Clarence R. Clouden was an old man. He was an old 63 when I first met him in 1981, and he had grown older with time since then. He could have been the twin brother of photographer Gordon Parks, with his rugged good looks,
long white mane and enormous mustache. He spoke with a thick Trinidadian accent - whisper soft at times. But it was his eyes that told the true story of his journey.
On Labor Day in 2000, I sat down with him to record an interview that was to be posted on my website. His is a compelling story of the early labor movement in New York City, and I wanted people to know him through his struggle. Little did I know that in less than five years after our talk, he would be gone.
Meet Clarence Clouden
I can think of no one more deserving of a day off on this Labor Day than my friend Clarence Clouden, who has worked most of his 82 years on this earth. He was born in Enterprise Village, in Croni County, Trinidad on February 18, 1918. As a young boy, the machinery of the Shell Oil Company fascinated Clarence. Shell was in Trinidad to drill for oil. The oil company could not get tools or materials sent to Trinidad on a frequent basis and therefore had to establish local machine shops to salvage, repair and fit all the big welding equipment necessary to maintain the oil fields.
At the age of 18, in 1936, Clarence landed a job in the machine shop of Shell Oil. He immediately became proficient on the welding machinery. Clarence worked hard and, over the following years became a welding expert. In 1939, Clouden was already an advanced welder. In the early 1950s, Clarence met American woman in Curacao. He married her and moved to New York City, where they lived on 143rd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem.
Segregated Unions
“In those days,” recalls Mr. Clouden, “in New York City it was kind of a mirror. You could see through the glass, but you realized that there was a barrier. Carpenters and masons were divided along racial lines. The Carpenters’ Local had a white Hall located downtown, and a black local, located in Harlem. The masons were segregated the same way. The white Local controlled everything. Blacks were hired to work only in the shops. We fabricated the steel, but the whites on the actual project sites, constructing the project, made the real money. This had gone on for decades, way back to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, right through to the building of Madison Square Garden. And it was all based on the color of our skin.”
“In 1954 they made a law that created the Manpower Bureau. During the war a law was passed that said all shipyards, all factories, all shops that do business with the federal government were under the jurisdiction of the Manpower Bureau, which stated that they must hire minorities. They might not keep you, but they had to hire you. Maybe they’d work you until your number comes up to be laid off.”
The one thing Clouden had going for himself was his talent as a welder. He was better than most men - black or white - with more experience, and driven by his pride to prove himself despite the discrimination; despite anything.
The widespread overt racism in the building trades continued until well into the 1960s, when the NAACP and Martin Luther King, Jr. started picketing the project sites to get more blacks hired, particularly for building projects in the middle of black communities. Clouden was by then a senior ironworker with impeccable credentials. In 1965, he was chosen to represent all of the black ironworkers in New York City.
Accepted into a White Local
Then in a move to undermine the civil rights protesters, Local 40, the white local responsible for placing workers on outside projects, brought Clouden into their fold. When Clouden asked to report to the NAACP, his supervisor told him it wasn’t necessary, “You’re one of us now.”
In one incident, when Clouden was sent to a project, and reported to the white project superintendent, he took one look at Clouden and remarked, “Damn! You must be goddamned good! I’ve never seen your kind outside [meaning on an outside project].” The job lasted about six weeks, and Clarence moved on to another project.
“After that project I went to work on the U.S. Customs Building in lower Manhattan. The day I reported on the job it was snowing and cold. I went to a shanty, which is something like today’s locker room, where the workers changed their clothes. Every shanty I went to, the white men told me we have no room in here for you. I went to four or five shanties and none of the white men would let me hang up my clothes there. Then in the last shanty I entered, after the whites told me there was no room, a Native American - a member of Local 361 in Brooklyn - stood up and told me, “Hang your clothes up over here.”
“I worked with the shops until 1964, when my shop closed in Harlem at 176th Street and Harlem River Drive. I got a job at Harlem Hospital working out of Local 40. It was quite an experience working on a project up in Harlem, with all the white workers and just myself, the only black. I became sort of a celebrity in the neighborhood. After all, here we are building a project on 135th Street in Harlem, with black folks passing by all day. They would wave at me, and felt proud of me for being the only black face on the project.
Some of the white co-workers would act nice on the job site, but back at the Hall [headquarters for the Local] they’d act totally differently. There was a young white fella, who always joked around and acted friendly toward me on the job site. And one day back at the hall, I went over and sat next to him. He got up and walked away.” I looked at Clouden and I could see the pain registered on his face from an incident that happened over 35 years ago.
“Yeah; it was kinda rough for us in those years.” He chuckles as if turning a page in his life, so as not to linger too long. “During that time in the mid-sixties, I joined a group called Black Economic Survival, which protested and picketed job sites all over New York. We demanded that more blacks be hired on the job sites. We made a lot of noise back in those days, and noise led to changes.”
“From 1965 on, I worked outside on the high steel jobs for companies like Bethlehem Steel. We welded the joints, and the moment plates on big girders, on building structures as high as 45 stories.
“All through my career in New York, I had gained a certain amount of respect in the industry based on my ability and my seniority. I got along well with the supervisors.”
In the early 1980s work got slow and Clarence decided to retire at the age of 65. Having first visited Atlanta back in 1958, Clarence always said if he ever retired, he would come back to Atlanta. Once in Atlanta, his marriage ended, and Clarence found himself alone with a new house and few friends in his newly adopted town.
When then Mayor Andrew Young created a committee to investigate business opportunities in Trinidad. Clarence met one of the committee members who had a little construction supply company. He was offered a job selling supplies to contractors. Well in 1984, that’s where our paths crossed for the first time. I was the project engineer and purchasing director for a very successful local contractor. We constructed many of major projects in the mid-1980s like St Joseph’s Hospital, the Parkway 75 project and many others. Clarence dropped by the office looking to sell some supplies. I was interested because he was working for a black-owned company, and I always tried to use my position to further black business in anyway that I could. As I remember telling Clarence, if his products met the specifications called for, I would do business with him. And so began our friendship.
In 1985, at the age of 67, Clarence opened his own construction supply business, C.R. Clouden & Company. As president of his own company, Clarence Clouden passed over into a new chapter of race-based discrimination: Racism in the marketplace. Strengthened by his early experience in the building trades, Clouden fought for his right to sell products along side of the white-owned suppliers. Though it was difficult breaking through the “good ole boy” system, Clouden was able to find clients here and there.
In today’s marketplace, particularly where it relates to public dollars, the playing field is not level. Clouden finds that it’s almost impossible to compete with white-owned companies in the construction supply industry. That's why the attack on Affirmative Action was so insulting.
“Those people fighting against Affirmative Action don’t want the black man to have anything. No one mentions that blacks don’t own any manufacturing plants. When I want to sell the City some concrete, where must I buy it - from Williams Brothers or Allied Concrete, two white-owned companies. They sell it to me at their wholesale price. Then they turn around and bid against me with a lower price of their own. Is that a level playing field? How on earth can a minority firm compete with that, without special considerations?”
Knowing Clarence Clouden, even approaching 82, I have to believe that he will find a way to fight organizations like the Southeastern Legal Foundation. After all, he is at heart, a laborer. He has worked all of his life. He has fought racism most of his life. He is still a very proud man, with a firm handshake and a charming demeanor. And he still works six days a week.
You can usually find him at home in Decatur, Georgia, where he runs his business. He lives alone now, but loving memories of his past surround him. You look around in his home and you see old photographs from his days in New York's labor force. You find fond memories of his beloved homeland, Trinidad. What you won't find is any indication of surrender or capitulation. He is after all a master welder, who built the original Madison Square Garden, New York's U.S. Customs Building, the 1964 World's Fair, Harlem Hospital and many other structures. The welds on those buildings are still tight and holding, and so was Clarence Clouden
…until the day he died.
(from "Black Mosaic: Essays for Post Racial America" to be published in November 2013)