Equality by Law

The 300,000 Negroes in Manhattan's Harlem, 200,000 others elsewhere in New York State have the vote, ride with whites on busses and trains, do not have to sidle into gutters when white folks pass. But in other ways New York Negroes are little better off than their kin down South. Hotels and restaurants still refuse to serve Negroes (though sometimes they get sued for refusing) ; in the heart of dark Harlem, Negroes are hard put to find jobs in stores where they are welcome buyers. Many a labor union, dominated by white majorities, excludes Negroes outright or does as little as possible for colored brethren after collecting their dues.

Last week the New York Legislature at Albany voted to make such union discrimination by reason of "race, color or creed" a misdemeanor punishable by fines (up to $500), imprisonment (up to 90 days), and damages payable to the aggrieved. Having asked for such a law himself, labor-loving Governor Lehman was expected to sign it, after the Legislature disposed of final technicalities. Fearful of any & all curbs on unions, the State American Federation of Labor fought this one. So did A. Philip Randolph, Negro president of the Pull man Porters' Union, who sagely warned: "The Negro workers are part & parcel of all workers . . . and they cannot hope to gain equality within trade unions by legis lation." More militant Negroes hardly expected that the law would be effectively enforced, valued the step chiefly because it put union inequality on the public record.

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