The Gazette

Preserve the Gains
Negroes will be seriously affected by the merger of the National Youth Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and every interested individual should write immediately to Senators and Congressmen, urging that the gains already made be preserved.

The student work program has assisted 64,000 Negro youths in graduate schools, colleges and high schools in the year 1939-40. The NYA out-of-school work program, with emphasis on defense training, has offered the only real opportunity for our youth to get shop training and work experience according to modern industrial procedures.

Women will soon be used to take the place of men called to the army and the NYA is the one agency that can train women and girls for industrial employment.

Not the least important consideration is to preserve the impartial policy of the program started under the administration of Aubrey Williams, head of the NYA.

It is also emphasized that public schools are not equipped to train youth for industry as is being done by the NYA, and in places where some training is available through the local school system, our group is often barred from taking full advantage of it.

In spite of the opposition to the employment of Afro-Americans, they should be trained against the day when industries will need them and will no longer be able to maintain a policy of discrimination in the face of increased wartime production.