…

excerpts from
Proposition 11:
Fair Employment Practices Act
(California, November 5, 1946)
Final Vote: Yes: 675,697 (28.7%); No: 1,682,646 (71.3%)

Declares State policy that all persons have the right of equal opportunity to secure employment.
To effect such policy makes it unlawful to refuse to hire, to discharge, or to discriminate in
conditions of employment against any person because of race, religion, color, national origin or
ancestry. Establishes a commission to prevent such unlawful practices by conciliation or order
and by education. Provides for judicial review of commission's orders. Appropriates sum for
commission.

Argument in Favor of Initiative Proposition No. 11

A yes vote for Proposition No. 11 furthers the cause of American Democracy which rests on
equality of opportunity. This ideal already is written into our State and Federal Constitutions.
Prosperity in postwar America depends on the continuation of the unity and the equality of job
opportunity which played so vital a part in winning the war. Unless mass purchasing power is
maintained we shall revert to the dark depression days of the early' thirties …

Every worker in the factories and the fields, in the offices and the shops, agrees that he wants a
good job more than anything else. Proposition No. 11 does not guarantee jobs. It does, however,
assure employment opportunity based on ability, training and experience. The employer may hire
anyone he chooses but he cannot discriminate solely on a basis of race, religion or national
ancestry …

Argument Against Initiative Proposition No. 11

… All thinking people should vote no on this measure:

1. Religious, national or racial intolerance is a matter of individual conscience that can not be
changed by legislative coercion. Any attempt to force employees to work with other employees
whom they dislike will generate friction and intolerance rather than overcome it.

3. This act would play into the hands of potential alien enemies. It would make illegal, prior to
employment, business inquiry into national origin or ancestry.

5. The constitutional Bill of Rights guarantees religious liberty but it does not impose upon a
member of any religious faith the obligation to employ members of other religious faiths. No
provision of the Constitution authorizes legislation of this type.

9. This proposal would defeat its alleged purpose. Prejudices can be eliminated only by evolution
and education, not by compulsory legislation. History through countless ages teaches that any
attempt to force social regulations by law only results in accentuating cleavages, sowing
discontent, and increasing frictions, leading to hostilities and violence between races and groups.

10. The communistic plan of promoting discord in democratic countries would be furthered by
this act.

For these and other reasons which will occur to you, vote no on Proposition 11.

----------

PROPOSED LAW

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

Section 1. This act may be referred to as the "California Fair Employment Practice Act."

Sec. 2. All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among
those of enjoying and defending life, and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property;
and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. The opportunity to obtain and hold
employment without discrimination because of race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry is
hereby recognized and declared to be such a civil and constitutional right …

Sec. 3. The people of the State of California declare that existing practices of discrimination
involving race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry are a matter of State concern because
they …

(4) Menace the institutions, foundations and traditions of our free democratic state and society;

Sec. 7. It shall be an unlawful employment practice:

1. For an employer acting for himself, or acting through any other person, or acting through any
employee who at the time is acting within the course and scope of his employment, to refuse to
hire or employ, or to bar, or to discharge from employment any person because of the race,
religion, color, national origin or ancestry of such person, or for an employment agency to refuse
or fail to refer any person for employment, because of the race, religion, color, national origin or
ancestry of such person, or for any of them to discriminate against such person in compensation
or in terms, conditions or privileges of employment. This section shall be interpreted so as to
guarantee and protect all the rights of veterans of the United States military services under all
Federal and State legislation protecting the rights of such veterans to employment.

2. For a labor organization to exclude, expel or restrict from its membership or fail or refuse to
refer to employment any person because of the race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry of
such person, or to discriminate in any way against any of its members, or against any employer,
or against any person employed by an employer, because of the race, religion, color, national
origin or ancestry of such member, employer, or employee, or to provide only auxiliary, second
class or segregated membership for any person because of the race, religion, color, national
origin or ancestry of such person.

3. For any persons included within the scope of this act to make any inquiry in writing or orally
in connection with an application for employment or in connection with prospective
employment, or in connection with prospective employment, or in connection with membership
in any labor union, as to the race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry of the applicant,
employee or employer, or to make any inquiry which expresses directly or indirectly any
limitation, specification or discrimination as to race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry,
or any intent to make such limitation, specification or discrimination.

Questions concerning race, religion, color, religion, color, national origin or ancestry, based upon
a bona fide occupational qualification, may be asked upon specific written approval in advance
by the commission.

4. For any persons included within the scope of this act to discharge, expel or to discriminate in
any manner against any person because he has opposed any practice forbidden under this act, or
because he has filed a complaint, testified or assisted in any proceeding under this act.

5. For any person to aid, abet, incite, compel, or coerce the doing of any of the acts forbidden
under this act, or to attempt to do so …

Sec. 15. To carry out the provisions of this act there is hereby appropriated out of any money in
the State treasury the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) or so much thereof
as may be necessary continuously for each fiscal year commencing with the Ninety-eighth (98th)
Fiscal Year, subject to the provisions of Section 16304 and Section 13320 to 13324 of the
Government Code.

The appropriation made by this section shall be available for expenditure in addition to any other
moneys appropriated to carry out the provisions of this act.
 excerpts from …

Proposition 15:
Validation of Legislative Amendments to the Alien Land Law
(California, November 5, 1946)
Final Vote: Yes: 797,067 (41.1%); No: 1,143,780 (58.9%)

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

Sec. 17. Foreigners of the white race, or of African descent, eligible to become citizens of the
United States under the naturalization laws thereof, while bona fide residents of this State, shall
have the same rights in respect to the acquisition, possession, enjoyment, transmission, and
inheritance of all property, other than real estate, as native born citizens, provided, that such
aliens owning real estate at the time of the adoption of this amendment may remain such owners;
and provided further, that the Legislature may, by statute, provide for the disposition of real
estate which shall hereafter be acquired by such aliens by descent or devise.

Argument in Favor of Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 17

(by State Senators Jack B. Tenney of Los Angeles County and Hugh M. Burns of Fresno
County)

This amendment merely validates statutes pursuant to the Alien Land Laws heretofore enacted
by the Legislature and now in full force and effect.

Its enactment by the people will close loopholes in legislative enactments based on constitutional
grounds.

It is well known that Japanese aliens, in order to conceal true ownership of property, have
indulged in all manner of subterfuges. These aliens have resorted to the use of "dummy"
corporations, American-born Japanese children and other nefarious schemes and devices that, on
the record, conceal the true identity of the owners of property.

It was through such evasion and subterfuges that Japanese aliens were enabled to own, occupy
and control land adjacent to vital defense areas and industries prior to, and for a considerable
time after, the sneak attack by the Imperial Japanese Government on Pearl Harbor.

The equities and rights in property of American-born Japanese are fully protected by the
enactment of this constitutional amendment, provided that such American-born Japanese are
innocent of any wrongful use or control of such property by alien Japanese.

The laws validated by the enactment of this constitutional amendment by the people protect
honest ownership while making it possible to more easily detect dishonest ownership.
Only powerful political and selfish economic interests allied with alien Japanese will oppose the
adoption of this validating constitutional amendment.

A "Yes" vote on this amendment will validate the statutes that the Legislature has heretofore
enacted into the law of the State of California in compliance with the mandate from the people as
contained in the initiative Alien Land Law.

Argument Against Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 17

(by Joe Grant Masaoka, Regional Representative of the Japanese American Citizens League)

… What does Proposition 15 signify? It is a calculated attempt to validate discrimination against

Koreans, Indonesians, Siamese and Japanese. Some legal authorities believe that the Alien Land
Law amendments would validate discrimination, even against those who have recently been
granted naturalization rights, namely, Chinese, Filipinos and East Indians.

What motivates Proposition 15? Proponents ask in effect to make race discrimination
constitutional. Elaborate enactments, such as this proposition, have no place in a State
Constitution. If Proposition 15 is adopted, it will still further clutter up a Constitution already
overburdened with wordy amendments.

Proposition 15 seeks to inject outdated legislation into the State Constitution. The Alien Land
Law and the 1923 amendment were intended to stop ownership of real property by "aliens
ineligible to citizenship." Since 1924 "ineligible aliens" have been excluded from immigration to
the USA.

Proposition 15 amendments were originally directed against "aliens ineligible to citizenship" in

order to remove them as a competitive threat. Such aliens who came to California before 1924
and are still living, number but a few thousand -- including females -- their average age, 65. They
can hardly be deemed a "threat."

Proposition 15 amendments reinforce the Alien Land Law, which today constitutes the basis of
the escheat suits to seize lands and homes of American GI's of Japanese ancestry. The
outstanding war record of 25,000 Japanese Americans has earned the right to fair play and decent
treatment for themselves and their families. The 442d Regimental Combat Team of Japanese-
Americans was our most decorated task force. Pacific Area commanders have lauded the
contributions of Japanese-American Military Intelligence in shortening the war with Japan and in
saving hundreds of thousands of American troops.

Proposition 15 undertakes to insure the legality of court action to forfeit and escheat all land
now held by Japanese-Americans. In view of such unfairness, if Proposition 15 is passed, the 60
escheat suits now pending against Japanese-American farm properties will, if lost by the owners,
enable interested parties to acquire valuable farm lands. The suits are widely attributed to the
desire of such parties to harass the owners and force down prices …
 excerpts from …

Hughes et al.
v.
Superior Court of California in and for County of Contra Costa

339 U.S. 460

(United States Supreme Court, 8 May 1950)

(full text available at http://laws.findlaw.com/us/339/460.html)

This case – considered the Supreme Court’s first affirmative action case – grew out of picket of
Lucky Stores, Inc. in Richmond, California in 1947 sponsored by the Progressive Citizens of
America (PCA). The PCA was a left-wing organization. The PCA’s picket was part of a series
of “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns beginning in New York and Baltimore in the
1930s. According to legal scholar Alan Freeman, “On can feel the ice of the Cold War in this
opinion.”

Case summary: PCA picketers demanded that Lucky hire blacks at one of its grocery stores, as
white clerks quit or were transferred, until the proportion of black clerks to white clerks
approximated the proportion of black to white customers, which was then about 50%. A
California state court enjoined petitioners from picketing the employer’s stores to enforce this
specific demand for selective hiring on a racial basis. For violation of the injunction, petitioners
were found guilty of contempt and were sentenced to fine and imprisonment. The majority’s
reasoning: the policy of California is against discrimination on the basis of color.

Justice Felix Frankfurter delivered the Opinion of the Court:

Does the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution bar a State from use of the injunction to
prohibit picketing of a place of business solely in order to secure compliance with a demand that
its employees be in proportion to the racial origin of its then customers? Such is the broad
question of this case.

The petitioners, acting on behalf of a group calling themselves Progressive Citizens of America,
demanded of Lucky Stores, Inc., that it hire Negroes at its grocery store near the Canal Housing
Project in Richmond, California, as white clerks quit or were transferred, until the proportion of
Negro clerks to white clerks approximated the proportion of Negro to white customers. At the
time in controversy about 50% of the customers of the Canal store were Negroes. Upon refusal
of this demand and in order to compel compliance, the Canal store was systematically patrolled
by pickets carrying placards stating that Lucky refused to hire Negro clerks in proportion to
Negro customers …

To deny to California the right to ban picketing in the circumstances of this case would mean
that there could be no prohibition of the pressure of picketing to secure proportional employment
on ancestral grounds of Hungarians in Cleveland, of Poles in Buffalo, of Germans in Milwaukee,
of Portuguese in New Bedford, of Mexicans in San Antonio, of the numerous minority groups in
New York, and so on through the whole gamut of racial and religious concentrations in various
cities. States may well believe that such constitutional sheltering would inevitably encourage use
of picketing to compel employment on the basis of racial discrimination. In disallowing such
picketing States may act under the belief that otherwise community tensions and conflicts would
be exacerbated. The differences in cultural traditions instead of adding flavor and variety to our
common citizenry might well be hardened into hostilities by leave of law. The Constitution does
not demand that the element of communication in picketing prevail over the mischief furthered
by its use in these situations …

California chose to strike at the discrimination inherent in the quota system by means of the
equitable remedy of injunction to protect against unwilling submission to such a system …

Justice Reed, concurring:

I read the opinion of the Supreme Court of California to hold that the pickets sought from Lucky
Stores, Inc., discrimination in favor of persons of the Negro race, a discrimination unlawful
under California law …
 NAACP on What Position to take in the Hughes Case

Legal historian Mark Tushnet on the politics behind the NAAP’s position on
nondiscrimination versus proportional representation:

“Advocates of African American interests, it might be argued, were continually making and
adjusting strategic judgments about what would succeed in the existing political climate.
Operating in a political world dominated by white interests, they initially believed that the most
they could achieve was a law requiring nondiscrimination. They did not regard getting such a
law as a trivial accomplishment. But, as soon as they saw the possibility of getting a more far-
reaching policy that would, in their view, better advance the interests of the African American
community, they sought proportionality.”
 NAACP Leaders on Communist Members
(NAACP Papers, Reel 3, Part I, Board of Directors Meeting, 6/22/50
NAACP Leaders on the Korean War
The McCarran-Walter / Immigration and Nationality Act
H.R. 5678
Public Law 414 – June 27, 1952
66 Stat. 163-281
 Senator Pat McCarran (D-NV) on McCarran-Walter Act
Source:
William R. Tamayo, “Asian Americans and the McCarran-Walter Act,” in Hyung-Chan Kim, ed., Asian Americans
and Congress: A Documentary History (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996): 337-364.
 The Japanese American Citizens League
on the McCarran-Walter Act
(from the U.S. President’s Commission on Immigration and Naturalization Hearings, 1952)
Source:
William R. Tamayo, “Asian Americans and the McCarran-Walter Act,” in Hyung-Chan Kim, ed., Asian Americans
and Congress: A Documentary History (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996): 337-364.
 excerpts from …
President Truman’s Veto of the McCarran-Walter Act (6/25/52)
“Our failure to remove racial barriers [from immigration laws] provides the Kremlin unlimited
political power and propaganda capital for use against us in Japan and the entire Far East.”

Secretary of State Dean Acheson to President Harry Truman, April 14, 1952
 Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York on the
McCarran-Walter Act
(from the U.S. President’s Commission on Immigration and Naturalization Hearings, 1952)

Source:
William R. Tamayo, “Asian Americans and the McCarran-Walter Act,” in Hyung-Chan Kim, ed., Asian Americans
and Congress: A Documentary History (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996): 337-364.
 U.S. Government Officials on the Foreign Policy Implications of
Racial Discrimination in the U.S.
Sources:
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000).
Michael L. Krenn, “‘Unfinished Business’: Segregation and U.S. Diplomacy at the 1958 World’s Fair,”
Diplomatic History 20, no. 4 (Fall 1996): 591-612.

“The Court is here asked to place the seal of constitutional approval upon an undisguised species
of racial discrimination. If the imprimatur of constitutionality should be put on such a denial of
equality, one would expect the foes of democracy to exploit such an action for their own
purposes. The ideals embodied in our Bill of Rights would be ridiculed as empty words, devoid
of any real substance … It is in the context of a world in which freedom and equality must
become living realities, if the democratic way of life is to survive, that the issues in these cases
should be viewed. In these times, when even the foundations of our free institutions are not
altogether secure, it is especially important that it again be unequivocally affirmed that the
Constitution of the United States, like the Declaration of Independence and the other great state
papers in American history, places no limitation, express or implied, on the principle of the
equality of all men before the law.”

Memorandum for the United States as Amicus Curiae, McLaurin v. Oklahoma 339 U.S. 637
(1950), and Sweatt v. Painter 339 U.S. 629 (1950)

“It is in the context of the present world struggle between freedom and tyranny that the problem
of racial discrimination must be viewed.”

“During the past six years, the damage to our foreign relations attributable to [race
discrimination] has become progressively greater. The United States is under constant attack in
the foreign press, over the foreign radio, and in such international bodies as the United Nations
because of various practices of discrimination against minority groups in this country. As might
be expected, Soviet spokesmen regularly exploit this situation in propaganda against the United
States, both within the United Nations and through radio broadcasts and the press, which reaches
all corners of the world. Some of these attacks against us are based on falsehood or distortion;
but the undeniable existence of racial discrimination gives unfriendly governments the most
effective kind of ammunition for their propaganda warfare.”

“The hostile reaction among normally friendly peoples, many of whom are particularly sensitive
in regard to the status of non-European races, is growing in alarming proportions. In such
countries the view is expressed more and more vocally that the United States is hypocritical in
claiming to be the champion of democracy while permitting practices of racial discrimination
here in this country.”

Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483
(1954) (filed December 1952)
“Our American system like all others is on trial both at home and abroad. The way it works; the
manner in which it solves the problems of our day; the extent to which we maintain the spirit of
our Constitution with its Bill of Rights, will in the long run do more to make it both secure and
the object of adulation than the number of hydrogen bombs we stockpile.”

Chief Justice Earl Warren in a speech to the American Bar Association (August 1954)

“[The effects of] racial discrimination in the United States on public opinion abroad is definitely
adverse to our interests …. It clearly results to some extent in the weakening of our moral
position as the champion of freedom and democracy, and in the raising or reinforcing of doubts
as to the sincerity and strength of our professions of concern for the welfare of others,
particularly in the non-white world. Moreover, it provides a solid target for anti-American
propaganda.”

State Department Report, “Treatment of Minorities in the United States – Impact on Our
Foreign Relations” (1958)

----------

“How many times have you read in your newspapers and magazines or heard over the airwaves
this question: ‘What will Russia say if our government does this?’ How many times have you
read or hear this: ‘What will the Reds say if we don’t do this?’ or ‘What will the Communist
newspaper Pravda print about the United States because we do this or that?’ In some instances
we have shaped our national policy by trying to please the Communists … Too many things are
being done in our country because we keep looking over our shoulders at the Communists. Who
cares what the Reds say? Who cares what Pravda prints?”

Governor Herman Talmadge (Democrat, Georgia), You And Segregation (1955)

 U.S. Race Relations as Portrayed in India:
Views from the English-Language Press in India, 1947-1953
Source:
Frenise A. Logan, “Racism and Indian-U.S. Relations, 1947-1953: Views in the Indian Press,” Pacific Historical
Review 54, no. 1 (February 1985): 71-79.

“The prevailing racist spirit in the U.S.A. is not consistent with America’s claim to the moral
leadershp of the world.” (Allahabad Leader, 25 February 1948)

“The President seems to have at last realized that America could not possibly use her influence in
building a world where all races, colors and creeds can live and work harmoniously and
constructively until and when she has freed her territory of the last traces of racial arrogance and
inequality.” (Amrita Bazar Patrika 20 November 1949)

“The democracy which the Indian mind sees in the West … has a double standard, one for the
white man and another for the coloured man …. The Indian is most sensitive to this vexed
question of colr. That is why he is prone to judge the United States by her treatment of her
Negro population. Tell the Indian about the finer aspects of life in the United States and he will
agree with you. But invariably the question will follow: ‘What sort of democracy is it which
treats Negroes that way?” (United Nations World, January 1951)

“The best antidote to Soviet Communism … is to deprive it of propagandist material based on

political colonization, foreign economic control and racial discrimination.” (Delhi Express 17
December 1951)
 America’s Tenth Man:
A Pictorial Overview of One-Tenth of a Nation Presenting the Negro
Contribution to American Life Today

Edited and Compiled by

Lucille Arcola Chambers

New York: Twayne Publishers, 1957

from the Foreward

by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., United States Representative to the United Nations
14 November 1956

In the United Nations it is my duty to represent the United States in relations with
seventy-eight other nations. There are few aspects of American life that interest the
representatives of those nations more than the way in which our country is moving toward real
equality regardless of race.
America's Tenth Man tells about that movement, showing in hard facts where the Negro
citizens of America stand today in their steady march toward an equal share in the American
heritage.
The experience of America which the United 'Nations delegates have gained has helped to
dispel some of the crude myths of racial domination with which communism has sought to
besmirch America's image a-round the world. The United Nations delegates, for instance, meet
daily with Ralph Bunche, an American of Negro descent who is a distinguished statesman of
world reputation and an able servant of the international community. They have met also a
succession of distinguished Americans of Negro descent-Channing Tobias, Mrs. Edith Sampson,
Archibald Carey, Charles Mahoney, Robert Brokenburr, Richard Lee Jones-who-have served on
American delegations to the United Nations General Assembly. Most of them know Mrs. Carmel
Carrington Marr, an able officer of the Permanent United States Mission to the United Nations.
They know that while much remains to be done, we will never go back.
At the United Nations and in diplomatic and economic aid jobs the world over, Americans
of all races bear witness to the same truths. We never try to present a picture of perfection to the
world, but we do try to reflect faithfully the image of an America in which the horizons of
human freedom for every citizen are without limit. In this effort, the heartening facts which Miss
Chambers' book so vividly presents will be a great help to us all.

from the Introduction

by Lucille Arcola Chambers
It was during my travels abroad (in Germany, South America, and the Caribbean area)
that I realized how widespread was the information about negative factors of the American
Negro’s existence. My descriptions of his changing position in American society were often met
with open doubt. In many places visited, one of the first questions asked me was, “What are the
colored people ‘allowed’ to do in the United States?” It became clear to me that many people
outside our country – as indeed many within – are informed about the publicized problems, but
know little or nothing about the solid achievements of one-tenth of a nation.
 World Opinion of U.S. Racial Problems
(from various polls taken circa late 1940s to early 1960s)

source: Hazel Erskine, “The Polls: World Opinion of U.S. Racial Problems,” Public Opinion Quarterly 32, no. 2
(Summer 1968): 299-312. (Full text available via http://www.jstor.org/).
 The Cold War Implications of U.S. Race Relations:
Views from the U.S.
Source:
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000).
 Images of Africa, Africans, and African Americans in the
U.S.S.R.
Sources:
Allison Blakely, Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought (Washington, D.C.:
Howard University Press, 1986).
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000).