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Valley Black Caucus pays homage to ex-labor leader, activist Gatewood
By Ed Runyan
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown Warren Black Caucus gave a tribute to the late steel union leader and community activist Arlette Gatewood on Friday, as it heard from Clayola Brown, president of the national A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Jamael Tito Brown, director of operations at the Mahoning County Treasurer’s Office, said Gatewood was a “political analyst who would give you his opinion. He was going to give it to you straight.”
Gatewood worked 32 years at Youngstown Sheet & Tube and had leadership positions in the United Steelworkers union. He helped negotiate numerous contracts for local unions.
He was one of the founding members of the caucus and a lifetime member of the NAACP and A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Clayola Brown, keynote speaker of the event at the McGuffey Centre, has been president of the institute since 2004 and was its first female president.
She has been a lifelong labor activist, having campaigned with her mother to organize the Manhattan Shirt Factory in her hometown of Charleston, S.C., in the 1960s.
She served as education director for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union and was civil rights director and manager for the laundry division affiliate more than 13 years.
She’s also on the national board of the NAACP and serves many other organizations.
In a conversation before her talk, she compared the historic events of 1963 through 1965, when voting rights were expanded, to the threats to voting rights today.
In many states, laws that require photo IDs at the polls have hurt minority voters because of circumstances in history that have caused many minorities to have trouble producing one, she said.
For instance, some older voters may no longer have a driver’s license. In some states, students are denied the opportunity to vote in the town where they attend school.
In some Southern states, people were born at home with a midwife, meaning a birth certificate may not be available.
“The point is not to give away the right to vote,” she said of legislative and court decisions.
“Voting is not only important at the top of the ballot; it’s important in the down part of the ballot,” she said. Such issues as safe streets, streetlights and garbage collection are areas “where people have to be encouraged to go out to the polls.”
The institute that she leads supports civil rights, strong anti-discrimination measures, affirmative action and policies to promote decent wages. It was founded in 1965 by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin after they forged an alliance between the civil rights and labor movements.
It now has 150 chapters in 36 states.
Also speaking at Friday’s event was Frances Strickland, wife of former Gov. Ted Strickland, who is running for the U.S. Senate.