Eight black transit workers got promoted. Thousands of white workers walked off the job.

[marble falls]

Eight black transit workers got promoted. Thousands of white workers walked off the job.

By Dustin Waters

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/13/liberty-bell-attack-philadelphia-transit-strike-black-workers/

June 13, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. CDT

<snip>

The black transit workers’ promotions to motormen quickly triggered a mass walkout by some 4,500 of their white counterparts. For six days that August, trolleys and buses sat idle. The subway stopped. So did one of the country’s leading wartime manufacturing centers.

Fearing an outbreak of violence, local officials summoned state police, forbade the sale of liquor and canceled a doubleheader between the Phillies and the Cubs. Even so, fights broke out across the city — resulting in 200 arrests and numerous injuries.

<snip>

“Liberty Bell? Liberty Bell? That’s a lot of bunk,” shouted Charles White as he hurled a one-pound stone paperweight at the national icon. “There is no justice.”

Guards quickly arrested him, and the huge bronze bell had minor damage. But White made national headlines. His attack was both personal and patriotic, he explained after being taken into custody.

<snip>

[elleng]

1. July 1944

World War II labor shortages had stretched the Philadelphia Transportation Co. to the limit by July 1944, and so the company decided it had no choice if the city’s buses, trolleys and subway were to keep running: It promoted eight black men to positions previously reserved for whites.

[oasis]

2. The City of Brotherly Love. How many of those 4,500 who walked out have

preached to their kids that black people were lazy and worthless?

Meanwhile, members of the U.S. armed services were in Europe fighting against Hitler's attempt to dominate the world.