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between AFL unions and the CIO unions for support from activists in the Black
freedom movement, there is no evidence that these activists became at all polarized
between the two trade-union movements. Rather, the overall effect of the
increasing activity of both union movements among Black workers was to begin to
reorient leading elements of the Black community more toward the workers'
movement — and, prior to World War II, even that reorientation did not go very far.

The involvement of both trade-union groupings in the struggles of Black
workers also had, in two cases, another effect: that of augmenting class struggle
within the Black community. In the first case the Musicians Protective Association,
Local 543, a Black local of the American Federation of Musicians, moved in late
1937 to organize the City Colored Orchestra. The City Colored Orchestra was the
product of a long series of efforts by some of the leading figures in the Black
community that was finally realized when an unnamed philanthropist donated
$2000 to the city for its creation. The orchestra was directed by Dr. Llewellyn
Wilson, music teacher at Douglass High school and music columnist for the Afro. It
was supported and overseen by a municipally-appointed committee headed by Dr.
Francis Woods, director of colored schools."7

Local 543 demanded that the musicians of the Colored Orchestra be paid a
formal wage at the union rate of $4 a performance and $8 for a concert, rather than
an informal stipend of $2 to $3. In response to the objection that such pay would
raise the orchestral b?idget nearly $1000 over its $2000 limit, Charles F Gwynn,
president of Local 543, responded that the city was paying $64,000 for its music
program for whites, so it could afford $3000 for Blacks. Additionally, the union
demanded a closed shop. Llewellyn Wilson and his white boss, city director of
music Frederick Huber, rejected the unions demands, and the contest was on. "

Local 543 called on the locals of the American Federation of Musicians city-
wide to put Director Huber on its unfair list, but Oscar Apple, president of the
AFM, whose own unrelenting organizing campaign had partly inspired the Black