U.S. Steelworkers in line for election

The centrality of African-American steelworkers is well documented in Museum photographs and union materials, including those for Local 65 (US Steel – South Works) of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). This image is of a Local 65 election line in South Chicago. Local 65 had a storied history. It was the first Local to be affiliated with the CIO’s drive to organize the steel industry in 1936, including black SWOC leaders Hank Johnson and Leonides McDonald, Local 65 leader Lucious Armstrong, and others. Local 65 had a number of presidents who were outspoken advocates for rank and file democracy. The latter included Ed Sadlowski who donated this photograph. Ed was the upstart candidate for the national presidency of the USWA in 1977 on the “Steelworkers Fight Back” platform, a multi-racial progressive coalition that sought to counter the bureacraticized and hierarchical nature of the post-war USWA and return to the early grassroots activism of the CIO years.