Deindustrialization for Black Workers
The story of deindustrialization – just like the story of globalism – begins with the Second World War. In the time immediately following the war, the United States expanded its place in the global market because there were so few other industrial nations left at full operating capacity. Interestingly, the war that paved the way for American dominance through production also laid the foundations of an emerging global market. As nations rebuilt, they did so in a new globalized and homogenized market because of the great equalizing force of violence. By 1971, the United States would report its first trade deficit since the 19th century. For the first time since 1893, the mighty industrial power-house that was the U.S. imported more than it exported [1].
Thanks to the amount of foreign competition, the United States attempted to regain a firm grasp on the international market through a process of de-regulation commonly called neoliberalism. Because of the deregulation, work forces were drastically reorganized and “a hole” opened up where mid-level, good paying, and long-term employment for semi-skilled labor once was. Black workers felt his lack of opportunity acutely because of the racial hierarchy encoded in American society. Even in the 1980’s, an average Black worker would only be making 75% of the salary his white counterpart [2].
Here in Muncie, these national trends were felt on the ground. Hurley Goodall – a prominent Black Munsonian and former state representative – noted in a 2003 interview that “It’s not anything like it was . . . we’ve just got some real difficult economic problems in this part of the country, because . . . a lot of [industry has] gone overseas, where it’s cheaper labor.” [3] By the time of this interview in 2003, Borg Warner would soon close its Muncie plant and Muncie Chevrolet was in its final years of operation. Goodall understood that these changes were affecting the Black community in Muncie in the same ways they were affecting communities across the Rust Belt. He references the closure of “Black restaurants” like “a tavern in this area of the city and one in the other large black area in Industry.” [4] As stable, middle-class, union jobs left Muncie’s Black community – so too did the mainstays of their social structure.
Beyond the loss of jobs and community spaces associated with industry, the Black community of Muncie suffered from the de facto racial caste system prevalent in our deindustrialized corner of the world. After the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950’s and early to mid 1960’s, many white people thought that we – as a nation – had reached “racial parity” and therefore lashed out against continued efforts to create a healthy, new, and long-lasting racial dynamic. Because of this lack of white interest in the Black cause, “Black workers were once again relegated to low-paid and dead-end jobs, segregated in dangerous neighborhoods with poor public services, and forced to send their children to understaffed, underequipped schools."[5]
Goodall also notes de facto segregation and its systemic effects on future generations in 2003 when he “[ventured] to say that 75% of black homes do not have a computer now and so that digital divide is going to get greater and greater.” [6] In a more recent 2017 oral history conducted with Keith O’Neal – a Black pastor at Destiny Christian Church in Muncie – he also highlights this concerning disparity in education among young, impoverished, and often Black Munsonians. O’Neal mourns that “they’re building prisons based upon” reading-level statistics “which is pretty sad.” He further explains that “ if we don’t reach these kids and teach them right from wrong, teach them certain skills, certain work ethics — all of those kinds of things, we can literally lose a generation.” [7]"Everybody in this country going to be hurting"
-- Hurley Goodall
In the days of Chevrolet, Warner Gear, and Ball Corporation, Black workers found little solace in a segregated society – but at least they had a stable job. As deindustrialization, globalization, and neoliberalism transformed the global market, Muncie’s Black-owned markets, taverns, and restaurants closed up shop for the final time. The changes that forced Muncie into a new era also perpetuated the systemic injustices of a past one. The education, employment, and community of Black people across Muncie, the Rust Belt, and the nation suffered as a result of deindustrialization. Sadly, it was Hurley Goodall who put it best when he said “I don’t have any magic answers. Everybody can tell you what the problem is, but they’re not gonna tell you what the answer is.” [8]
[1] Sherry Cable and Tamara L. Mix, “Economic Imperatives and Race Relations: The Rise and Fall of the American Apartheid System,” Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 2 (2003): 197, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3180903.
[2] Cable and Mix, "Economic Imperatives," 200.
[3] Hurley Goodall and Fredine Goodall, interview by Anne Kraemer, Ashley Moore, with Michelle Anderson, Other Side of Middletown, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, February 11 2003.
[3] Hurley Goodall and Fredine Goodall, interview by Anne Kraemer, Ashley Moore, with Michelle Anderson, Other Side of Middletown, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, February 11 2003.