Working for Equality: The Narrative of Harry Hudson

Harry Hudson's memoir, "Working for Equality," chronicles his thirty-six-year career at Lockheed-Georgia Company, where he became the first African American supervisor and managed an integrated crew and purchasing agent. His story is part of the broader struggle of workplace desegregation in America.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2019
Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Harry Hudson, the first African American supervisor at Lockheed Aircrafts Georgia facility, began his thirty-six-year career in September of 1952 with no idea that it would become his lifes work. Despite not being a civil rights activist, Hudson knew he was helping to break down racial barriers that had long confined African Americans to lower-skilled, nonsupervisory jobs. His previously unpublished memoir, Working for Equality, is an inside account of both the racial integration of corporate America and the struggles common to anyone climbing the postwar corporate ladder. At Lockheed-Georgia, Hudson went on to become the first black supervisor to manage an integrated crew and then the first black purchasing agent. There were other firsts along the path to these achievements, and Working for Equality is rich in details of Hudson's work on the assembly line and in the back office. In both circumstances, he contended with being not only a black man but a light-skinned black man as he dealt with production goals, personnel disputes, and other workday challenges. Randall Patton's introduction places Hudson's story within the broader struggle of workplace desegregation in America. Although Hudson is frank about his experiences in a predominantly white workforce, Patton notes that he remained an organization man who expressed pride in his contributions to Lockheed and the nations defense effort.

Weight: 374g
Dimension: 152 x 227 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780820356884