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Atlanta Daily World
Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia
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William Pickens and a group of colored citizens visited Norris Dam near Knoxville, Tennessee, observing minimal Negro employment in the New Deal project. The TVA placed a Negro in a peripheral role near Wheeler Dam, limiting his influence on policies affecting Negro workers.
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By WILLIAM PICKENS
With a group of colored citizens and a few representatives of the white race we drove the other day through Norris city and looked over the great construction of Norris Dam, just a short distance out of the city of Knoxville, Tenn. We heard that there are "a few" Negroes working and earning wage at this dam, but they are so few that in an hour's visit we did not run into one of them. Norris Dam like Wilson Dam, Hoover Dam and nearly all the other dam works of the New Deal, has forgotten that the Negro is a part of the body politic and the body economic, in spite of or regardless of his race and color, and that there can be no real prosperity without his sharing it -just as there can be no depression in which he will not share.
Of course the Tennessee Valley Authority has put a Negro on the job, in response to clamorou demands through Washington for the Negro a share in work and wage but it seems to us that they are doing all that it is possible for them to do to prevent any effective work being done by this Negro, in the first place he is not quartered at TVA headquarters, which are located in Knoxville, but is hidden somewhere near Wheeler Dam, where he cannot have anything to do with policies affecting the Negro until those policies have been already promulgated by headquarters. He does not help to determine those policies but only hears about them after they have been decided upon. And altho he is a man capable and trained and of high character, for "all intents and purposes" he might as well be another white man on the staff he is mostly taking orders and is not in the right position to give them, or to influence them - They must find some better work for this able young man to do than running around trying to pacify Negroes into a belief that they have been admitted to the dam works. Negroes are taxed
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Domestic News Details
Primary Location
Norris Dam, Near Knoxville, Tenn.
Event Date
The Other Day
Key Persons
Event Details
With a group of colored citizens and a few representatives of the white race we drove the other day through Norris city and looked over the great construction of Norris Dam, just a short distance out of the city of Knoxville, Tenn. We heard that there are "a few" Negroes working and earning wage at this dam, but they are so few that in an hour's visit we did not run into one of them. Norris Dam like Wilson Dam, Hoover Dam and nearly all the other dam works of the New Deal, has forgotten that the Negro is a part of the body politic and the body economic, in spite of or regardless of his race and color, and that there can be no real prosperity without his sharing it -just as there can be no depression in which he will not share. Of course the Tennessee Valley Authority has put a Negro on the job, in response to clamorou demands through Washington for the Negro a share in work and wage but it seems to us that they are doing all that it is possible for them to do to prevent any effective work being done by this Negro, in the first place he is not quartered at TVA headquarters, which are located in Knoxville, but is hidden somewhere near Wheeler Dam, where he cannot have anything to do with policies affecting the Negro until those policies have been already promulgated by headquarters. He does not help to determine those policies but only hears about them after they have been decided upon. And altho he is a man capable and trained and of high character, for "all intents and purposes" he might as well be another white man on the staff he is mostly taking orders and is not in the right position to give them, or to influence them - They must find some better work for this able young man to do than running around trying to pacify Negroes into a belief that they have been admitted to the dam works. Negroes are taxed