Teamsters Celebrate Black History Month

[ABFwife]

February marks Black History Month, a time to reflect upon and celebrate the contributions black Americans have made to society. It’s also a time to remember the importance of the labor movement to black history.

The contributions of black members to the success of the Teamsters Union are numerous, varied and as old as the union itself. Black team drivers attended the first Teamster Convention in 1903 and were active in all aspects of the union—including leadership, from the beginning. That commitment remains strong today.

The Teamsters Union has traditionally been ahead of other unions in terms of the treatment of minority members, calling for “no color line” in the union as early as 1906 and began actively seeking to organize black men and women.

The Teamsters Union has always stood as a bastion of hope for all working people, regardless of race, gender or creed. But it is Teamster members themselves who have upheld the values of the union. It is the rank and file who have stood together to face and overcome adversity.

https://teamster.org/news/2018/02/te...-history-month

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On this day in history, the first black Supreme court justice was sworn in.
Fitting, considering today's issues as the SCOTUS is ready to add another face to the bench.

Thurgood Marshall sworn in

Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and ’50s, Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy that ended the era of official racial segregation.

The great-grandson of a slave, Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1908. After being rejected from the University of Maryland Law School on account of his race, he was accepted at all-black Howard University in Washington, D.C. At Howard, he studied under the tutelage of civil liberties lawyer Charles H. Houston and in 1933 graduated first in his class. In 1936, he joined the legal division of the NAACP, of which Houston was director, and two years later succeeded his mentor in the organization’s top legal post.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-...shall-sworn-in