Twin City Observer

Union Election Names Labor Man To Top Post

DENVER—An outstanding Negro labor leader has been elected to one of the four highest offices in the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, according to unofficial but almost complete returns.

He is Asbury Howard, of Bessemer, Alabama, who garnered votes at the rate of more than three to one in his race against Ernest Gunsalus, Buffalo, N. Y., for the post of Eastern Vice-President in the 100-thousand member union.

Asbury Howard

The union-wide biennial secret referendum election was held November 2. While the ballot results will not be official until the union's International Canvassing Committee meets in December, Howard's lead was so great as to assure his election.

Howard brings a 20-year record of outstanding union achievement to his new post of leadership in the non-ferrous metal workers union, which

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LABOR MAN ELECTED . . .

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has membership in both the United States and Canada.

He joined the union when Muscoda Red Ore Local 123 was being organized at the Tennessee Coal & Iron Co. properties in the Bessemer-Birmingham area in 1933. He quickly became Recording Secretary of Local 123, and in 1942 became an International Representative in his District.

Since then he has remained continually on the union's International staff, becoming a Regional Director in 1950. His participation in important struggles of the iron ore workers in Alabama has won tremendous respect for him by the entire membership of the union, Negro and white alike, both in the U. S. and Canada.

In addition to his outstanding trade union record, Howard is prominent in community and church organizations in his area. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1942 and has been a vice-president of the Bessemer NAACP Branch for many years.

In the early 1940's he became active in the Bessemer Voters' League, and has been president of the League for a number of years. He is also active in the Bessemer Civic League, a citizens committee in Bessemer.

Howard joined the Star Light Baptist Church in Bessemer when he was a youth. and has been the Superintendent of that church's Sunday School continually for 25 years. He is also Clerk of the Star Light congregation.

He and his wife. Mrs. Mable Howard, have two children.

Their daughter is Cleopatra Howard; their son, Asbury Howard, Jr., is a sergeant first class in the Army and served two years in Korea during the recent war.

When he is sworn in as Eastern vice president on January 1. Howard will be succeeding Charles Wilson, who placed Howard's name in nomination at the St. Louis convention.