Herbert Hill (labor director)

Herbert Hill was born into a Jewish family on January 24, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York. He was educated in the public school system. Hill earned a B.A. from New York University in 1945 and attended the New School for Social Research from 1946 until 1948 where he studied under the distinguished political theorist, Hannah Arendt. [1]

Herbert Hill (third from left), with fellow NAACP leaders Henry L. Moon, Roy Wilkins, and Thurgood Marshall

During the 1940s, Hill was a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Hill (although white) was appointed Labor Director of the NAACP in 1951 where he worked until 1977 when he departed for a professorship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was highly critical of the practice of nepotism in many unions whereby relatives of members were hired. Hill criticized labour relations practices in numerous industries including the film industry as well as the progress of the Kennedy Administration on issues of racial equality in the workplace. Among the many unions he criticized for their record on racial equality were the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the United Auto Workers, the United Federation of Teachers and the United Steelworkers of America as well as the AFL-CIO federation itself. Hill particularly objected to the AFL-CIO position that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should not interfere with existing seniority systems. He was also a strong supporter of affirmative action. According to a New Politics article by Stephen Steinberg, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once described Hill as "the best barbershop lawyer in the United States".

He also organized pickets to raise awareness of racial discrimination in the construction industry. His conduct was so controversial that some unions threatened to withhold funding of the NAACP unless Hill was fired, but the NAACP leadership under Roy Wilkins supported Hill. Hill published over one hundred articles in journals, anthologies and newspapers and was also known for polemics against labor historian Herbert Gutman as well as debates in New Politics (magazine) with union leader Al Shanker and Nelson Lichtenstein, an academic and biographer of Walter Reuther. Hill was especially sharp against Lichtenstein's support for the allegedly racist Reuther and the UAW's activities to betray the civil rights movement. He also served as a consultant for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the United Nations.

Research published in Labor History by historian Christopher Phelps holds that Hill was an informer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation on socialists he knew in the 1940s. Documents between high-level FBI officials referred to a male subject with a short redacted surname in New York who was an "SWP member during the period 1943-1949," the period in which Hill belonged to the Socialist Workers Party, and who in 1962 was "currently employed by the NAACP as a labor relations official," when there was no other labor official at the NAACP. According to a collection of, "bureau memos, part of the FBI’s Counter- Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) effort to disrupt solidarity with the militant Monroe movement, refer repeatedly to Hill supplying information on his former comrades in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), to which he belonged in the 1940s," according to some historians.[2]

The FBI documents state that the subject was "contacted on several occasions by New York Agents and has been cooperative" and furnished "information on individuals that were in the SWP during the time he was a member."[3][4] Other prominent NAACP officials, Phelps states, including Thurgood Marshall, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins are known to have cooperated with the FBI in its actions against the Civil Rights Congress and Communist Party.

However, the allegations against Hill have been seriously disputed by many academics.[5]

Hill died on August 21, 2004 in Madison, Wisconsin after a long illness. His death was announced by the University of Wisconsin. It was at the University of Wisconsin where Hill was an emeritus professor of Afro-American studies. Hill was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Lydon, in 2001. [6]

• Anger and Beyond: The Negro Writer in the United States. Ed. Herbert Hill. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
• The AFL-CIO and the black worker : Twenty five years after the merger. Alexandria, Virginia: National Association of Human Rights Workers, 1982.
• Black Labor and the American Legal System: Race, Work, and the Law. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985 ed.
• Race in America : The struggle for equality. Eds. Herbert Hill & James E. Jones Jr. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.

• Stephen Steinberg, "Herbert Hill Remembered", New Politics #38 Vol X No. 2 (Winter 2005), 113-15.
• Michael Meyers, "Tribute to Herbert Hill", New Politics #38 Vol X No. 2 (Winter 2005), 116-17.
• Gilbert Jonas, "Herbert Hill and the ILGWU", New Politics #38 Vol X No. 2 (Winter 2005), 118-23.
• Steven Greenhouse, "Herbert Hill, a Voice Against Discrimination, Dies at 80," New York Times, August 21, 2004

Sources used: New York Times obituary, University of Wisconsin Faculty Document 1824 and articles by and about Herbert Hill in New Politics (magazine) including memorial articles by Stephen Steinberg, Michael Meyers and Gilbert Jonas.