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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 912

Interviewer:

It was a small ad hoc local Washington situation, not worthy of national notice, and here comes F.E.P.C.

Perkins:

I never even heard that the local situation existed. What was the local situation, did somebody not get his job?

As a matter of fact, during the War, of course, the Negro population, all through the South and through the North too, had the best chance at employment they've ever had. And they had very good employment. And whereas there were certain classes of employment they didn't have which they had never had before, still they had access to many other classes of employment where they hadn't been employed before. They made great strides because of the great necessity, without anything being said about it.

But there was always a little problem, you know, where you had the Federal Government moving into a new area. There were Negroes being taken on in the Government for various jobs--Negroes to recruit Negroes for special laboring jobs and so forth.

Interviewer:

There was also this movement of the Government granting equal as equal rights. It did it as fast as it could and went way back. (Dept. of Agriculture again.)

Perkins:

I don't know whether I've ever told you that





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