Monday, March 1, 2021

The Great Divergence: A Fork in the Road for the Global Economy [feedly]

Personally, I think the Great Divergence was ignited long ago, but this is nonetheless a sobering report and the pandemic corruptions aggravating inequality trends across the world.

The Great Divergence: A Fork in the Road for the Global Economy
https://blogs.imf.org/2021/02/24/the-great-divergence-a-fork-in-the-road-for-the-global-economy/

As G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meet virtually this week, the world continues to climb back from the worst recession in peacetime since the Great Depression.

The IMF recently projected global GDP growth at 5.5 per cent this year and 4.2 per cent in 2022. But it is going to be a long and uncertain ascent. Most of the world is facing a slow rollout of vaccines even as new virus mutations are spreading—and the prospects for recovery are diverging dangerously across countries and regions.

Indeed, the global economy is at a fork in the road. The question is: will policymakers take action to prevent this Great Divergence?

There is a major risk that most developing countries will languish for years to come.

As our note to the G20 meeting points out, there is a major risk that as advanced economies and a few emerging markets recover faster, most developing countries will languish for years to come. This would not only worsen the human tragedy of the pandemic, but also the economic suffering of the most vulnerable.

We estimate that, by the end of 2022, cumulative per capita income will be 13 percent below pre-crisis projections in advanced economies—compared with 18 percent for low-income countries and 22 percent for emerging and developing countries excluding China. This projected hit to per capita income will increase by millions the number of extremely poor people in the developing world.

In other words, the convergence between countries can no longer be taken for granted. Before the crisis, we forecast that income gaps between advanced economies and 110 emerging and developing countries would narrow over 2020–22. But we now estimate that only 52 economies will be catching up during that period, while 58 are set to fall behind.

This is partly because of the uneven access to vaccines. Even in the best-case scenario, most developing economies are expected to reach widespread vaccine coverage only by end-2022 or beyond. Some are especially exposed to hard-hit sectors such as tourism and oil exports, and most of them are held back by the limited room in their budgets.

Last year, advanced economies on average deployed about 24 percent of GDP in fiscal measures, compared with only 6 percent in emerging markets and less than 2 percent in low-income countries. Cross-country comparisons also show how more sizable crisis support was often associated with a smaller loss in employment.

And it is not just divergence across countries. We also see an accelerated divergence within countries: the young, the low-skilled, women, and informal workers have been disproportionately affected by job losses. And millions of children are still facing disruptions to education. Allowing them to become a lost generation would be an unforgiveable mistake.

It would also deepen the long-term economic scars of the crisis, which would make it even more difficult to reduce inequality and boost growth and jobs. Think of the challenges ahead: for G20 economies alone (excluding India and Saudi Arabia due to data limitations), total employment losses are projected at more than 25 million this year and close to 20 million in 2022, relative to pre-crisis projections.

So again, we stand at a fork in the road—and if we are to reverse this dangerous divergence between and within countries, we must take strong policy actions now. I see three priorities:

First, step up efforts to end the health crisis.

We know that the pandemic is not over anywhere until it is over everywhere. While new infections worldwide have recently declined, we are concerned that multiple rounds of vaccinations may be needed to preserve immunity against new variants.

That is why we need much stronger international collaboration to accelerate the vaccine rollout in poorer countries. Additional financing to secure doses and pay for logistics is critical. So, too, is timely reallocation of excess vaccines from surplus to deficit countries, and a significant scaling up of vaccine production capacity for 2022 and beyond. Insuring vaccine producers against the downside risks of overproduction may be an option worth considering.

We also need to ensure greater access to therapies and testing, including virus sequencing, while steering clear of restrictions on exports of medical supplies. The economic arguments for coordinated action are overwhelming. Faster progress in ending the health crisis could raise global income cumulatively by $9 trillion over 2020–25. That would benefit all countries, including around $4 trillion for advanced economies—which beats by far any measure of vaccine-related costs.

Second, step up the fight against the economic crisis.

Led by G20 countries, the world has taken unprecedented and synchronized measures, including nearly $14 trillion in fiscal actions. Governments need to build on these efforts by continuing to provide fiscal support—appropriately calibrated and targeted to the stage of the pandemic, the state of their economies, and their policy space.

The key is to help maintain livelihoods, while seeking to ensure that otherwise viable companies do not go under. This requires not just fiscal measures, but also maintaining favorable financial conditions through accommodative monetary and financial policies, which support the flow of credit to households and firms.

The considerable monetary easing by major central banks has also enabled several developing economies to regain access to global capital markets and borrow at record-low rates to support spending, despite their historic recessions. Given the gravity of the crisis, there is no alternative to continued monetary policy support. But there are legitimate concerns around unintended consequences, including excessive risk-taking and market exuberance.

One risk going forward—especially in the face of diverging recoveries—is the potential for market volatility in response to changing financial conditions. Major central banks will need to carefully communicate their monetary policy plans to prevent excess volatility in financial markets, both at home and in the rest of the world.

Third, step up support to vulnerable countries.

Given their limited resources and policy space, many emerging market and low-income nations could soon be faced with an excruciating choice between maintaining macroeconomic stability, tackling the health crisis, and meeting peoples' basic needs.

Their increased vulnerability not only affects their own prospects for recovery from the crisis, but also the speed and scale of the global recovery; and it can be a destabilizing force in a number of already fragile areas. Vulnerable countries will need substantial support as part of a comprehensive effort:

The first step begins at home, with governments raising more domestic revenue, making public spending more efficient, and improving the business environment. At the same time, international efforts are critical to further scale up concessional financing and leverage private finance, including through stronger risk-sharing instruments.

Another option under consideration is a new SDR allocation to help address the global long-term need for reserves. This could add a substantial, direct liquidity boost to countries, without adding to debt burdens. It could also expand the capacity of bilateral donors to provide new resources for concessional support, including for health spending. An SDR allocation served the world well in tackling the global financial crisis in 2009—it could serve us well again now.

Following a comprehensive approach also means dealing with debt. The G20's debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) quickly freed up vital resources. And the new Common Framework can go even further: facilitating timely and orderly debt treatments for DSSI-eligible countries, with broad creditor participation including the private sector. These treatments should involve debt service reprofiling to help countries facing large financing needs, and deeper relief where debt burdens have become unsustainable. With the first requests in, the Common Framework should be swiftly operationalized by all creditors—official and private.

For its part, the IMF has stepped up in an unprecedented manner by providing over $105 billion in new financing to 85 countries and debt service relief for our poorest members. We aim to do even more to support our 190 member countries in 2021 and beyond.

That includes supporting efforts to modernize international corporate taxation. We need a system that is truly fit for the digital economy and that is more attuned to the needs of developing countries. Here multilateral efforts will be essential to help ensure that highly profitable firms pay tax in markets where they do business and thereby strengthen public finances.

These policy measures can help address the Great Divergence. Given their resources, advanced economies will continue to invest in human capital, digital infrastructure, and the transition to the new climate economy. It is vital that poorer countries have the support they need to make similar investments, especially in the job-rich climate adaptation measures that will be essential as our planet gets warmer.

The alternative—to leave poorer countries behind—would only entrench abject inequality. Even worse, it would represent a major threat to global economic and social stability. And it would rank as a historic missed opportunity.

We can take inspiration from the spectacular international cooperation that has given us effective vaccines in record time. That spirit is now more important than ever to overcome this crisis and secure a strong and inclusive recovery.


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Executive action to combat wage theft against U.S. workers [feedly]

An issue every labor council and community allies could develop.
Executive action to combat wage theft against U.S. workers
https://equitablegrowth.org/executive-action-to-combat-wage-theft-against-u-s-workers/

Executive action to combat wage theft against U.S. workers 
from Equitable Growth

Overview

Wage theft against U.S. workers exacerbates the long-run problem of low and stagnant wages. When companies commit wage theft, they impoverish families and deprive workers of the just compensation for their hard work, robbing workers of the value they contribute to economic growth and exacerbating economic inequality.

The odds that a low-wage worker will be illegally paid less than the minimum wage ranges from 10 percent to 22 percent, depending on overall economic conditions, and each violation costs that worker an average of 20 percent of the pay they deserve. Women, people of color, and noncitizens are especially vulnerable to wage theft and especially likely to feel they are not in a position to report the crime and get justice.

Cracking down on lawbreaking companies that don't pay workers what they are owed is a straightforward way for the Biden administration to raise the incomes and living standards of U.S. workers and their families.

Executive action

The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal agency tasked with detecting, deterring, and punishing wage theft under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Biden administration can take several steps to enhance the power and effectiveness of this important agency:

  • Ask for a large increase for the budget of the Wage and Hour Division in the president's fiscal year 2022 budget request
  • Prioritize strategic enforcement to use resources as effectively as possible
  • Pursue co-enforcement with community-based organizations
  • Protect workers from misclassification as independent contractors

We will discuss each in order below.

INCREASE THE BUDGET AND INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY OF THE WAGE AND HOUR DIVISION

One of the central problems facing U.S. workers is that the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor does not have the resources necessary to fulfill its responsibilities. As of May 1, 2020, the division employed 779 investigators to protect more than 143 million workers, which is fewer than the 1,000 investigators it employed back in 1948 when it was only responsible for safeguarding the rights of 22.6 million workers.

President Joe Biden's first budget should request that Congress more appropriately fund the Wage and Hour Division. For instance, the International Labor Organization recommends a benchmark of one investigator per 10,000 workers, which would require roughly 13,500 more investigators to be hired. Currently, this may be out of reach. But, at the very least, the Biden administration's first budget request for the division should, in real terms, exceed the FY2016 request for $332,543,000 to fund 2,044 full-time staff. 

The Wage and Hour Division can also work better with state and local agencies. A grant program should be created to support state and local enforcement agencies to facilitate sharing of innovative strategies and practices. Such a program would promote more effective enforcement at all levels while enhancing the potential for coordinating across agencies. In addition, the division should review and update its Memoranda of Understanding with state enforcement agencies that allow for reciprocal information-sharing and maximize coordinated interagency enforcement efforts.

PRIORITIZE STRATEGIC ENFORCEMENT

No matter what the funding situation is, the Wage and Hour Division can also more effectively use its resources to police illegal conduct by businesses. Strategic enforcement differs from reactive, complaint-based enforcement in that agencies proactively and visibly target high-violation industries and maximize the use of enforcement powers to increase the real and perceived costs of noncompliance with labor laws, without waiting for vulnerable workers to initiate complaints.

The division should reprioritize its personnel and other resources toward pursuing proactive investigations to better reach those industries with high violation rates but in which few complaints are filed. Under the Obama administration, roughly half of all investigations were initiated proactively. This is especially important today, amid the coronavirus recession. Research demonstrates that wage violations increase when the unemployment rate is high. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1

Even though U.S. workers are more likely to experience wage violations during moments of economic contraction, that does not mean they are more likely to initiate complaints. The scarcity of jobs means that workers may not be able to find alternatives to their current employment situation, making them more afraid to complain about wage theft, lest they be fired or retaliated against. The power differential between workers and employers in economic downturns simultaneously emboldens employers who treat workers poorly and raises the stakes for workers who complain. This problem is most acute among low-wage workers who face the largest power differential vis-à-vis their employers.

Research on minimum wage enforcement suggests that workers in industries with the worst conditions are much less likely to complain about wage theft. Most wage theft goes unreported, and it is especially present in industries where women and people of color are overrepresented. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2

The Wage and Hour Division needs to prioritize strategic enforcement, so its limited budget has the maximum impact on the most-vulnerable workers and most wage-theft-prone sectors. It can do this in several ways, according to the authors of the essay "Strategic enforcement and co-enforcement of U.S. labor standards are needed to protect workers through the coronavirus recession" in Equitable Growth's new book of essays, Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy:

  • "First, the use of proactive investigations in targeted industries means enforcement resources are more likely to identify and reach vulnerable workers who are unlikely to complain."
  • "Likewise, industry research to identify industry structure, influential employers, and widespread noncompliant industry practices helps agencies target employers that are likely to get the attention of others in the industry."
  • "Strategic enforcement includes … assessing high damages and penalties in addition to back wages owed." These measures deter future violations by changing the cost-benefit calculation some employers make when they decide that violating the law is worth the risk of being caught.

By not only increasing the budgets of enforcers, but also by using those limited resources more strategically, the U.S. Department of Labor can ensure that its investments in enforcement have maximum impact.

PURSUE CO-ENFORCEMENT WITH COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

One of the central problems with complaint-based investigations is that some classes of workers are less likely to report wage theft than others. Power dynamics at workplaces and in the community mean that women, noncitizens, and people of color risk more when they report abuses. Indeed, this is the pattern that the data show. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3

In a co-enforcement model, labor agencies enter formal partnerships with civil society organizations that have strong relationships with low-wage workers and deep knowledge of high-violation sectors to help uncover violations that would otherwise go unreported and provide support to vulnerable workers so that they face lower levels of risk when they speak up. As explained by the same labor market scholars cited above:

Problems will remain hidden unless workers speak up, yet vulnerable workers will not speak up in isolation …Without a connection to the workforce on which the agency can build an investigation, proactive investigations can be daunting and the agency may be unable to establish violations are occurring. Worker organizations have access to information on labor standards compliance that would be difficult, if not impossible, for state officials to gather on their own.

To that end, the Wage and Hour Division should engage in thoughtful outreach to worker organizations. To do so, the division should hire at least one community outreach and resource planning specialist for each of its 54 district offices. These CORPS workers are full-time Wage and Hour Division staff charged with working with worker centers, unions, and community organizations on campaigns related to the division's targeted industries before and after investigations. These officers should also, when possible, facilitate partnerships on enforcement actions, which they have not prioritized in the past.

PROTECT WORKERS FROM MISCLASSIFICATION AS INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS

Wage theft is much easier to monitor and prosecute when employment relations are well-defined and an employer's responsibility to its workers is clear. Lax rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act about whether workers should be classified as an employee or as an independent contractor naturally advantage employers, who are more able to litigate these legal grey areas. Classifying workers as independent contractors is a common way for companies to evade their legal responsibilities and oversight by the Wage and Hour Division.

Misclassifying workers as independent contractors, rather than as employees, allows employers to disregard most safety net protections the United States has established for workers, including wage laws, but also health and safety regulations, protection from discrimination, and the right to organize in a union. The research clearly establishes that the independent contractor classification further reduces low-wage workers' total earnings. Misclassification can economically disadvantage workers by:

  • Outright lowering their pay below the minimum wage or overtime threshold (often by forcing them into complex and ever-changing pay schemes)
  • Forcing contractors to perform work tasks while not being paid
  • Forcing workers to purchase, use, and maintain personal resources or equipment (their own cars, for instance) to accomplish their job

Though wage theft from contractors usually operates through these more elaborate and ostensibly legal channels, worker misclassification also breeds outright wage theft, as a recent case by the Federal Trade Commission against Amazon.com Inc. shows.

The Wage and Hour Division should clarify who is an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act and who is an independent contractor. To do so, it should follow the lead of states such as Massachusetts and California, and adopt a simple test called the "ABC test" to determine employment status. Typically, the ABC test has three factors, all of which the alleged employer must demonstrate in order for the worker to be an independent contractor:

  • The worker is free, under contract and in fact, from control or direction by the company.
  • The service provided is outside the alleged employer's usual course of business.
  • The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business.

A rebuttable presumption of employee status and the ABC test should replace the economic realities test under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Late in the Trump administration, the Wage and Hour Division released an independent contractor rule that made it easier for employers to misclassify their workers as contractors, lowering their pay in direct opposition to the goals of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Thankfully, this rule has now been delayed by the new leadership of the Wage and Hour Division. The division should go further and revoke or revise the proposed rule, and establish a new independent contractor rule that protects workers along the lines of the ABC test, fulfilling the intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act to correct "labor conditions detrimental to the … general well-being of workers."

Experts to consult

  • Kate Bahn, director of labor market policy, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
  • Janice Fine, professor of labor studies and employment relations, Rutgers University, and director of research and strategy, Center for Innovation in Worker Organization
  • Alix Gould-Werth, director of family economic security policy, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
  • Corey Husak, senior manager, government and external relations, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
  • Jenn Round, senior fellow, Center for Innovation in Worker Organization, Rutgers University
  • David Weil, dean and professor, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University



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Economic Update - The System Implodes: Amazon, Evictions, Tax Abuses, and Minimum Wages [feedly]

Economic Update - The System Implodes: Amazon, Evictions, Tax Abuses, and Minimum Wages
https://economicupdate.podbean.com/e/economic-update-the-system-implodes-amazon-evictions-tax-abuses-and-minimum-wages/

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Amazon's profits; New York state's eviction crisis and capitalism's reproduction of poverty and inequality; New York's stock transfer tax; raising the minimum wage; and the subsidizing of billionaire's big sport businesses.

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For Black History Month: The Economics of the Great Migration [feedly]

For Black History Month: The Economics of the Great Migration
http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2021/02/for-black-history-month-the-economics-of-the-great-migration.html

Ellora Derenencourt, assistant professor in the Department of Economics and the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

At the tail end of Black History Month, we have posted to the Dollars & Sense website Rolling Up the Welcome Mat at the Door to the Promised Land: The Economic History of the Great Migration and Its Aftermath, an interview with Ellora Derenoncourt, assistant professor of economics at UC Berkeley.  (Make sure to check out the gorgeous photos accompanying the written version of the interview, also in the print edition, from the Charles "Teenie" Harris Archives at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art. Harris was a staff photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American weekly newspaper whose publication years, 1910 to 1966, coincided almost exactly with the years of the Great Migration.)

The interview was conducted by Zoe Sherman, associate professor of economics at Merrimack College and a member of the Dollars & Sense editorial collective.  You can listen to the interview here:


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Six ways the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act restores workers’ bargaining power [feedly]

Six ways the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act restores workers' bargaining power
https://www.epi.org/blog/six-ways-the-protecting-the-right-to-organize-pro-act-restores-workers-bargaining-power/

When it was passed in 1935, the National Labor Relations Act declared that its purpose was to promote the practice of collective bargaining, where workers and their union sit down with their employer to negotiate over wages, safety, fairness, and other important issues. But over time, this promise has become hollow because weaknesses in the law have been exploited by employers and the courts to undermine workers' bargaining power. Here are six ways the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act helps to level the playing field and restore workers' bargaining power:

  1. The PRO Act has a process for reaching a first collective bargaining agreement.
    When workers first form a union, too often employers drag out the bargaining process and avoid reaching an initial agreement, because there are no monetary penalties in the law for bad faith bargaining. A year after forming their union, more than half of all workers do not yet have an initial bargaining agreement with their employer. This leads to worker frustration which employers exploit to undermine the new union. The PRO Act addresses this problem by establishing a mediation and arbitration process for reaching an initial agreement.
  2. The PRO Act requires employers to continue bargaining instead of taking unilateral action.
    Current law gives employers too much power to force its position on workers by unilaterally declaring that the parties have reached an impasse in bargaining and then either locking out workers—preventing them from working and getting paid— or implementing the employer's proposals. This power, either alone or combined with the restrictions on workers' ability to strike or put other economic pressure on the employer, puts employers in the driver's seat in bargaining and greatly undermines workers' bargaining power. To address this problem, the PRO Act prohibits employers from declaring impasse and locking out workers—a so-called "offensive lockout." And the PRO Act requires employers to maintain the status quo on wages and benefits during bargaining—no more unilateral changes to put pressure on workers to cave into the employer's demands.
  3. The PRO Act gets the economic players to the bargaining table.
    Under current law, staffing firms, contractors, temporary agencies, and other employers try to evade their responsibility to bargain with workers and their union even when they have power over workers' health and safety, schedules, wages, and other key issues. This leaves workers without the real economic players at the bargaining table. The PRO Act fixes this problem by adopting a strong joint-employer standard that will bring employers with power over wages or working conditions to the bargaining table.
  4. The PRO Act eliminates the ban on so-called "secondary" activity.
    In order to win a wage increase, a voice on new technology, safety improvements, or other bargaining priorities, workers need leverage to put economic pressure on their employer to accept their demands. But current law robs workers of their leverage in many ways, including a prohibition on so-called "secondary" activity that was enacted by Congress in 1947. In fact, current law instructs the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to give top priority to shutting down so-called "secondary" activity. These cases are given even higher priority than cases alleging that employers have illegally fired union activists, and statistics show this has in fact been the case. For example, in the first 12 years after the restriction on secondary activity was first implemented, the number of injunction proceedings against unions for engaging in illegal secondary activity skyrocketed by 1,188%, while virtually no injunction proceedings were brought against employers for violating workers' rights.1 This restriction on secondary activity forbids workers from picketing or otherwise putting pressure on so-called "neutral" companies other than their employer, even if those companies could influence their employer's practices by, for example, withholding purchases until workers and their employer reach a collective bargaining agreement. The restriction has been interpreted so broadly as to prohibit janitors from picketing a building management company over sexual harassment by its janitorial subcontractor. The Trump NLRB General Counsel unsuccessfully tried to argue that floating an inflatable Scabby the Rat balloon at a labor protest was illegal secondary activity, even though courts have consistently said such protests are protected by the First Amendment. Given the prevalence of subcontracting and the interrelated nature of business relationships, the ban on secondary activity does not reflect the realities of today's business structures. It deprives workers of an important tool in the bargaining process and unfairly tips the power balance to employers. To correct this imbalance, the PRO Act repeals the ban on secondary activity.
  5. The PRO Act prohibits employers from permanently replacing strikers.
    Workers' ultimate leverage in bargaining is to withhold their labor—in other words, to strike. The law technically protects workers from being fired when they go on a lawful strike, but this right has been gutted by a 1938 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which stated that employers can permanently replace, i.e., terminate, workers who are on strike over economic issues. Despite a slight increase in strike activity last year, the number of strikes continues to be at a historic low in part because of this weakness in the law. The PRO Act restores the right to strike by prohibiting employers from permanently replacing economic strikers.
  6. The PRO Act overrides state "right-to-work" laws that weaken unions.
    So-called "right-to-work" laws have nothing to do with getting or keeping a job—they are about weakening workers' collective voice on the job. Under the law, unions are required to represent all workers protected by the collective bargaining agreement, but so-called "right to work" laws prohibit unions and employers from voluntarily agreeing that all workers covered and protected by the agreement should share in the costs of union representation through union dues or fees. This creates a "free rider" problem, where workers get the benefits of unionization but do not contribute toward the costs, creating a financial drain on unions. The PRO Act overrides state "right-to-work" laws and allows unions and employers to negotiate fair share agreements whereby all workers covered by the collective bargaining agreement share in the cost of representation.

Read EPI'S fact sheet on why workers need the PRO Act.


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[The Washington Post] America’s first post-World War II race riot led to the near-lynching of Thurgood Marshall

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/02/25/columbia-race-riot-wwii-thurgood-marshall/

On Feb. 25, 1946, a Black woman, Gladys Stephenson, and her son, James Stephenson, who had recently been discharged from the Navy, went to Castner-Knott to pick up a radio that needed to be repaired. William Fleming, a White man who worked at the department store in downtown Columbia, Tenn., charged her for the repair, but the radio still didn't work.

Gladys Stephenson and Fleming got into an argument. Fleming slapped her. James Stephenson interceded, and the two men got into a scuffle. Stephenson shoved Fleming through the store's plate-glass window. White men, hearing the ruckus and seeing Fleming on the sidewalk, attacked James Stephenson. When his mother intervened, she, too, was beaten. The Stephensons were arrested and charged with assault.

Race relations were already tense in Maury County, where African Americans still remembered Cordie Cheek, a Black teenager who was taken from his home, beaten, castrated and lynched after being falsely accused of raping a White girl in 1933.

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Tensions intensified in the South in the months after the end of World War II, when Black veterans returned home to find that Jim Crow laws consigned them to second-class citizenship. When Black veterans pushed for racial equality, White law enforcement officers responded violently.

Two weeks before the incident at Castner-Knott, Isaac Woodard, a decorated Army veteran who had been discharged earlier that day and was still wearing his uniform, exchanged words with a White bus driver. He was subsequently beaten so brutally by a South Carolina sheriff that he was left permanently blind. Days earlier, veteran Timothy Hood took down a Jim Crow sign in Bessemer, Ala. A streetcar conductor shot him five times, and the police chief followed him home and shot him in the head, killing him. The coroner ruled the killing a "justifiable homicide."

After the Stephensons were arrested, White men began drinking in the Columbia town square and plotting to punish the mother and son for their impudence. The White men went to the jail and demanded that the sheriff, J.J. Underwood, release the Stephensons. Underwood refused. He contacted a prominent Black businessman, who smuggled the Stephensons out of town.

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By then, word of the confrontation at the jail had spread to the nearby Black neighborhood of Mink Slide. Black residents, including many war veterans, suspected their lives were in danger and armed themselves. According to an account in Thomas Brooks's "Walls Come Tumbling Down: A History of the Civil Rights Movement," one of the veterans shouted, "We fought for freedom overseas! And we'll fight for it here!"

Someone shot out the streetlights in Mink Slide, presumably so White intruders would not see where they might direct their gunfire. Hearing the shots, four Columbia patrolmen ran toward Mink Slide, where they were met with gunfire and injured.

Hundreds of state police and other law enforcement officers converged on Mink Slide early the next morning, forcing residents from their houses and confiscating their guns, jewelry and money. Homes and businesses were destroyed.

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Harry Raymond, a reporter for the Daily Worker, a communist newspaper published in New York City that campaigned against racial discrimination, counted 34 bullets in front of a barber shop. He said the letters "KKK" were scrawled on the walls of businesses. A jukebox was smashed in one business and the money removed from it. A bayonet was shoved through the music box in another business, and a grocery store was pillaged. Raymond described the destruction inside a church: "With fiendishness, these men, sworn to uphold law and order, ripped and tore the chapel draperies. Pieces of wreckage were on top of a Bible on the pulpit."

Over the next two days, dozens of Black residents — but no Whites — were arrested. Police identified two of the men, William Gordon and James Johnson, as being the primary troublemakers. When they were being questioned, one of them reportedly grabbed a confiscated weapon and shot and injured one of the police officers. Police responded by shooting and killing Gordon and Johnson.

Image without a caption
Thurgood Marshall outside the Supreme Court in Washington in 1958. (AP) (Uncredited/AP)

Walter White, executive director of the NAACP, sent the organization's top attorney, Thurgood Marshall, to defend the 25 suspects charged with rioting and attempted murder. But Marshall contracted pneumonia, and the suspects were defended by Z. Alexander Looby of Nashville, Maurice Weaver of Chattanooga and Harvard law professor Leon Ransom.

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The judge moved the case to nearby Lawrence County, where a jury, resentful of the fact that, according to prosecutor Paul Bumpus, "Maury County had dumped its dirty laundry on them," acquitted 23 of the 25 suspects.

Marshall, who had by then recovered from his illness, represented the two remaining suspects in their appeal in mid-November. The all-White jury found one guilty.

When the trial ended, Marshall and the other attorneys knew it was not safe for them to remain in Columbia and decided to drive to Nashville. Shortly after leaving Columbia, they realized they were being followed by several cars, including a police car. They were pulled over by the police. Marshall was arrested for being drunk — even though he had had nothing to drink — handcuffed and put in one of the cars.

Raymond, Looby and Weaver were told Marshall was being taken back to Columbia and ordered to continue to Nashville. Looby saw that the police car and the other cars were not returning to Columbia. He followed them as they turned down a dirt road.

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"They're taking him into the woods," Raymond told the others. "They're going to lynch Thurgood Marshall."

Marshall saw a menacing group of White men waiting at the end of the road. But upon seeing Marshall's friends, the police knew that they could not continue with their plans. Marshall was driven back to Columbia to face charges of being drunk.

An elderly judge demanded that Marshall breathe into his face. Marshall obliged. The judge then turned toward the police officer and snapped: "This man hasn't had a drink in 24 hours. What the hell are you talking about?"

Marshall was free to leave but worried about what would happen to him once he got back on the road. Local Black residents escorted Marshall and the others out of town, hiding them in different cars.

The experience made an impression with Marshall, who later argued Brown v. Board of Education in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and went on to become the country's first African American Supreme Court justice. "He had a newly found fear of white mobs and violent policemen," his biographer Juan Williams wrote.

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And the riot had longer-reaching effects — the event and other violence against African Americans prompted President Harry S. Truman to establish the President's Committee on Civil Rights to document instances of racial violence and to make recommendations to address racial discrimination in the United States. In 1948, as a result of the commission's conclusions, Truman signed Executive Order 9981 that ended segregation in the armed forces.

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