Archives West Finding Aid

Interview conducted by R. C. Berner on 7 and 28 Jun 1972; transcript; ILWU constitutions; ephemera.

Jenkins discusses his education and his early experience with discrimination, and mentions several black families who were his neighbors in Ballard. He briefly describes the backgrounds of his parents who were not hightly educated, the reasons for leaving Queen Anne High School, his early employment on the Seattle waterfront and his union involvement. Jenkins details the history of the unions' exclusionary practices in the Puget Sound area and explains the issue of blacks as strikebreakers. He discusses discriminatory hiring policies which limited employment opportunities for black longshoremen in Seattle, the 1921 and 1934 strikes, and the changed employment practices resulting from the latter strike. The structure of the longshoremen's union (ILWU) is discussed, as well as some contract negotiations that occurred during Jenkins' tenure as a union official. Military oversight of the Seattle Port during World War II is mentioned, including the discriminatory recruitment practices used by both the Army and the Navy. Jenkins illustrates the consequences of his union activism during the war and afterwards during the McCarthy era by recounting several episodes in which his port security pass was revoked and subsequently reissued. He chronicles the turbulent post-war history of the longshoremen's union in the Puget Sound area and explains the reason for the union's expulsion from the CIO in 1948.