The United Freedom Movement (UFM) was a coalition of about 60 African American civic, religious, cultural, and other groups founded in June 1963 to oppose legal and institutional racism in public schools, employment, housing, and other areas. The organization's founding marked a turning point in Cleveland during the civil rights movement by turning away from behind-the-scenes negotiation and toward public protest. It had successes in the area of employment and public school desegregation. It dissolved in 1966.
Founding of the organization
The United Freedom Movement was founded on June 3, 1963, by the Cleveland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to bring together the city's African American community groups in a united front. Previously, these groups had been divided by socio-economic class and ideology. Middle class, educated African Americans looked to clergy, the NAACP, and the National Urban League for leadership; these individuals and groups tended to work behind the scenes for incremental change. Poor, less-educated African Americans (by far the majority of blacks in Cleveland) looked to more militant groups like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which engaged in public protest and demanded immediate, radical change.
Although the moderate NAACP issued the call to form the UFM, more militant groups and leaders joined the organization for fear that the UFM would co-opt the rapidly growing civil rights movement in Cleveland. The UFM had between 50 and 60 member organizations. Four individuals were elected co-chairs of the organization: Carriebell J. Cook, administrator of the Office of Job Retraining and Manpower for the city of Cleveland; Clarence Holmes, president of the Cleveland NAACP; Reverend Isaiah Pogue Jr., pastor of the St. Mark's Presbyterian Church; and Reverend Paul Younger, pastor of Fidelity Baptist Church. Harold B. Williams, executive secretary of the Cleveland NAACP, was named "coordinator" of the new organization. The organization was guided by a 12-member executive committee.
Major campaigns
1963 Cleveland Convention Center labor dispute
The UFM sought to end racism and discrimination against African Americans in the areas of education, employment, health and welfare, housing, and voting. Its first major battle was the Cleveland Convention Center labor dispute of 1963. Many local labor unions refused to admit African Americans as members, or did so only by admitting them as apprentices and then actively discriminating against them in training and hiring preference. On June 24, the UFM announced it would begin mass picketing of the Cleveland Convention Center construction site. It accused four unions working at the site of barring blacks from membership. The dispute threatened several important bond levies and federal aid flowing to construction projects in Cleveland, and imperiled construction on the convention center as well as other large projects in the area. An agreement signed by federal government representatives, local labor leaders, representatives from the African American community, and others brought the dispute to a close. Government officials and the NAACP hailed the agreement as nationally important.
1963 Cleveland Freedom March
The UFM was the primary sponsor of the Cleveland Freedom March (originally called the United Freedom Movement March) of July 14, 1963. The march drew 15,000 participants and 2,000 onlookers, while 25,000 people attended a post-march rally at Cleveland Stadium, where they listened to speeches by Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the national NAACP, and James Farmer, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality.
1963 to 1964 public schools dispute
As the labor dispute was coming to a close, the UFM turned its attention to racial desegregation of Cleveland's public schools. A significant influx of African Americans, many of them poor, into Cleveland in the 1950s had left schools in black neighborhoods dangerously overcrowded. Cleveland Mayor Ralph S. Locher, who was white, dismissed their concerns.
