Ray's article
To understand the historic growth of the American economy, you must understand that it’s growth was completely spearheaded by the free labor provided by black American slaves. While all slaves were assigned some non-agricultural tasks, a sizable amount were highly skilled and specialized.
In
the United States, about one-third of all male slaves and about one-quarter of
all female slaves were employed in occupations other than common field labor.
Among male slaves some estimate more than 35% were skilled and semiskilled
artisans, and tradesmen working directly on private and public construction
projects.
When examining the history of the U.S. economy prior to the Civil War, you must understand the South. The Southern United States infrastructure, primarily the Appalachian Mountainous Region, made it possible to fully integrate the south into the national economy. Because of the Souths ability to develop a strong infrastructure, it became deeply invested and relied upon by world markets.
This region of southern states was mainly incorporated in the production of raw materials, such as
logs, lumber, iron, coal, and also agricultural products and commodities. Through the use of slave labor, Appalachian agricultural producers, factories,
and mining companies exported their goods to the northeastern states and to Western
Europe for huge profits.
Appalachian plantations provided the mass majority of the black labor used to fuel economic growth in the Southern United States. To achieve the highest level of production from their slaves, Appalachian slave owners structured a system among their slaves to develop master/elite skilled tradesmen and laborers.
Appalachian slaves were skilled industrial and
commercial laborers 1.3 times more often than other U.S. slaves, but they were
also 3 times more likely to become “Drivers,” the top management position to
which slaves were appointed. Moreover, 30% or more of Appalachia’s slaves were
employed full time as literate industrial laborers in mostly non-agricultural
enterprise.
By 1860, nearly one-quarter of the Appalachian population was concentrated in towns, villages, and hamlets, and black Appalachians formed a significant component of the commercial labor force that resided in those small urban areas.
Black Appalachians supplied labor for
public works projects, but also supplied skilled labor for retail enterprises & developments, for home and
hotel construction, for artisan shops, and for construction companies across
the entire southern region of the United States. They provided some of the highest levels of craftsmanship recorded.
In towns located in the Appalachian counties of Alabama and Georgia, slaves and free blacks accounted for nearly half the population. Even in the region’s smaller villages – like Richmond, Kentucky, or Martinsburg, West Virginia, or Franklin, North Carolina; one-quarter to one-third of the residents were black Appalachians.
Black people who were free from slavery
formed small communities within Appalachian towns, and lived very meager lives,
living in small homes, or homeless in alleyways. But, because black labor was a
“valuable labor supply,” several Loudoun County, Virginia, merchants and companies
petitioned the state legislature for relief from the law requiring emancipated slaves
to “leave the state immediately.”
Because of the frequent presence of large amounts of unemployed freed black skilled workers, men were often “seen every day of the week standing on street corners, seeking day labor.”
Black codes to regulate the behaviors and
employment of freed blacks were developed. Under these laws blacks were forbidden to stand,
smoke, or spit on sidewalks, empty kitchen slops in public areas, to dance or
run in the streets, to utter profanity publicly, to collect money in public, to
ride in licensed vehicles, or to ride abroad after 7:30pm, this was known as “Black Curfew.”
Moreover, city ordinances specified the circumstances under which free blacks and slaves could engage in labor & trade. These laws were passed to justify the re-enslavement of free blacks so that their labor could be used to build state and local projects, or in agriculture.
State and local laws also “criminalized” poverty, and vagrancy was prohibited. Under these repressive laws, unemployed free blacks were subject to arrest and indenturement {Free labor}.
Throughout the south, the majority of public works were constructed by blacks. Without the modern power tools & equipment we use today, constructing and maintain buildings, and public spaces in the 1800's was in most cases a grueling task, thus slaves graded, paved, and cleaned streets, built bridges, built courthouse, built schools, maintained canals and sewers, collected garbage, and fought fires.
Like other urban centers, Appalachian towns also employed black slaves on public works and in public services. Slaves provided most of the labor to construct courthouses in McDowell, Cherokee, Watauga, Macon, Henderson Counties and the university buildings in Blue Ridge Virginia.
It was recorded that, after one Virginia
slave burned down his master’s barn “containing about 1500 lbs. of tobacco,
straw, and shucks of corn & oats” the court sentenced him to lifetime labor
on public works projects in the towns and villages of Nelson County.
In all eight Southern states where Appalachian counties were located, laws permitted county sheriffs to force runaway slaves in their custody to perform labor of public works projects, which they fully employed. For example, the towns of Roanoke and Charlottesville in Virginia and McMinnville and Knoxville in Tennessee used black convicts or hired slaves, paying their masters, for all kinds of public labor for their cities & towns.
The city of Knoxville, Tennessee hired slaves, paying their masters $10 monthly to fight fires, collect garbage, and handle other public services. Slaves forcibly manned the so-called “volunteer” fire company at Lexington, Virginia.
Charleston, West Virginia, and other river towns paid free black to light lanterns around the landings. Free black men who lived in the nearby houses were paid for lighting them every night and outing them out every morning. In Blue Ridge Virginia, enslaved and free blacks worked as “Mailboys” to deliver mail between towns and outlying rural areas.
While huge amounts of public works projects were being
performed by highly skilled slave labor and freed blacks, Appalachian slave
owners wanted to increase the lifetime value of their laborers, so they begin
to contract out children to learn trade skills. Slave owners employed child
slave labor to perform alongside their fathers as well as strangers. When they
were adults they could be leased out at higher rates.
Several American slave owners would regularly lease out
young male black slaves to towns as carpenters. Slave owners would often lease
children of slaves out to nonslaveholders. In this way, James Pennington and
his brother, both black American slaves, learned several trades through their
successive hires to a pump-maker, a stone-mason, a blacksmith, and a carpenter.
Another example is Darst and Jordan, a Rockbridge County
construction company, built large homes for slaveholders, and nonslaveholders,
they also undertook public works projects. Because this company relied solely
on a large slave labor force, the company regularly published newspaper
advertisements warning white towns people not to distract them from their grueling
construction labor.
Black slave laborers, tradesmen, craftworkers were extremely valuable to their owners. Slave owner who did lease out their black labor force
to public projects demanded top dollar from contractors. When the Muscle Shoals
Canal was being constructed in Tennessee, contractors gave special compensation
to the owners of slaves who were injured or killed by explosions or cave-ins.
White workers at that time were not covered by any type of accident insurance.
After hundreds of years of forced labor on many of the
United States public works projects, by black men,
women, and children, across
the South, opposition, and complaints of “unfair competition” by white labor
begin to arise. Most highly skilled construction positions & trades were now being claimed by whites, and white labor developed a bitterness that most
times led to violence against the slaves who had no part in the creation of the
system.
Since newly freed black tradesmen were highly skilled and could now compete for jobs in the free market, white workers, sometimes less skilled felt extremely threatened. White workers began protesting against the hiring out of skilled slaves as artisans, and tradesmen, as a way to keep the wages for themselves.
Soon after protesting against black labor in the free market, white working class people begin to commit many violent, and vile acts against poor working black
families and even those that were still in bondage, and considered as legal private property. These acts of violence
almost always were followed by laws that were passed to limit the employment, and use of
black labor on public works projects. Many states begin to pass laws that also prevented or made it very difficult for black American descendants of slaves to obtain contractors licenses, or become licensed architects. Many labor unions were also formed to stop the black labor class from working on public works projects all together.
Alabama Heritage - Information on Horace King's early years is scanty. He was born a slave in the Chesterfield District of South Carolina on September 8, 1807. His father was a mulatto named Edmund King; his mother, Susan (or Lucky), was the daughter of a full-blooded Catawba Indian and a black female slave. In the winter of 1829, Horace King's master died, and King and his mother became the property of John Godwin, a South Carolina house builder and bridge contractor.
Apparently, from the beginning of their relationship, King
was more of a junior partner in Godwin's company than a slave. Godwin developed
proposals; King supervised construction. With the success of the Columbus
crossing, known first as City Bridge and later as the Dillingham Bridge (pages
35 and 46), Godwin began to bid on and win other contracts for covered bridges
across the Chattahoochee. He and King built a 540-foot-long bridge south of
Columbus at Irwinton (now Eufaula), Alabama, for $22,000 (page 40). They
constructed a bridge at West Point, Georgia, in 1838-39; they built another at
Tallassee, Alabama, and they may have built another at Florence, Alabama, in
1839.
Because of the superior workmanship on the bridges King
supervised, Godwin was able to guarantee his bridges for five years, even
against floods. And when flood-related damage did occur, Godwin took full
responsibility. The flood of February and March 1841, known as the
"Harrison Freshet" (named for the ninth president of the United
States, William Henry Harrison, who died of pneumonia in April· of that year),
destroyed a portion of the bridge south of Columbus at Florence, Georgia, and
swept away almost the entire City Bridge in Columbus. Godwin repaired both
spans quickly. The Florence bridge was reopened to traffic by mid-April of that
same year, and Godwin rebuilt the City Bridge within only five months. Horace King's
skill and ingenuity made these feats possible.
In addition to building bridges, King probably also worked
on the important houses that the Godwin firm built around Girard and Columbus
during the 1830s and 1840s. Perhaps he supervised the slave workmen said to
have remodeled U.S. Senator Seaborn Jones' home, "Eldorado."
Certainly King worked for Jones, who hired him to build City Mills north of
Fourteenth Street in Columbus. King also worked on the Muscogee County
Courthouse (1838) in Columbus, and the Russell County Courthouse (1841) in
Crawford, Alabama. And he continued to build bridges for Godwin.
King's precise contribution to the design modifications
evident over the years in God win's bridges can only be speculated upon. The
bridges King supervised contained additional intermediate chords, a feature
that strengthened the trusses against twisting with age (Town himself had tried
to correct this problem by doubling the number of web members). Some of King's
bridges contained pier foundations formed by combining sand with timbers of
heart pine. Also improved over time were the procedures King employed in
erecting or assembling-without power machinery-vast trusses over water. Whether
or not King was responsible for these innovations, he was certainly responsible
for the care and efficiency with which these structures were erected. Indeed,
King's ability to supervise massive construction projects and to elicit
superior workmanship from mixed gangs of laborers, both slave and free,
impressed some of the most successful businessmen in the South.
One of these men was Robert Jemison, Jr., of Tuscaloosa, a lawyer and state senator, a prosperous planter, and the owner of a large and well organized network of interrelated businesses, including a stagecoach line, a turnpike and bridge company, and extensive saw mill operations. In the early 1840s, Jemison began contracting with Godwin for bridges in west Alabama, coordinating the contracts so that his mills supplied lumber for the projects while Godwin furnished the carpenters. Horace King supervised construction. After several joint ventures with Godwin and King, Jemison wrote to Godwin in 1845: "Please to add another testimonial to the style and dispatch with which [Horace King] has done his work as well as the manner in which he has conducted himself."
The next decades were particularly productive for King. He built
a bridge across the Flint River at Albany, Georgia, as well as a bridge house
that functioned as a portal to the span. That project, completed in 1858, had
been the special interest of Albany entrepreneur Nelson Tift, an energetic and
inventive businessman interested in developing south Georgia's economic
resources. Having failed to interest either the city or the county in his
bridge-building idea, Tift decided to undertake the project himself. To oversee
construction he hired Horace King. At the time, King was preparing to build a
bridge over the Oconee River near Milledgeville. He had already cut timbers at
the site when a disagreement over terms arose between King and his employers in
the Milledgeville area. Unable to resolve the disagreement, King shipped the
cut timbers by rail to Albany, thus becoming perhaps the first builder in the
South to prefabricate a major structure and ship it to the construction site.
As a free man, King also continued to work with Jemison on a
variety of projects. Jemison, a member of the state house ways and means
committee, may have helped King secure work on the second Montgomery
statehouse, constructed in 1850-51. Jemison and King bid on construction for
Madison Hall, a dormitory at the University of Alabama, but did not get the
bid. Jemison also consulted with King during one of the most massive
construction projects undertaken in antebellum Alabama-the building of the
Alabama Insane Hospital (Bryce) in Tuscaloosa, completed in 1860.
During the 1850s, John Godwin's fortunes continued to decline, primarily because of the failure of the Girard-Mobile Railroad in which Godwin had invested heavily. When Godwin died in 1859, his estate was insolvent, although the family still owned their large sawmill operation in Girard. The Godwin children, worried that King could be held accountable for their father's debts, took one further step to ensure his freedom by formally recording in the Russell County Courthouse that "the said Horace King is duly emancipated and freed from all claims held by us."
In the 1870s, the family moved from Alabama to LaGrange, Georgia. The reasons for the move are unclear. Perhaps John Thomas had decided that business prospects were better there. Or, perhaps the move had something to do with Horace King's interest in the work of the Freedmen's Bureau, the federal agency established to help safeguard blacks from any form of re-enslavement. Education for blacks had long been a concern of King and his eldest son, who believed in the old axiom, "Ignorance breeds poverty." Horace King hoped to establish a "small colony'' in Coweta or Carroll County, Georgia, where former slaves, both men and women, could study. It was not intended to be a utopian community, but simply a school designed to teach men trades and women "the domestic arts." Records indicate that the idea was blessed by Brigadier General Wager T. Swayne, assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for Alabama, and by his superior, Colonel C. C. Sibley, Assistant Commissioner, District of Georgia, but no records have been discovered that tell us whether or not the colony was established.
Throughout the 1870s, the King Brothers' construction firm
continued to prosper, building a new chapel for the Southern Female College
(1875-76) at LaGrange, Georgia; King himself laid the cornerstone and spoke
from the platform at the accompanying ceremonies. They also built LaGrange
Academy (c. 1875), that city's first black school, as well as the Warren Chapel
Methodist Church and parsonage (c. 1875), also in LaGrange. CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
Harry C. Alford - One of the richest legacies of African descendants is
construction. From the pyramids of Egypt
to the building of America, Blacks have been involved in this industry that
will survive the times. We will always
build. Even when we demolish existing
structures it is because we are about to build something new to replace
it. Yes, construction has a certain
future. It is a producer of many jobs
and can provide not only a living for the laborers in the business but wealth
for entrepreneurs to be handed down generation by generation.
African slaves were brought to this continent in the early
1500’s to build New York (New Amsterdam at the time), Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Washington, DC and the entire Southeastern territories. The craftsmanship that was learned through
this action gave freed slaves an advantage as we slowly approached the
Industrial Revolution. America relied on
the crafts learned by Blacks during slavery and passed along to offspring from
generation to generation. Even “Chicken
George’s” son in the Roots documentary owned a lumber yard to sell supplies to
the local black craftsmen who were the builders of the community.
As I grew up in Ventura County, CA, it was marvelous to
admire the parents of my friends. The
Gaston’s, from east Texas, were masters at drywall. The Drayton’s, from Louisiana, could lay
masonry like no one else. The Gordon’s,
from Georgia, were expert hod carriers.
No one could build a spiral staircase like Frank Williams, from
Louisiana. He was so good that the
wealthy would fly him to Australia, Japan, etc. to build spiral staircases for
custom designed mansions. He spent most
of his local time doing it for homes in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. He raised 18 children from the profits of his
craft. There were many more transplanted
craftsmen in my Southern California home and they were barely literate and
uneducated but they mastered their crafts. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK HERE
Pensacola News Journal Exploring the hallways of Fort Pickens and Fort Barrancas,
the beauty of those structures can make you forget they were built to protect Pensacola
from foreign enemies.
The walls' bricks were made by workers skilled in the task —
workers who were Pensacola slaves rented for the job.
"I heard somebody say one day that black people made no
contribution to this country and that's simply not true," said Georgia
McCorvey Smith, local author and retired school teacher.
"Without the labor of blacks, you wouldn't have some of
what the United States has today. When you're looking at Fort Barrancas and
Fort Pickens, you're looking at something built by slaves.
Having written six books on Pensacola history, Smith found
through her research that many Pensacola structures, including some that are
military, were built with bricks made by rented slaves.
The book Smith is working on now, "Elizabeth Finds
Freedom for Christmas," is a historical children's book based on true
facts and events. The book includes a character who is the master of slave
bricklayers, not unlike those who made the bricks used to build Fort Pickens
and Fort Barrancas.
"People are surprised to learn that slaves built the
forts because we weren't supposed to know how to do stuff like that,"
Smith said.
ESPN - The Golden State Warriors' recruitment of Kevin Durant took
another public step Friday afternoon as the organization gave the All-Star
forward a guided tour of Chase Center.
Durant, who is expected to test free agency this summer,
toured the Warriors' new facility along with a group of sponsors and media. The
Warriors will move into Chase next summer and will begin playing there next
season after 47 years at Oracle Arena.
As Durant walked around the construction site, he said he
couldn't help but think about what his future may look like if he decides to
stay with the Warriors after this season.
"My imagination is going wild right now with
possibilities," he said at one point.
The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson was only 27 on Sept. 22, 1969,
when he led a rally of 4,000 people in Chicago, calling for an end to
discrimination in the construction trades.
"We wanted to demand that if they were going to build
where we live, we should have the trade skills to build. If there were public
contracts, we should have the right to have a part of those contracts."
"It’s not understood. The same people who call us lazy
lock us out of trade unions. We’ve had to fight to get the right to skills to
work. Many young men are hopeless and jobless — they don’t have the same trade
skills their white counterparts had."
"In the fight to rebuild where we live, there are
countless jobs. There are probably more jobs than people. People ask how can
you police poverty. You can’t police poverty. But you can develop people where
you live so there’s less need for police."
Jessie Jackson quoted from The New York Times
uniondemocracy.org "Black labor must not only speak for the Black worker
but Black labor must be the voice speaking on behalf of all workers." I'd
like to suggest one area in which this excellent principle could be put into
actual practice, namely, in the construction trades where, I am convinced,
black and white cooperation could lead to progressive reform for all. I realize
that this idea may seem strange because, as we all know, blacks have suffered
egregious discrimination, above all in construction and still do. Nevertheless,
blacks have managed to win a secure foothold in many construction trades and
should be able to count upon moral and material support from the many blacks
who have already gained important points of power in the wider labor movement,
in both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win.
I refer to those blacks who have already won entry into
construction unions as full book members. But becoming a member of a union in
construction does not, definitely not, guarantee fair treatment in access to
work. Job discrimination is widespread in construction. Unlike manufacturing,
for example, where a union contract provides a measure of job security through
seniority rights, construction offers no seniority protection because jobs are
temporary. Even while building a road, digging a trench, or putting up a house,
a construction worker wonders where the next job will comes from when this one
is over. At that point, he (sometimes she) must apply for work once again, to a
contractor or at the hiring hall. At that point, almost all construction
workers are vulnerable. At that point, black construction workers, especially
black women, face the danger of discrimination most acutely; but the reality is
that all construction workers face a similar danger, whites less than blacks,
but they face it nevertheless. This is one of those big facts about
construction that never reaches outsiders but is common coin to insiders.
Former offensive lineman Marques Ogden knew that while he
was enjoying an NFL career playing football he needed a backup plan, he knew it
wouldn’t last for long. "I once read that 78 percent of athletes lose
their money about a year into retirement," says Ogden."That wasn't
going to be me. Football is such a short-lived career. It's not like baseball
where the money is guaranteed. If you don't prepare to do something every day
you could lose your fortune" – Ogden said in a 2011 interview with Business Insider
So a year before his 2007 retirement, Ogden founded Kayden
Premier Enterprises, a minority-owned, certified construction company based in
the Baltimore, Md., area that specializes in earthwork, concrete, site work,
site utilities, sediment and erosion control. In 2008 launched his construction
company, Kayden Premier Enterprises, in Baltimore with funds from the $2.5
million he had saved up as well as credit and home loans.
In 2009, the offensive tackle retired from football
following a back injury and saw his construction company’s first big project
success that same year. Ogden, 30 years old at the time found a business
partner in 72-year-old Arthur Pearlman. The combination of a former NFL player
with a 30-year veteran of the construction industry made for a powerful and
clever team.
After experiencing several years of steady growth since opening
doors for business in 2008, Ogden projected his 30-employee construction company
would have earning of $24 million in revenue by 2016. His first year in
business enjoyed small revenue of $450,000. In 2009, Kayden made $1.4 million,
but had a loss. The following year saw a profit with about $2.3 million in
revenue. In 2011, the company's projected revenue was $3.6 million to $3.8
million, with a profit.
In 2012 Kayden Premier Enterprises grew to about 50 to 60 employees;
however, the company didn’t ride that wave for long when Ogden assumed a problematic
multi-million dollar project in downtown Baltimore. Ogden says he never
received payment and was slapped with a $2 million bill for the 90 days his
company operated on the project. Ogden did his best to keep the company alive
with his personal funds, but ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and went
out of business. As a result, Ogden was left with a home foreclosure,
repossession of his two cars and terrible credit. Ogden later said:
“It was very depressing; I had become a statistic that I was
trying to avoid. I didn’t have lavish spending habits. I became a statistic
trying to save my business and that can happen to anyone.”
At his darkest point, the NFL came in and helped Ogden
restructure his life with a $14,000 grant. After almost losing everything,
Ogden redefined himself and became a motivational speaker and marketing leader,
helping to build others up to succeed. Through it all, Ogden dealt with his own
personal demons of drinking and gambling to make it regardless of obstacles
that were in his path. He wanted to inspire and encourage others, so he became
an author, he wrote the book ‘Sleepless Nights’.
In his inspirational book he details growing up in a single
parent home with a father that inspired perseverance and fairness. It was in
this household where Marques Ogden learned how to define his values and set
goals.
Ogden offers these five tips for anyone entering into the
business world and construction industry:
1. Always investigate your business partner
2. Get background and reference checks
3. Don’t grow too fast
4. Don’t be underfunded
5. Learn to walk away if needed
The Real Deal - Meet Don Peebles, the East Coast developer who has officially
arrived in L.A., and is doing so in a big way, building what will be one of the
tallest residential towers in the western U.S. Named ‘Angels Landing’, the site will include
two hotels – operated by SLS and Mondrian – 250 condos, 425 rental units,
retail, public space and a charter elementary school. The centerpiece tower
will rise 88 stories, making it one of the tallest and loftiest skyscrapers on
the West Coast.
THE NATION - As the birthplace of both the precursor to the
American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, now
the AFL-CIO, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is sometimes remembered as the cradle of
the American labor movement. But even unions can foster inequity, and did, a
fact that is crucial to remember as a new generation of workers embrace unions.
Nate Smith’s struggle for equality among union workers in Pittsburgh is a reminder:
Organizers like Smith had to break entrenched, protected barriers before
workers could achieve what they have today—and which we must also do for the
future. Smith’s ingenuity, persistence, and unflinching demand for the
integrity of all workers is the sort of spirit that should propel this work.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK HERE
About Nate Smith:
Born: February 23, 1929, Pittsburgh, PA
Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Navy, 1940-42.
Selected: Operation PUSH/Rainbow Coalition, executive board member; Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, volunteer; Western Hospital, consultant. Career: Local 66 of the Operating Engineers' Union, Pittsburgh, PA, heavy equipment operator, 1944-1960’s; Operation Dig, Pittsburgh, PA, founder, 1968-; Nate Smith Enterprises, Pittsburgh, PA, founder, 1969-
Life's Work
From lying in order to enter the navy at the age of 12 to boxing his way into the union at 16, Nate Smith proved that he knew how to get what he wanted. What he wanted in the mid-1960s was to break the color barriers in the construction industry in Pittsburgh. To do so, he laid down in front of bulldozers to stop work at construction sites. He also formed an innovative training program that was emulated nationwide. For his efforts he received death threats and beatings. But he got what he wanted. Not only in Pittsburgh, but across the country, construction unions opened up to blacks. Smith told Contemporary Black Biography (CBB) that he estimated that he helped some 2,000 people get union cards over the years. The New Pittsburgh Courier placed that number closer to 17,000. No matter the final figure, Smith's legacy lives on daily in the black workers who now have steady work at solid union wages. "He is why I'm here," a 21-year old African-American union worker told the New Pittsburgh Courier in 2004. "I'm not here because of what I did. I'm here because of what Nate did."