View XML QR Code

Civic Unity Committee records, 1938-1965

Table of Contents

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Civic Unity Committee (Seattle, Wash.)
Title
Civic Unity Committee records
Dates
1938-1965 (inclusive)
Quantity
24.76 cubic feet (58 boxes)
Collection Number
0479, 0580, 1002, 1350
Summary
Records of an unofficial race relations, civil rights committee formed by the Seattle, Washington mayor
Repository
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu
Access Restrictions

Open to all users.

Request at UW

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities
Return to Top

Historical Note

Seattle’s Civic Unity Committee (CUC), a primarily white civil rights organization, lobbied for civil rights laws and sought to persuade the white community not to discriminate. A large-scale migration of blacks to Seattle during the Second World War increased racial tensions, prompting Seattle Mayor William Devin to create the CUC in 1944. Devin appointed prominent business, civic, religious, and labor leaders to the CUC--seven white men, two white women, two black men, and one Chinese-American man in all--but pointedly refused to select anyone seen as “left-wing.” The CUC negotiated with a number of firms that refused to hire blacks, but generally failed to end the discrimination. The CUC did, however, play a major role in ensuring that the return of interned Japanese Americans to Seattle went peacefully. The CUC ran employment and rental referral services for returning Japanese Americans and convinced local newspapers to condemn anti-Japanese discrimination.

When the fear of racial violence ebbed after the war, Mayor Devin cut the CUC’s ties with city government. The CUC reorganized as a private organization, funded by the King County Community Chest and by members’ donations. The number of members generally hovered around 1,000.

When Congress killed the national Fair Employment Practices Committee in 1946, the CUC turned its attention to passing a state-level job discrimination law. The CUC spun off a sister organization, the Washington State Fair Employment Practices Committee (later called the Washington State Committee Against Discrimination in Employment). While the Urban League wanted blacks to take a prominent role in a well-publicized anti-job discrimination campaign, the CUC and its sister group preferred to focus only on the legislature and to use white lobbyists. The CUC’s tactics seemed to fit the conservative political climate of the time; in 1949 the CUC and its allies convinced the legislature to create the Washington State Board Against Discrimination in Employment (later named the Washington State Board Against Discrimination (WSBAD). WSBAD had the power to investigate complaints, subpoena records, issue orders to stop discrimination, and enforce its orders in court. CUC lobbying later won laws banning discrimination in public accommodations (1953) and in publicly-funded housing (1957). While the CUC admired WSBAD’s attempts to use quiet negotiations rather than lawsuits or negative publicity to end discrimination, the Seattle National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Urban League were furious at what they saw as a “do nothing” policy. These groups recommended that WSBAD denounce firms that refused to comply with anti-discrimination orders, and thought the agency should publicize the prevalence of racial discrimination in general. These policies were implemented by Democratic Governor Albert Rossellini’s appointees to WSBAD after 1957.

The CUC tried to combat racism in the white community with a number of techniques. They published a semi-monthly newsletter, Fair Play, which ran upbeat stories about improvements in race relations. The CUC sent its trustees to talk to civic organizations about discrimination. From 1948 to 1953 the CUC and the University of Washington sponsored an annual Northwest Institute on Race Relations. The Institute hired a prominent speaker to give a number of speeches to college and high school students and to do radio interviews. Lack of funds in 1954 and thereafter led the CUC to cancel the Institute and just hire a speaker to talk at a different high school each year.

The CUC shifted its focus to housing issues in the 1950s. The CUC was the primary force in the creation of the Greater Seattle Housing Council, a group which included construction companies, realtors, and civil rights activists. The CUC intended this group to promote dialogue and convince the real estate industry to voluntarily adopt open housing policies. Realtors, however, proved unwilling to change. When Washington’s law barring discrimination in publicly-funded housing was declared unconstitutional in 1962, the CUC joined the NAACP and the Urban League in sponsoring a blanket open housing law for all of Seattle. The CUC convinced the Seattle City Council to create a Human Rights Commission (now called the Human Rights Division) to draft an open housing law. Former CUC President Alfred Westberg chaired the Commission. The CUC lobbied the open housing law past a number of parliamentary roadblocks in City Council, but opponents collected enough signatures to put the new law to a referendum. Although the CUC conducted a vigorous campaign, fully 68 % of Seattle voters opposed the ordinance in the March 1964 election. This defeat disheartened the CUC, leading many members to conclude that their critics in other civil rights organizations were right--perhaps efforts to persuade white people not to discriminate had outlived their usefulness. The CUC disbanded soon after the election. Some CUC trustees joined Seattle’s primarily black-led civil rights groups, and some went to work for the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

The president and the executive secretaries who served the organization are as follows:

Presidents:

  • George Greenwood, 1944-1946
  • Henry Elliott, 1946-1949
  • Frank P. Helsell, 1949-1952
  • John H. Heitzman, 1952-1954
  • Paul H. Green, 1954-1957
  • Alfred J. Westberg, 1957-1958
  • Arthur G. Barnett, 1958-1960
  • Archie S. Katz, 1960-1962
  • John F. Gordon, 1962-1964

Executive Secretaries:

  • Ann P. Madsen, 1944-1945
  • Irene Burns Miller, 1945-1952
  • Louise P. Blackham, 1952-1964

Return to Top

Content Description

Correspondence, minutes, case files, subject files, printed materials, financial records, notes, and organizational information documenting the work of the Seattle Civic Unity Committee. Also contains records relating to the Northwest Institute of Race Relations, the Washington State Committee Against Discrimination in Employment, Seattle Conference on Minority Housing, the Central Seattle Community Association, the Greater Seattle Housing Council, the King County Intergroup Relations Committee, the Seattle Mayor's Advisory Committee on Relocation, and the Seattle Citizens Advisory Committee.

Return to Top

Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

Creator's literary rights not transferred to the University of Washington Libraries

Return to Top

Administrative Information

Arrangement

Arranged in four accessions:

  • Accession No. 0479-001, Civic Unity Committee records, 1941-1964
  • Accession No. 0580-001, Civic Unity Committee records, 1938-1965
  • Accession No. 1002-001, Civic Unity Committee records, 1949-1963
  • Accession No. 1350-001, Civic Unity Committee records, 1944-1965

Acquisition Information

In 1965 CUC Executive Secretary Louise Blackham donated Accession No. 0479-001, measuring 9 cubic feet; and Accession No. 0580-001, 7 cubic feet. The Seattle Human Rights Commission found 3.57 cubic feet of CUC records in its files and gave them to Special Collections in 1968; these are now Accession No. 1002-001. In 1970 former CUC President Arthur Barnett added material that became Accession No. 1350-001.

Related Materials

Additional CUC records may be found in the Seattle Human Rights Commission records in Special Collections.

Special Collections holds the CUC’s newsletter, Fair Play . Special Collections also holds the Washington State Board Against Discrimination, Annual Report , Newsletter , and News Highlights .

Special Collections also holds several other collections that relate to the CUC, including the Howard Drucker papers, the Irene Miller papers, the Robert O'Brien papers, the Melvina Squires papers, the Alfred Westberg papers, the Irving Clark papers, the Linden Mander papers, and the Arthur Barnett papers.

The records of the Greater Seattle Housing Council, which the CUC founded, are also available in Special Collections.

Additional information on the CUC’s involvement with WSBAD can be found in the WSBAD records at the Washington State Archives in Olympia.

Return to Top

Detailed Description of the Collection

 

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • African Americans--Washington (State)--Seattle
  • Civil rights--Washington (State)--Seattle--Societies, etc.--Archives
  • Discrimination in employment--Washington (State)--Seattle
  • Discrimination in housing--Washington (State)--Seattle
  • Discrimination--Washington (State)
  • Japanese Americans--Washington (State)--Seattle

Corporate Names

  • Central Seattle Community Association
  • Civic Unity Committee (Seattle, Wash.)--Archives
  • Health and Welfare Council of Seattle and King County. Committee on Intergroup Relations
  • High School Students Conference on Human Relations
  • Northwest Institute of Race Relations
  • Seattle Human Rights Commission
  • Washington State Committee Against Discrimination in Employment

Geographical Names

  • Central District (Seattle, Wash.)--Race relations
  • Seattle (Wash.)--Civil rights
  • Seattle (Wash.)--Race relations
  • Washington (State)--Civil rights

Form or Genre Terms

  • Case files
  • Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
  • Correspondence
  • Minutes
  • Newsletters
  • Notes
  • Printed ephemera
  • Scrapbooks

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Personal Papers/Corporate Records (University of Washington)


2007 (Last modified: 4/12/2018)

CC0

About Creative Commons Licenses in Archives West

Loading...
Loading...
Morty Proxy This is a proxified and sanitized view of the page, visit original site.