Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Fall/105i/Section 50/Joe Haskins

Overview
Joe Haskins was an African-American man that was grew up in Pennsylvania. He moved to Oklahoma where he worked as an oil rig builder and was a member of the Oil Workers International Union. Haskins was interviewed for the Oklahoma Federal Papers Project on May, 6 1939 by interviewee Danial M. Garrison. Haskins's birthdate, birthplace, death date, death place, nor death cause are known or confirmed as they were not mentioned in this interview.

Early Life
Joe Haskins was born in the mountains of Pennsylvania in the late nineteenth century (specific date is unknown). He grew up with his mother (unknown name) and his father (Joe) and they had three other sons. Haskins's father made moonshine whiskey for a living while his mother farmed. Both parents were strict and taught the boys how to help their mother with the farming as soon as they were old enough. Joe Haskins nor any of his brothers completed school past the second grade. Haskins eventually moved to Oklahoma were he would get married and live during his adulthood.

Later Life
After Haskins moved to Oklahoma, he would get married (his wife's name was not mentioned in the interview) and raise four kids with his wife. His oldest son, Joe, was twenty years old at the time of the interview and was known as the "brains of the family" according to his father. At the time of the interview, Joe Haskins Jr. was pursuing a degree in business at a university in Oklahoma City. The next oldest child was Leon, nicknamed "Greb" and he was working with his father on a rig building crew as a ground man at the time of the interview. His third oldest child was named Ruby, the only girl of the family, and she was a high school student at the time of the interview. Joe Haskins noted that Ruby was embarrassed of her family's financial situation and his profession because she was attending an affluent high school with students from higher income backgrounds. Tuffy was the youngest child of the family and he was only ten years old at the time of the interview.

Despite having two children in school at the time of the interview, the education system in Oklahoma in the early-mid twentieth century was highlighted by racial inequality. The Haskins family was not particularly religious as Joe said he left all the "praying for the family" for his wife. He was more concerned with his work and involvement in the Oil Workers International Union, a labor union for workers in the oil industry.

Union Involvement and Great Depression
Similar to most parts of the economy, The Great Depression took a major hit on the oil industry for several years. Prior to this recession, Haskins was working as a rig builder as many days a year as he wanted and made as much as $25 a day. The Great Depression not only dropped daily wages to $11 a day, but Haskins mentioned that he would only be called in to work about five times per month. Haskins and other rig builders formed the Oil Workers International Union because their limited demand for work was frequently being stolen by scab-herding contractors and the formation of this Union was an effective was to ensure their wages would not drop even more through these contractors taking their work.

Oil Workers International Union
Although labor unions had previously existed for workers in the oil industry, there was no strong presence for oil riggers until the Oil Workers International Union was established in 1937.

This union gained a strong following after the Great Depression because the failing economy significantly drove down demand for oil riggers so wages, hours, and working conditions all got worse for laborers. President Teddy Roosevelt's implementation of the National Industrial Recovery Act was a turning point in the development of these labor unions as workers were given the rights to "organize free of employer coercion, and to bargain collectively without intimidation." In 1937, the OWIU officially gained its liberation of labor and this union was led by Harvey Fremming.

However, in 1938, the lingering impacts of the Great Recession still forced large numbers of layoffs in the rigging industry. In December of the same year, the largest strike in the history of this union would occur in Oklahoma because the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had to let go of many organizers for the OWIU and the union felt they were losing their control. Although the union was dealing with adversity in the late 1930's, one of the ways it fought back against the scab-herding contractors that would attempt to steal riggers rare working hours through injunction was through their promise to never work again for a contractor that did not pay a fine to the union when this happened.

In 1945, the OWIU would have another strike that improved the wages and working conditions for its 20,000 members. Payment of 48 hour weeks was agreed upon through the strike where the employee would receive wages for time and a half for their final eight working hours of the week. In other words employees were working 48 hours per week and being paid for 52 hours.

Racism in Oklahoma
Throughout the twentieth century, racism was extremely prevalent in Oklahoma. African-American and Native American groups were subject to this unfair treatment enforced by the more powerful white population. One of the most prevalent ways minority groups were subject to this racism was through education. Oklahoma residents would almost always vote to segregate schools by race due to the First Territorial Legislature Law that was passed in 1897 which resulted in lower quality of education for minorities and many of these children received little to none of their early years in school. In 1915, Senate Bill Number One implemented laws that would segregate hospitals, restaurants, pay-phone booths, cemeteries, and housing between the white population and colored people During the early to mid twentieth century, Native Americans were far inferior to the white population in Oklahoma, yet they were generally accepted as superior to African-Americans and were not subject to the same level of discrimination as the African-American population

In 1921 a large-scale riot known as The Tulsa Riot of 1921 occurred in northern, less prosperous side of Tulsa. The booming oil industry in the previous years widened the wealth gap between the oil tycoons and the residents that lived in northern Tulsa. These riots began when an African American teen named Dick Rowland was falsely accused of sexual assaulting a white teenage girl in Tulsa. Rowland was taken into custody and many white people were protesting for the authorities to release him so he could potentially be lynched. The African American community responded by bringing a group of armed men outside the courthouse that were supporting Rowland and protesting his innocence. Eventually, the white population that drastically outnumbered the African-Americans started violently fighting back and shots were being fired. The African-Americans stopped protesting and went back to their neighborhoods but were followed by the angry white population that was beginning to show violence.

The white population would essentially burn down entire neighborhoods of the primarily African-American inhabited northern side of the city. Schools, churches, hospitals, and hundreds of homes were all burnt down by the racist white population and several other stores and houses were looted over this incident. Many of the white rioters were stole resources such as guns and torches from Tulsa stores before they followed the African-Americans back to their homes and violently swarmed the neighborhood of Greenwood. On June 2nd, 1921, the morning after this brutal and unjustified attack on the African-American community, Rowland was found not guilty of the original accusation that was made up and caused the riot.

The city of Tulsa confirmed 36 deaths, 10 white and 26 black, from this barbaric night. However, it is believed that there were several hundred African-American lives that were lost on this night that were never officially reported