Civil Rights Movement Wyman Gordon Racial Discrimination Picket in Worcester Massachusetts 1964

Civil Rights Picket

Photograph

Original 1964 photograph of a civil rights picket against racial discrimination at the Wyman Gordon Company in Worcester, Massachusetts, documenting a local campaign against discriminatory hiring during the year Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act. Worcester activists targeted Wyman Gordon, a major manufacturer and defense contractor, over its employment of Black workers overwhelmingly in janitorial positions; Clark University later documented D’Army Bailey’s leadership of student pickets demanding that Wyman Gordon and other Worcester employers hire and promote Black workers into managerial positions. The protest placed employment discrimination at the center of civil rights activism in an industrial Northern city, where organizers challenged practices that differed in form from Southern segregation but restricted Black access to skilled and managerial work.

Black and white silver gelatin photograph, 1964. 9 x 7.5 inches. Two men stand on the sidewalk carrying matching placards reading “Racial Discrimination at Wyman-Gordon?” while a woman passes beside them; the men appear to address or attract her attention. A company building entrance is visible behind the demonstrators. Wyman Gordon president Robert Waring Stoddard was one of the original founders of the John Birch Society, an anticommunist organization established in 1958. Abbie Hoffman also participated in Worcester civil rights organizing against Wyman Gordon; his later account stated that thirty two of the company’s thirty three Black employees were janitors, with the remaining employee serving as their supervisor.

The image records a specific phase of the Worcester civil rights movement in which picketing, petitions, and pressure on employers and government contractors were used to challenge racial barriers in employment. Contemporary accounts place Hoffman and other activists in the Wyman Gordon campaign, while Bailey led student demonstrations demanding increased hiring and promotion of Black employees. The photograph was made in the same year that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Minor .25 inch paper loss at upper left corner; otherwise very good condition. A direct visual record of civil rights organizing around racial discrimination in employment in 1964 Worcester.

Item #20438

Price: $85.00