Dr. Willie J. Griffin published an article in the Duke University Press’ Labor: Studies in the Working Class. In “News and Views of the Postal Service: Trezzvant W. Anderson and Black Labor Journalism in the New Deal Era,” Dr. Griffin discusses Charlotte-native Trezzvant Anderson’s role in ending racial discrimination in the civil service as a railway postal clerk, labor activist, and newspaper correspondent.
Anderson’s activism led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 8587, which ended the civil service employment application photograph requirements. Anderson’s advocacy journalism, centered upon union action and workplace justice, illustrates how the black press embraced employment issues and made them central to African American aspirations for racial equality in the New Deal era.
This article is just a part of the incredible contribution that Trezzvant Anderson made to the civil rights movement.