The Paradox of Progress: Jazz, Resistance, and Black Musical Labor in Pittsburgh (1955–1974)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines jazz musicians as Black musical laborers in the context of urban redevelopment and the Civil Rights era. I focus specifically on the activities of Local 471: Pittsburgh’s Black Local of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), which was founded in 1908 and merged with its white counterpart, Local 60, in 1966. As labor leaders, Local 471 presidents Carl Arter (1955–1962) and Joseph Westray (1962–1965) used their positions to challenge discriminatory practices in Pittsburgh’s musical workplaces with Westray negotiating the 1965 merger of Locals 471 and 60. I examine how Local 471’s members struggled to both challenge workplace discrimination and maintain autonomy within the union system, actions that were both resultant of and resistant to segregation. When the merged local failed to elect any Black musicians to it executive board in 1970 and again in 1972, the activist group Black Musicians of Pittsburgh (BMOP) was formed to address the lack of Black union representation. The ongoing racial tensions and BMOP’s unsuccessful lawsuit against Local 60-471 presented a central paradox for Black leadership and activism in Pittsburgh’s musical labor as the promises of progress resulted in widespread abandonment of the union by Black musicians in Pittsburgh.