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This then brings us to the fifth and last feature of the NRA period to be
discussed here, stirrings around trade unionism in the African American
community. The 1933 parade that initiated the Baltimore NRA campaign
symbolized, as we noted above, the hopes of most sectors of the Baltimore
population for the incipient New Deal. This parade also foreshadowed the
disappointments of the NRA period awaiting Baltimore's African American
community. To engage the Black community in the NRA process, Carl Murphy of
the Afro was appointed head of the colored division of the NRA organization for
Maryland, and Howard H. Murphy of the Negro Business, also a member of the
Afro's Murphy clan, was appointed to the Baltimore City NRA Steering
Committee. Expectations ran high in mid-1933 that the New Deal was going to
alleviate the extreme economic plight of the Black community and that the NRA
would live up to the anti-discrimination clauses mandated for its codes. Very
rapidly almost every notable in the community was drawn into the NRA support
Howard H. Murphy saw his membership on the steering committee as an
opportunity to struggle against discrimination by industry — and by the BFL trade
unions. At the first steering committee meeting, Murphy and fellow committee
member Henry Broening of the BFL met on the question of opening all BFL
unions to Black members, with indeterminant results. In comment, the Afro
remarked that "this question is bound to become on of importance" as the NRA
campaign proceeds. As the date of the kick-off parade for the NRA campaign
approached, a contingent of 400 marchers from the community were organized.
Then the news arrived that the African American contingent was to be placed at
the very rear of the parade. A protest was lodged, asking that this contingent be
moved to the middle of the march. In response, NRA officials decided to place one
truck behind the contingent; the Murphies announced that the African American
unit was withdrawing from the parade.
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