Local Minister Claims Wife, Other Negroes Mistreated By Officials at the Armory

‘More Prejudice at Armory Against My People Than Hitler Has Against Jews’ Rev. M. N. Ward Says In Public Protest

Charging that “there is more prejudice in Springfield Armory against my people than Hitler has in Germany against the Jews,” Rev. M. N. Ward, minister in the New England conference, AME-Zion church, today made public protest against treatment of his wife and other Negro employees at the Springfield Armory.
Mrs. Ward, whose rating on intelligence tests, given to employees when they start work, entitled her to a machine operator’s job. [A job she’s been working] for several months against Springfield Armory’s attempts to take her off her machine and give her filing work at a day rate instead of piecework rates.
As a result of her protests, a Springfield Armory foreman threatened to strike her, and, Mr. Ward said, she has been “mistreated without provocation, cause or reason.”

Many Afraid To Speak

Other Negro women employed at the Springfield Armory have been transferred from machines to filing operations, but have been afraid to protest and have accepted the transfers, although they mean cuts in pay, Mr. Ward said.
He said he had made a protest against discriminatory practices on the part of Springfield Armory foremen to M. W. Cruze, in charge of industrial relations at the Springfield Armory, but had not received satisfaction.
Mrs. Ward made her complaints several months ago, through regular grievance procedure outlined in a booklet of instructions issued to all employees, her husband said, but no steps were taken to correct conditions to which she objected.

Negroes Are Quitting

A number of Negroes have left the Springfield Armory for other work, to private plants or outside the war effort, because they could not stand the treatment they received there, Mr. Ward said.
“My people, not knowing how to defend themselves, quit” he said. He has employed an attorney, he said, and will fight the case on behalf of scores of Negroes still employed at the Springfield Armory and subjected to discriminatory treatment.
The Springfield Armory was one of the first plants in the Springfield area to let down the barriers to Negroes, and is one of the largest employers of Negroes in this area. They have been advanced in a number of good positions in the plant, according to Springfield Armory officials, who said there has been no discrimination shown against them.