Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2015/Fall/Section 018/John Simms Jr.

Overview
John Simms, Jr. (1894 – unknown), an African American chimney sweeper in the 1930s, was born in Westwego, Louisiana. Simms Jr. was a World War I veteran and worked several labor-intensive jobs throughout his child and adulthood.

Early Life and Education
Born in Westwego, LA, Simms Jr. was brought up in an “all negro” tenement division. Simms Jr.'s parents were very poor. His father, John Simms, was a chimney sweeper and an alcoholic. Simms Jr.'s mother, also an alcoholic, was a wash-woman. Simms Jr. dropped out of school after the third grade to work a milk truck in order to help his family. The milk truck paid $2 a week. At ten years old, Simms quit his milk truck job since he couldn’t have as much fun as he wanted and had to get up too early. According to Simms Jr., he then got a job riding a bike, though it is not clear what type of job it was. His new job paid $3.50 a week.

Later Life
Described by interviewer Robert McKinney, John Simms, Jr. was “tall, slender black man with big eyes and white teeth." As an adult, Simms began to follow his father’s footsteps, becoming a chimneysweeper and an alcoholic. He eventually found his wife, Emma Brooks, a kitchen worker for a White household. He took his wife out of the “White folks’ kitchen” since he thought it was demeaning and only paid $3 a week. Simms Jr. then worked at the "Round House," a locomotive maintenance shed, which paid $21.50 a week. After, Simms Jr. eventually teamed up with friend Jeff Scott and became a chimney sweeper. While working as a chimney sweeper, Simms Jr. was called upon to serve in World War I. Not much is know about Simms participation in the war. In an interview with Robert McKinney, Simms Jr. mentions, “I went to war – didn’t get killed. Come on back – got my bonus.”

In his adult years, Simms frivolously spent money on clothes and strippers, abused alcohol, and regularly beat his wife. These problems were made worse by the decline of Simms and Scott’s chimney sweeping business. Competitors started to emerge and drive down the price of Simms Jr.'s going rate. Housewives would tell Simms Jr. that “the other man said he’d clean my clothes fo’ fity cents.” In addition, the chimney sweeping business created terrible working conditions. Dust and debris would constantly get in one’s eyes and lungs. To stay healthy Simms Jr. drank milk and liquor to “keep from losing [his] lungs.” Simms Jr. tried to join the Works Progress Administration but was unable to. Simms Jr. worked as a chimney sweeper for 18 years.

Great Migration
From 1915 to 1970, nearly 6 million African Americans migrated from the South to cities in the West, Midwest and North such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City. The African American population in popular cities grew by 40 percent, with the amount African American workers in the industry business, such as factories, foundries, and slaughterhouses, doubling. This migration was caused by the poor working and living conditions in the rural South that Jim Crow laws fostered. Jim Crow laws promoted extensive racism, disenfranchisement, and increased violence (roughly 3,500 African Americans lynched between 1882 and 1968) of African Americans. In addition, due to the War, there was a great labor shortage in industrial jobs needed to make war time goods and less European labor immigration. The need for industrial goods were at an all-time high. Industrial jobs in steel, car, and ammunition production were offered to African Americans.

Migration to northern cities was especially common in Louisiana. Though many African Americans migrated due to the better job market in the North, many left due to the sheer racism present in Louisiana. A New Orleans native wrote to The Chicago Defender expressing excitement to be alleviated “of the burden of the South. I indeed wish to come north, anywhere in [Illinois] will do since I am away from from the Lynchman’s noose and torchman’s fire."

Returning African American WWI Soldiers
World War I ended on November 11, 1918. Returning African American soldiers highly anticipated a positive shift in outlook and greater civil rights from a dominantly White society due to their patriotic service in the war. Political leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois organized pro-African American civil right conferences, such as a Pan-African Conference conducted in Paris from February 19-21, 1919, to raise opposition to European Colonialism. In addition, on February 17, 1919, the 369th Infantry Regiment, the first African-American and African Puerto Rican regiment to serve in the United States Army, organized a demonstration and paraded through Harlem in front of 250,000 spectators. In May of 1919, Du Bois echoed this attitude expressed by African Americans by writing in The Crisis, the official NAACP magazine, "We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why."



The effects of World War I are often overlooked in comparison to the Civil War and World War II due to the fact that significant racial condition improvements weren't made. However, World War I brought about great change for returning soldiers and the black civil rights movement as a whole. Through the Great Migration, huge demographic shifts of African Americans in the rural South to the industrial North were seen. Black soldiers were brought into the army, fighting for their country while experiencing new lands. In sum, the return of African American WWI soldiers represented a revitalized passion in African Americans to fight for democracy and to rally for social equality.