Alabama Photos: A Mobile Youth Orchestra in 1937

I found the first photograph below in D. Antoinette Handy's Black Women in American Bands and Orchestras [1981]. Then I found it and a related photo at a web site devoted to the history of America's New Deal during the Great Depression. The photos show a girls' orchestra performing in Mobile under the auspices of the National Youth Administration. Let's investigate.

President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the National Youth Administration in June 1935 and it operated as part of the Works Progress Administration until 1939. The NYA was discontinued in 1943 as the economic effects of World War II began to take effect. The agency paid grants to young people aged 16 to 25 to assist with job training and actual jobs in public works and service projects. That web site on the New Deal I mentioned has some detail from the NYA's final report about the orchestras sponsored by the agency. 

There is another important Alabama connection at the NYA. The agency's Executive Director for its entire existence was Aubrey Willis Williams, who was born in Springville in St. Clair County on August 23, 1890. Despite his impoverished background, by the time he was 30 he had earned a PhD at the University of Bordeaux in France and begun a career in social work in Ohio and Wisconsin. President Roosevelt appointed him as Assistant Federal Relief Administrator under Harry Hopkins, an important New Deal figure and a close advisor to FDR.

When the National Youth Administration was organized, Roosevelt selected  Williams to direct it. One of his early tasks required him to appoint a Youth Director for each of the 48 states; he picked future president Lyndon Baines Johnson to head the operation in Texas. The 26 year-old Johnson soon earned a reputation for fairness that included black participation in the agency's programs. This experience may have influenced President Johnson's Great Society programs and efforts such as Job Corps and Upward Bound.

In 1945 after the NYA had been dissolved, Roosevelt appointed Williams to be director of the Rural Electrification Administration. His support of blacks in federal programs meant that Southern senators did not support him and  blocked his nomination.

He returned to Alabama to continue civil rights work, but attacks by Southern politicians who wanted to link integration and communism continued. These men included the powerful senator from Mississippi James Eastland and Governor George Wallace.

In 1945 Williams and Alabama journalist Gould Beech had purchased The Southern Farmer newspaper and turned it into a venue for liberal opinion and activity in the South. The paper eventually failed, and Williams returned to Washington, D.C., in the early 1960s. Despite suffering from stomach cancer, he attended Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington in August 1963. Williams died on March 15, 1965.  

Source: U.S. National Archives via the New Deal of the Day site

Aubrey Willis Williams [1890-1965]

Source: Library of Congress via Wikipedia

Alabama and the Six Triple Eight

Captain Abbie N. Campbell and Major Charity Adams inspect the first contingent of African American WACs sent overseas shortly after their arrival in England, 15 February 1945

Source: National Archives via National Museum of the U.S. Army

An interesting but little known unit of the American armed forces in World War II was the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. This group in the Women's Army Corps was the only female, black unit sent overseas in World War II. The 855 women, officers and enlisted, were led by Major Charity Adams. Most of the members of the five companies were postal clerks, but the battalion was self-sufficient and thus had its own cooks, mechanics and other supporting personnel. 

Enlistees trained in Georgia and sailed to Glasgow, Scotland, on February 3, 1945. By mid-February the unit had arrived in Birmingham, England, the location of their assignment. The women were faced with organizing unsorted mail that had been piling up in unheated hangers for as long as two years. Much of the mail had only partial names, nicknames, etc. Seven million Americans were stationed in the European Theater; 7500 were named Robert Smith. The estimated amount was 17 million items. 

What was expected to be a six month task was completed in three, by May 1945. Work continued around the clock, seven days a week; each shift sorted an estimated 65,000 pieces of mail. A unique index card system using serial numbers and ultimately involving 7 million cards, was devised to deal with partial and similar names. Another batch of mail was sorted in France, before the unit was disbanded on March 9, 1946, at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. 

Although unknown to the general public at the time, the 6888th earned accolades during their service and several since. On March 14, 2022, President Biden signed a bill awarding the unit a Congressional Gold Medal. A website devoted to the 6888th includes a listing of the veterans, at least 25 of whom were from Alabama. I note two First Lieutenants among them. 

I imagine each of these women had some interesting stories to tell....

UPDATE 1 August 2022

A recent article from the Associated Press by Jay Reeves profiles Romay Davis, a 102 year old veteran of the unit now living in Birmingham. She is not listed below, but is presumably the Romay Johnson listed in her home state of Virginia. 

UPDATE 17 February 2022

Two other recent articles are here and here. A Netflix film about the group was also recently announced. 

ALABAMA

Battle, Lillian Irma PVT; 

Brown, Dorothy Elizabeth PFC; 

Campbell, Abbie Noel CPT; 

Campbell, Addie Lee T4; 

Coleman, Willie Lee PVT; 

Davis, Elizabeth Mary PFC; 

Duncan, Lilian Willierob 1LT; 

Edwards, Eva PVT; 

Fairgood, Marcelene Lettice T4; 

Fry, Ruby L PVT; 

George, Christel Stocks T5; 

Greene, Irene Robinson PVT; 

House, Willie Mae PFC; 

Johnson, Felicia LaVon PVT; 

Maniece, Mary Rose PFC; 

Middlebrook, Susie Irma PFC; 

Moorehead, Jeanetta Lucile T5; 

Quarles, Minnie Bell PVT; 

Seymour, Tassie Mae PFC; 

Smith, Delores Hall PVT; 

Smith, Mary Frances T5; 

Steele, Hattie Irene PFC; 

Thomas, Ophelia Dark PVT; 

Walthall, Mary Louise PVT; 

Williams, Julia H 1LT

Members sorting mail

Source: National Archives via U.S. Army Center of Military History