did you see yourself as a rosie the
riveter during the war
no I didn't I don't even see myself as
that now the country that we were that
not then is not the country that we have
lead the nation that we have now for
instance I grew up as a child as a
service workers generation our fathers
and our uncles with the red caps and the
Pullman porters and bellhops and the
janitors and the laborers and our
mothers were 50 cents in our domestic
servants when I share that history in
order to indicate that being a clerk
even in a segregated Union Hall in 1942
was a step up my folks are really proud
of me because I wasn't making beds in
hotel I was a clerk with the 1942
would've been the equivalent of today's
young women of color being the first in
her family to take enter college because
that's how different we were in those
years and I hope you can understand that
but that's how much social progress the
country has made over those 70 years
you're not living in that world but
that's the world I grew up in at the
time that Rosie the Riveter was was a
campaign to entice women out of their
homes and the non-traditional labor for
the first time to take the place of the
men who are fighting that was simply not
my story at all Betty before you had
mentioned that you had worked as a clerk
could you please specify your jobs as a
clerk yeah I was working a book for
Boilermakers absolutely thirty-six the
unions were not yet racially integrated
they wouldn't be for another decade and
so that the unions created
auxiliaries and that's a fancy word for
Jim Crow in doors to all the black
workers
for dumped I came in everyday in a car
pool I've changed addresses on 3x5 file
cards of people who were constantly in
motion because everyone was trying to
get settled into into housing and I was
doing this to save the world for
democracy and as you can see it worked
it's also true that I had no idea what
was happening around me I never saw a
ship under construction I never saw a
ship being launched
I was then temporary building that was
torn down immediately when the war ended
at 20 I was what maybe four years you're
over than you are five years I was not
much more than shot through slightly out
of adolescence the larger political
issues were not a part of my life at the
time I only could see what was around me
and that was that little Union