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and his compatriots, but, under the circumstances, he and his compatriots

7S
understood it represented an enormous advance.

The BTA battle continued well into the war years as the plasters, then the
painters, then construction local after construction local accepted a few Black
members. Constant vigilance was required from the BTA to protect the gains
made, and setbacks were frequent. But by 1941, the Baltimore construction trade
unions were on their way to being integrated. Summing up the progress made to
that time, Lewis pointed out that the white construction unions were not the only
problem the BTA had, for the Black community itself and its leadership was often
indifferent to the drive to integrate trade unions. If Ed Lewis at the end of the
thirties provided one of the strongest links between the Black freedom movement
and the workers movement in Baltimore, it is important to note that, by his own

7/i

account, that link was generally pretty weak.

After the interlude of the Roosevelt recession, AFL activity also picked up
in, as we have seen, organizing Bla^k workers, through growing membership in the
existing locals, through drives to form new locals, and, occasionally, through
sweetheart contracts with the bosses scared of the CIO. By the end of the decade,
the numbers of AFL workers in the region again began to approach those of the
CIO. Qualitatively speaking, though, two developments in AFL organizing in 1938
and 1939 need to be highlighted. The first was the burst of organizing, often
resulting in strikes, in the white AFL construction trades. The context of this
activity was, of course, the growth in construction related to the war and to federal
funding. The unions of the AFL building trades may have been aristocratic, racist,
and ideologically conservative, but they were capable of militant action in their own

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interests when the times demanded or allowed it.

The other AFL development requiring mention was the continued ascension