no notion of
removing the Smith firm to appease the AFL-CIO.[^30] Hoel-Steffen found
themselves caught between the Federal Government\'s push for equal
employment opportunity and the all-white building and construction
trades unions. The AFL-CIO construction trades locals maintained their
fight was over a union-busting move by the U.S. Government.
African-American St. Louisans rallied to push their fight for greater
representation in the building trades. Ultimately, many white St.
Louisans felt that the public was the loser in this contest, since the
delay on the project would keep the Arch from being completed on
schedule, slowing riverfront revitalization.[^31]

On January 18, the St. Louis branch of the NAACP \"charged that the
Visitor Center of the Gateway Arch will soon become a monument known to
all Americans as a national symbol of bigotry.\" In a letter to
Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, the NAACP stated that it was
\"the opinion of this Branch that the affirmative action taken by
compliance officials here with the prime contractor who hired Negro
plumbers is of little value \[if\] the Department of the Interior does
not exert some positive action against the AFL-CIO Building and
Construction Trades Council and its affiliated labor unions.\"[^32] The
Missouri Chapter of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity
denounced the Building and Construction Trades Council, saying that \"no
arch can stand as a symbol for this city if its construction is limited
to unions with racially restricted membership.\"[^33]

On January 26, 1966, top officials of the U.S. Labor Department met in
St. Louis to consult with the unions. Among them was Edward C.
Sylvester, Jr., of the OFCC. After the meeting, Sylvester, obviously
discouraged by seeing the St. Louis situation at first-hand, addressed a
letter to the Justice Department, asking Attorney General Nicholas
Katzenbach to take \"appropriate action\" to prevent further
interference by the AFL-CIO with the minority contractor working on the
Arch. Sylvester pointed out that under the Executive Order on equal
employment opportunity and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the
Justice Department could institute court proceedings against the
offending unions.[^34]

On the same day, trade union council president Arthur Hunn told the
local newspapers that the government, \"in its anxiety to have Negroes
employed on the Arch project forced the general contractor, Hoel-Steffen
Construction Company, to hire the CIU affiliated plumbing contractor
simply because it employed Negroes.\"[^35] Frustrated by the continuing
walk-out and the statements of Hunn, Local 99 of the CIU, in conjunction
with Hoel-Steffen and the NAACP, independently filed an unfair labor
practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), seeking
a court injunction to force the AFL-CIO unions back to work. The
Building and Construction Trades Council was named as a co-defendant
along with individual member unions, \"because prior to the walkout its
members voted a statement of policy pledging no work with anyone not a
member of an AFL-CIO Union.\"[^36]

While the NLRB hearing was pending, the craftsmen who worked under the
Arch, both those who were willing to work and those who walked off the
job, found themselves under tremendous pressure. The minority contractor
whose selection set up the dispute, the E. Smith Plumbing Company, was a
small outfit owned and operated by Elisha Smith. Smith was occasionally
assisted by his 18 year old son, Don, who remembered those months in
1965-66 as \"a difficult time. Very difficult. The pressures on my
family were incredible. There were threatening telephone calls and hate
mail.\"[^37]

White subcontractors on the Arch project were quoted several times in
the newspapers, maintaining that they walked off the job on their own,
not through union orders, and that the walk-out was not racially
motivated. Several workers contacted in 1993 repeated these sentiments;
they continued to believe, after nearly 30 years, that their fight was
over the union issue. \"I left the job because those people didn\'t
belong to the building trades unions,\" recalled one worker. \"I just
would not work with non-union people. I don\'t care who they are, black
or white, that was how I was. They didn\'t belong to the Building and
Construction Trades Union, and I wasn\'t going to work with them. It was
nonsense to say that no blacks were working on the Arch project.
MacDonald Construction Company had blacks. They tried to make it look
like a racist thing, when it was a union question, pure and simple.\" In
the opinion of the OFCC\'s Leonard Biermann, on the other hand, the
walk-out was due \"most definitely to racism rather than union worries.
If minority contractors were allowed on the job, they would break the
white union exclusivity \[in the builder\'s trades\] wide open.\"[^38]

In late January 1966, St. Louis\' Mayor Alfonso Cervantes stepped into
the picture and conferred with Labor Department officials \"in an effort
to end the boycott\" which by this time had \"halted work on the
Visitors Center for three weeks.\"[^39] Militancy among black St.
Louisans toward the building trades was reaching the boiling point. On
January 31, East St. Louis civil rights leaders formed \"a committee to
draw plans for protests against contractors who are alleged to be
practicing racial discrimination in hiring\.... Surveys by the labor and
industry committee of the NAACP branch showed that Negroes make up only
a small percentage of workers on projects financed wholly or in part by
the federal government\...\" Judge Virgil Calvert, chairman of the
committee, urged non-violent protest. \"\'We must dramatize to the city
and state that we want what is rightfully ours.\'\"[^40]

The Building and Construction Trades Council met on February 2, and
decided to await developments at a hearing the following day for the
NLRB suit. \"\'Where we go from here,\' Hunn said at a luncheon of the
St. Louis Press Club, \'is anybody\'s guess. We will have an opportunity
\[at the hearing\] to show that our refusal to work was not predicated
on discrimination against Negroes.\'\" He continued to maintain that the
walkout was due to the presence on the job of a competing union, not
race prejudice. Hunn \"indicated that the absence of Negroes in the
AFL-CIO plumbers union was not the fault of the union but because
contractors would not hire them.\"[^41]

Many black observers felt a sense of anticipation as the hearing
approached, hoping \"that the present dispute will help Negroes gain
more job opportunities in the AFL-CIO building trade unions. The
government\'s strong stand on the Arch controversy and its subsequent
order on all other government work have clarified the position that
Negro workers must be brought into the ranks of the AFL-CIO building
trade unions.\"[^42]

James C. Millstone, Washington, D.C. correspondent for the *St. Louis
Post-Dispatch*, saw the move by the OFCC as \"the first overt sign of
the new, tough attitude of the \[Johnson\] Administration\.... The turn
to a bold policy of enforcement is intended as part of the
Administration\'s answer to critics in the civil rights movement. These
critics expressed concern last September when President Lyndon B.
Johnson restructured the Government\'s civil rights programs\... Civil
rights groups thought the result might be to weaken the programs.\" The
article noted the capability and aggressive stance of OFCC head Edward
Sylvester and the apparent support of Labor secretary Willard
Wirtz.[^43]

On February 3, 1966, the NLRB injunction came before Federal District
Judge John K. Regan. Malcolm Bartley, an attorney for the AFL-CIO
Building and Construction Trades Council, summarized a deposition taken
from Robert F. Hoel, president of Hoel-Steffen Construction Company,
which said that \"two bids for the plumbing sub-contract were received
by Hoel-Steffen. The low bid was unacceptable\... Hoel was then
questioned by a compliance officer from the Department of the Interior
about Hoel-Steffen\'s efforts to comply with the equal opportunity
provisions of federal contracts. The Smith company\...was
recommended\...\[and\] at the invitation of Hoel, Smith submitted an
offer, which turned out to be a \'time and material plus 10 per cent\'
bid.

\"In his deposition, Hoel said he was unhappy with the bid, but was told
by Paul Boyajian, an Interior Department compliance officer, that
accepting Smith was a condition of being named prime contractor\...\[and
that\] the federal contract would be signed immediately on his firm\'s
taking Smith as subcontractor.\" Hoel was then told by Joseph Cousin,
executive secretary of the trades council, that the AFL-CIO Unions would
not work with a CIU contractor. \"Cousin explained this was because the
craft unions feared the CIU might lower wage rates and cause a
deterioration in working conditions.\"[^44]

But James R. Brotherton, administrative officer at Jefferson National
Expansion Memorial, \"testified that Joseph Cousin\...telephoned him
Dec. 23\.... In the conversation, Brotherton said, Cousin said he was
concerned that the Smith company, a Negro firm, had been awarded a
subcontract on the Visitor Center project. Smith at that time had more
work than he could handle, and apparently was pressured into accepting
the subcontract for the Arch job\... Cousin then asked whether he
(Brotherton) or Leroy R. Brown, superintendent of the Gateway Memorial,
could persuade Smith to withdraw from the contract.\"[^45]

Another witness, William West, job foreman for the laborers union, Local
110, testified that \"the business agent for Laborers Union Local 42
told him he should leave the Arch job if any members of the Congress of
Independent Unions, employed by Smith, began work.\" Dominic Barbush, an
electrician, testified that he left the job but denied he was instructed
to do so by the unions or the council.[^46]

The testimony at the NLRB hearing was enough to convince the Labor
Department that Edward Sylvester\'s charges were more than substantiated
by the facts. Thus, the trade union walk-out at the Gateway Arch
triggered the first pattern-or-practice suit filed by the Justice
Department under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[^47] On
February 4, 1966, the Justice Department filed suit in U.S. District
Court against the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Council and
four of its member unions for discrimination. The suit, signed by
Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, alleged that the defendants
limited employment opportunities for African-Americans in the
construction trades and that the trades council interfered with the
completion of the visitor center by ordering its member unions not to
work with CIU employees. Pipefitters Local 562, Sheet Metal Workers
Local 36, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1, and
Plumbers Local 35 were all named in the suit. The suit claimed that the
union hiring halls controlled all employment opportunities for their
trades in the St. Louis area. The union locals \"each follow a policy
and practice of discrimination against Negroes on account of their race,
with respect to membership and with respect to employment.\" The suit
asked the court to enjoin the defendants from actions hindering Negro
employment in the construction trades and from interfering with the
nondiscriminatory and affirmative action assurances in the Visitor
Center construction contract. It also asked for an injunction against
discrimination in union membership.[^48]

On February 7, U.S. District Court Judge John K. Regan ruled on the NLRB
hearing, declaring that the council and four member unions were engaging
in a secondary boycott at the Arch site. A secondary boycott is
organized by one group against a party to force an action by a third
party. Specifically, in this case, the AFL-CIO building trades unions
were trying to force Hoel-Steffen to stop doing business with E. Smith
Plumbing Company. The judge issued a temporary injunction against the
council, and ordered them to stop trying to force the Smith firm off the
job. For two days matters remained unsettled as union lawyers studied
the injunction. Then the unions blinked. The Building and Construction
Trades Council decided to order their member unions back to work on
February 9, when they declared that they would comply with the court
order.[^49]

The AFL-CIO electricians, however, disagreed with their employer, Louis
S. Sachs, and their union, Local 1, and refused to go back to work on
Wednesday, February 9. Sachs Electric Company was responsible for
erecting temporary work lights in the windowless, underground visitor
center so that many different jobs could begin; no work could proceed
until these lights were erected. The electricians continued to claim
that their refusal to work was not a race issue. \"\'We have worked with
Negroes on all kinds of jobs, when they are members of bona fide craft
unions. It is not a race issue, but we are not going to work with a
union that takes away our jobs, that doesn\'t follow our craft union
principles.\'\" Told that he might be fired for refusing to work on the
project, an electrician replied: \'I\'ve been fired before. If they want
to fire me over this, they can. One of the few rights left to me is that
I can work with whomever I please.\'\" Sachs planned to request workers
directly from the hiring hall the following day. Robert Lanemann,
business manager of Local 1, said he directed his members to work. \"\'I
assumed that they would work\...I don\'t know why they\'re not
working.\'\"[^50]

Two days later, February 11, electricians from union Local 1, along with
their business manager, Robert Lanemann, appeared at the Gateway Arch
and finally installed the needed lights. \"As soon as the lights were
turned on three laborers from the AFL-CIO Laborer\'s union began
preliminary work of grading the earthen floor and moving earth and
gravel.\"[^51] The month-long walk-out, which began on January 7, was
over.

The Arch incidents and the resulting litigation had an immediate effect
on some St. Louis building trades unions. A joint apprenticeship program
for plumbers was submitted to the federal Bureau of Apprenticeship
Training by the St. Louis plumbing contractors association. The week
following the return of the workmen to the Arch project, Steamfitters
Local 562 announced that a total of 10 African-American apprentices were
hired, at journeyman\'s wages, to participate in an on-the-job training
program.[^52]

On June 14, 1967, the AFL-CIO Plumbers Local 35, Pipefitters Local 562,
and the Building and Construction Trades Council of St. Louis, all named
in the pending Justice Department suit, filed statements of policy,
declaring that they had instituted apprenticeship and outreach programs,
and were actively soliciting membership among the African-American
community.[^53] On the other hand, Electricians Local 1 and Sheet Metal
Workers Local 36, also named in the suit, elected to go to trial.[^54]

A source in Plumbers Local 35, one of the locals which settled out of
court, explained in a 1993 interview that \"as a result of the suit, the
court decreed that our union had to reach a target level of 17%
African-American membership. We have never reached this goal. Once the
17% figure is reached, we have lived up to the decree and it disappears.
This is monitored by the OFCC.\"[^55]

The case for Electricians Local 1 and Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 came
to trial in federal court on June 15, 1967, before Judge James H.
Meredith. At the trial, the defense tried to prove that the union had
been receptive to receiving African-American union members, both before
and after the government launched its \"pattern or practice\" suit. The
government was well-prepared, and produced several witnesses who damaged
the credibility of the union\'s claims, which included the statement
that no African-Americans had been turned down for employment by the
union between July 1965 and January 1966. This was later proven to be
untrue, specifically in the case of an African-American electrician
named Walter Hampton.[^56]

The Park Service wanted Hampton, who was highly recommended by Arthur J.
Kennedy, Director of Welfare for the City of St. Louis, to work on the
Arch project. On October 21, 1965, Hampton was sent to the union hall to
obtain a card so that he might work under the auspices of Local 1,
AFL-CIO, on the Arch project. When Hampton arrived, he was curtly told
that the union lists were full, that there was no room for him, and that
he would have to wait his turn to get on the lists like anyone
else.[^57] In addition, an African-American sheet metal business owner,
Vernon Wells, testified that he called Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 in
April 1967, and \"asked \[if\] they are taking in Negroes in their
union\.... \[They\] replied it will cost you \$2,000.\" This was far in
excess of initial union dues in 1967. Wells hung up, and subsequently
joined the CIU.[^58]

Despite this evidence, Judge Meredith decided in favor of the unions,
finding that although they had excluded African-Americans prior to 1964,
\"the record was devoid of specific instances of discrimination by
either Local since July 2, 1965.\" The court concluded that \"The Civil
Rights Act of 1964 was not intended to penalize unions or others for
their sins prior to the effective date of the Act\.... Neither was it
passed to destroy seniority rights in unions or in business. The Act
specifically forbids a union or a business from giving preferential
treatment to Negroes to correct an existing imbalance of whites. In
order to be in violation of this Act, there must be an intentional
pattern and practice of discrimination and not an isolated instance of
discrimination.\"[^59]

The government asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit to overturn this decision, arguing that it was \"not necessary
to prove that a number of Negroes sought and were denied union
membership or related benefits to establish a pattern or practice of
discrimination.\" It asserted that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enjoined
those subject to its provisions not only to \"follow racially neutral
employment policies\" but an \"obligation to correct or revise practices
which would perpetuate racial discrimination.\" The government, in its
appeal, stated that the locals continued to discriminate in employment
referral systems and admission policies, and that they failed to
publicize \"their abandonment of racially discriminatory
policies.\"[^60]

The Court of Appeals overturned Judge Meredith\'s decision on September
16, 1969, agreeing with the government that the discriminatory hiring
practices of the two union locals had not ended on July 2, 1965, and
further stating that Local 1 did not admit its first African-American
apprentice until February 1966. No African-American was referred to the
union for membership until March 1966. In the case of Walter Hampton,
\"a Negro who sought membership in the union and employment in the
industry received evasive responses from the Local as late as December,
1965.\"[^61] Local 36 had 1,275 white members and no black members as
late as the date of the lower court trial in June 1967. The locals\'
employment referral systems were found to be discriminatory in
nature.[^62] The unions were required to comply with federally mandated
hiring practices, and to make quarterly reports to the court on their
progress.[^63]

Edward C. Sylvester explained in 1967 that \"\...there is no fixed and
firm definition of affirmative action. I would say that in a general
way, affirmative action is anything that you have to do to get results.
But this does not *necessarily* include preferential treatment. The key
word here is \'results\'\...affirmative action is really designed to get
employers to apply the same kind of imagination and ingenuity that they
apply to any other phase of their operation.\"[^64] Unfortunately, it
sometimes took extraordinary actions of the U.S. Government to prod some
trades and industries into implementing equal employment opportunity for
all its citizens.

The events of December 1965 through January 1966 at the Gateway Arch
constituted the first direct actions of the Federal Government to
enforce equal employment opportunity. These actions led to further
attempts by the OFCC, most notably in the cities of San Francisco and
Philadelphia, to implement hiring schedules on federal construction
projects proportionate to minority populations within a given area.
These efforts had a lasting effect on the way Americans look at fair
hiring practices. In hindsight, perhaps it is not possible for the
Federal Government to legislate such things as nondiscriminatory hiring
practices, and compel its citizens to behave in a fair and consistent
manner. But the federal action taken on the Gateway Arch project forced
a readjustment, however imperfect, of a pattern and practice of
discrimination by the building trades unions in St. Louis. It is this
readjustment, and this effort toward a fair chance for all citizens at
all levels of our society, which we can continue to study and emulate.

[^1]: ^?^ Title VII of the Civil Rights Act included the provision that
    more than a single charge of discrimination had to be proven against
    an employer; that a \"pattern or practice of discrimination\" had to
    be proven.

[^2]: ^?^ The best accounts to date which provide background and insight
    on this period include Hugh Davis Graham *The Civil Rights Era:
    Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972* New York and
    Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990; Philip Foner *Organized Labor
    and the Black Worker* New York: International Publishers, 1982;
    Herbert Hill *Race, Affirmative Action and the Constitution* New
    York: City College of New York, 1988; Hugh Davis Graham, \"Race,
    History and Policy: African Americans and Civil Rights Since 1964,\"
    Journal of Policy History, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1994, pp. 12-39. For a
    short description of the suit launched at the Gateway Arch see
    Sharon A. Brown *Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
    Administrative History, 1935-1980*, Jefferson National Expansion
    Memorial, National Park Service; U.S. Government Printing Office,
    1984.

[^3]: ^?^ Hubert H. Humphrey, August 7, 1966, printed in *Face the
    Nation: 1965, the collected transcripts from the CBS radio and
    television broadcasts*, CBS News. New York: Holt Information
    Systems, 1972, p. 213.

[^4]: ^?^ Executive Order 10925.

[^5]: ^?^ Bernard E. Anderson *The Negro in the Public Utility
    Industries; The Racial Policies of American Industry Report Number
    10*. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Industrial Research Unit,
    Department of Industry, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce,
    University of Pennsylvania, 1970, pp. 200-201.

[^6]: ^?^ Hugh Davis Graham, *The Civil Rights Era*, pp. 278-279.

[^7]: ^?^ The \"Great Society Speech\" was given at the commencement
    exercises of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on May 22,
    1964. See Martin E. Gettleman and David Mermelstein, *The Great
    Society Reader: The Failure of American Liberalism*, New York:
    Random House, 1967, pp. 15-18.

[^8]: ^?^ Public Law 88-352.

[^9]: ^?^ This was as a result of Executive Order 11246, 30 Federal
    Register 12319, September 28, 1965.

[^10]: ^?^ See Hugh Davis Graham, *The Civil Rights Era*, pp. 278-286.

[^11]: ^?^ Ibid, pp. 279-280.

[^12]: ^?^ The evidence for this statement may be found in the
    transcript of the trial, *United States of America v. The Sheet
    Metal Workers International Association, Local Union No. 36,
    AFL-CIO; and the Local No. 1 of the International Brotherhood of
    Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Case File No. 66 C58 (2), held in St.
    Louis, Missouri Federal Court on June 15, 1967*. The case and
    testimony will be discussed in detail below.

[^13]: ^?^ Ibid, p. 281.

[^14]: ^?^ Graham, *The Civil Rights Era*, p. 281.

[^15]: ^?^ This topic is covered briefly in Graham, *The Civil Rights
    Era*, pp. 285-286; and in *Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
    Administrative History, 1935-1980*, Sharon A. Brown, 1984, pp.
    144-145.

[^16]: ^?^ *St. Louis Globe-Democrat*, August 8, 1964.

[^17]: ^?^ Telephone interview with a source in one of the trade unions
    sued in the 1966 NLRB case, Dec. 1, 1993.

[^18]: ^?^ \"Park Service Wants Negroes on Arch Jobs,\" *St. Louis
    Globe-Democrat*, October 29, 1964.

[^19]: Percy Green, "Essay on the 1964 Protest at the Gateway Arch,"
    September 2005, JNEM Archives.

[^20]: ^?^ George Lipsitz, *A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the
    Culture of Opposition* Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988,
    pp. 77-85. Percy Green, a former aerospace worker and employment
    committee chairman with CORE, formed ACTION in 1964 and specialized
    in high-profile, non-violent protests of this type.

[^21]: ^?^ *St. Louis Globe-Democrat*, August 25, 1965.

[^22]: ^?^ Reported in the *St. Louis Argus*, an African-American-owned
    newspaper.

[^23]: ^?^ Telephone interview with Leonard Biermann, Director, Office
    of Contract Compliance, Washington, D.C. December 1, 1993. Mr.
    Biermann worked in the St. Louis office of the OFCC for Edward
    Sylvester in 1966.

[^24]: ^?^ \"NAACP Protests Work Stoppage at the Gateway Arch Center,\"
    *St. Louis Argus*, January 14, 1966, p. 1.

[^25]: ^?^ See United States Court of Appeals decision, *United States
    v. The Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local Union
    36, AFL-CIO; and the Local No. 1 of the International Brotherhood of
    Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO*, September 16, 1969, before Blackmun,
    Mehaffy and Heaney, Circuit Judges; copy, JNEM Archives.

[^26]: ^?^ Superintendent\'s Monthly Report, January, 1966, Record Unit
    106, Box 33 Folder 13, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (JNEM)
    Archives.

[^27]: ^?^ \"There has been no appreciable work accomplished on
    Hoel-Steffen Construction Company\'s Contract No. 14-10-0232-774 to
    date due to the fact AFL-CIO Union members will not work with CIU
    Union members. On \[January\] 7, 1966, all trades except CIU
    plumbers and AFL-CIO carpenters refused to work on contract No.
    14-10-232-774, Interior Finishes, Visitor Center.\" See
    Superintendent\'s Monthly Report, January, 1966, Record Unit 106,
    Box 33 Folder 13, JNEM Archives.

[^28]: ^?^ Ibid.

[^29]: ^?^ \"Federal Lawsuit on Gateway Arch Delay In Court This Week,\"
    *St. Louis Argus*, February 4, 1966 p. 1.

[^30]: ^?^ Telephone interview with former Superintendent LeRoy Brown,
    October 2, 1994. Mr. Brown stated emphatically that the position of
    the National Park Service paralleled that of the Federal Government
    on this matter in 1966.

[^31]: ^?^ This opinion is reflected in *St. Louis Globe Democrat*
    editorials, January 20 and February 1, 1966, p. 10. The Arch project
    was expected to draw millions of dollars of tourist money to St.
    Louis, and revitalize the downtown area. These expectations were
    fulfilled between 1966 and the present.

[^32]: ^?^ \"NAACP Charges Arch May Symbolize Bigotry,\" *St. Louis
    Argus*, January 21, 1966, p.1.

[^33]: ^?^ Ibid.

[^34]: ^?^ Ibid; telephone interview with Nicholas Katzenbach, 1993.

[^35]: ^?^ Ibid.

[^36]: ^?^ \"Visitor Center Row Headed For Courts\" *St. Louis
    Globe-Democrat*, February 1, 1966 p. 1.

[^37]: ^?^ Telephone interview with Don Smith, November 29, 1993.

[^38]: ^?^ Telephone interviews with Arch workers and former OFCC
    Director Leonard Biermann, on December 1, 1993.

[^39]: ^?^ \"Public Pillory at the Arch,\" *St. Louis Globe-Democrat*,
    February 1, 1966 p. 10.

[^40]: ^?^ \"NAACP Plans Drive Against Builders,\" *St. Louis
    Post-Dispatch*, February 1, 1966.

[^41]: ^?^ \"Defends Work Halt on Visitor Center,\" *St. Louis
    Post-Dispatch*, February 2, 1966 p. 2B.

[^42]: ^?^ \"Federal Lawsuit on Gateway Arch Delay in Court This Week,\"
    *St. Louis Argus*, February 4, 1966, p. 4.

[^43]: ^?^ \"New U.S. Office to Enforce Antibias Rule in Contracts,\"
    *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, February 10, 1966 p. 20A.

[^44]: ^?^ \"Reports U.S. Urged Builder to Use E. Smith on Arch
    Center,\" *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, February 3, 1966, pp. 1 and 5.

[^45]: ^?^ \"Tells of Effort to get Firm At Arch To Quit,\" *St. Louis
    Post-Dispatch*, February 4, 1966, p. 1.

[^46]: ^?^ Ibid.

[^47]: ^?^ Section 707, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, reprinted in
    *Negro Politics in America*, edited by Harry A. Bailey, Jr.
    Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Books, Inc., 1967, pp. 389-397.

[^48]: ^?^ \"Suit Accuses Trades Council of Racial Bias,\" *St. Louis
    Post-Dispatch*, February 5, 1966, pp. 1 and 3; and *The Wall Street
    Journal*, February 5, 1966.

[^49]: ^?^ \"Visitor Center Work Delayed Despite Pledge From Unions,\"
    in [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]{.underline}, February 9, 1966 p. 1.

[^50]: ^?^ \"Electricians Defy Orders, Won\'t Work on Arch,\" [St. Louis
    Globe-Democrat]{.underline}, February 10, 1966 pp. 1 and 5A.

[^51]: ^?^ \"Electricians Install Lights, Ending Boycott of Arch
    Project,\" *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, February 11, 1966 p. 1.

[^52]: ^?^ \"Electricians Defy Orders, Won\'t Work on Arch,\" *St. Louis
    Globe-Democrat*, February 10, 1966 pp. 1 and 5A.

[^53]: ^?^ A copy of this agreement is reprinted in the United States
    Court of Appeals decision, *United States v. The Sheet Metal Workers
    International Association, Local Union 36, AFL-CIO; and the Local
    No. 1 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
    AFL-CIO, September 16, 1969, before Blackmun, Mehaffy and Heaney*,
    Circuit Judges, pp. 2-3. Copy, JNEM Archives.

[^54]: ^?^ *66C 58(2) USA v. Building and Construction Trades Council of
    St. Louis, et. al.*, Docket p. 10.

[^55]: ^?^ Telephone interview, December 1, 1993.

[^56]: ^?^ *No. 66 C58 (2), United States v. Building and Construction
    Trades Council, et. al.*, case file, Kansas City, Missouri. This
    case was obtained for examination through the gracious assistance of
    the St. Louis Federal Courts.

[^57]: ^?^ Ibid, pp. 3-16; 338-339; 353-355; 362-363; 376-377.

[^58]: ^?^ Ibid, pp. 515-522.

[^59]: ^?^ *United States v. Sheet Metal Workers International
    Association, Labor Union No. 36*, 280 Federal Supplement 719, 730
    (E.D. Mo. 1968).

[^60]: ^?^ United States Court of Appeals decision, *United States v.
    The Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local Union 36,
    AFL-CIO; and the Local No. 1 of the International Brotherhood of
    Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, September 16, 1969, before Blackmun,
    Mehaffy and Heaney*, Circuit Judges, pp. 1-4. Copy, JNEM Archives.

[^61]: ^?^ Ibid, p. 6.

[^62]: ^?^ Ibid, p. 10. The lengthy and detailed decision runs to a full
    33 pages.

[^63]: ^?^ 66 C58 (2) *USA v. Building and Construction Trades Council
    of St. Louis, et. al.*, Docket p. 12.

[^64]: ^?^ Quoted in Robert R. Detlefsen *Civil Rights Under Reagan* San
    Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1991, p. 24.