|
222
the several hundreds. Although not picket lines, these demonstrations had the
effect of beginning the boycott. Shortly before October 14, ASCO capitulated,
hiring three Black men for clerical jobs and promising to employ more soon (twenty
two were hired by early December). Within a few days, the A & P stores hired
three male clerks and also promised more before the Christmas season.
Additionally, Goodman Five and Ten Cent Store hired three Black women for
clerical positions. Additionally, several more community organizations had
declared themselves pan of the struggle including the Monumental and the Pride of
Baltimore lodges of Elks, the Knights of Pythias (who were also actively recruiting
other fraternal organizations) and, surprisingly, the Challenger and Baltimore auto
clubs. The boycott movement was overjoyed.
Any euphoria among boycott activists was short-lived, though, for a few days
later, on October 18, George Armwood was brutally lynched in Princess Anne, on
Maryland's Eastern Shore. A little more than a week later, on October 27, Euel
Lee was executed. These traumatic events triggered widespread expressions of
anger and protest from the Black community and from white progressives. The
character of the response to the Armwood lynching and the Lee execution will be
discussed in detail below. But, while the lynching and execution may have diverted
some of its energies of the Buy Where You Can Work Movement temporarily,
these events almost immediately both strengthened the resolve of boycott activists,
provided them with new recruits to the cause, and broadened their base of
sympathizers.
Then the boycott movement suffered a setback when, at the end of October,
A & P charged that its new Black clerks were "inefficient," fired some, if not all of
them, and hired white ones. In response, on November 2 the boycott forces upped
the ante by demanding that all stores in Black neighborhoods employ entirely Black
staffs immediately, Black managers be hired by January 1, and all white clerks just
hired be fired. If these demands were not met, the committee would step up its
|
