(H)our History Lesson: African American Life in WWII Oak Ridge, TN

A recreational dance for African American teenagers in Oak Ridge, TN during the Manhattan Project, 1945.

Ed Westcott, US Department of Energy.

Introduction

This lesson is part of a series teaching about the WWII home front. The subject is Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is an American World War II Heritage City. The lesson contains photographs, one background reading, and two primary source readings to contribute to learners’ understanding of the contributions of African Americans at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the wrongful discrimination against those that lived and worked there. Many moved to the area for employment connected to the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project led to the creation and use of the atomic bomb in WWII. The lesson was written by educator Sarah Nestor Lane.

Objectives

1. Describe why people, particularly African Americans, would move to Oak Ridge, and the lifestyle and activities of those living there.
2. Identify examples of segregation and discrimination faced by African American Oak Ridge residents and workers.

Materials for Students

1. Photos 1-7 (displayed in photo album)
2. Two primary source readings (Readings 1 & 2 below)
3. Secondary source reading (Reading 3 below)
4. Recommended: map of the Oak Ridge, Tennessee area to plot locations
5. Extension activity: at bottom of page

Essential Question

How did African American workers contribute to the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge, and what barriers did they face while residing there?

---

Read to Connect

Reading 1: Newspaper Excerpt

 “Oak Ridge Is Locale of Best Kept Secret of War – Only 18 Miles of Knox”
The Knoxville Journal, Tuesday, August 7, 1945 

Teacher Tip: You will come back and focus on the detail of “8 percent hutments,” and the lack of details surrounding this description when compared to the other living arrangements.

“During the past 36 months, one of the most remarkable cities in the world has come into being on a site where only oak and pine trees dotting small farms had been before.

In three years, the town of Oak Ridge, 18 miles west of Knoxville, has not only grown from nothing to the fifth largest city in Tennessee, with a population of nearly 75,000, but in the course of this time has managed to become one of the historic cities of America, a town that will ever remain associated with the greatest secret project of World War 2. . .

. . . In July 1945, about 50 per cent of Oak Ridge’s population lived in houses and apartments, about 21 per cent in dormitories, another 21 per cent in trailers and about eight per cent in hutments. The houses vary in size but are comfortable, roomy and homey. The Guest House, the town's pleasant two- story inn, frequently houses many of the world's most distinguished scientists and other persons of note, including Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson during and inspection visit last spring.

Cultural activities at the project began practically when the first residents moved into their new homes, on which rentals per month range from $22 to $75 for family houses, $10 to $15 monthly per person in dormitories, and $30 to $50 monthly on apartments. The cultural activity includes the Singing Society, the Oak Ridge community chorus, the Oak Ridge community band and string orchestra, the Oak Ridge symphony and the Music Society, which are sponsored by the Oak Ridge Recreation and Welfare Association. There is also the Oak Ridge Artists’ Society and a Little Theater.”

Reading 2: Worker Interview (R.L. Ayers)

Teacher Tip: You may wish to break the interview into multiple parts that students share and report out on. The full interview can be accessed via Oak Ridge Public Library.
 

Arrival at Oak Ridge and Housing

MRS. AYERS: I came to Oak Ridge, October 1943. I was working at an Army camp in Grenada, Mississippi, near my hometown. This friend came by and said, “I heard of this place in Tennessee where you can make good money. Would you like to go?” I said, “Yes. Sure.” She said, “Well, I’ll get two tickets.” And she did.

We headed out to Tennessee. It was not Oak Ridge at that time. We came to Kingston, Tennessee. We crossed over on a little boat on over, it was called J.A. Jones at the time. So we came on to the Personnel there, which we were there all day long at the Personnel trying to get processed in. Then they took us to the hutments, where Black people lived. Black people and white people did not live in the same area. White people had barracks and dormitories, but Black people had huts to live in and that was it for the Black people.

The huts were something like a box, made like a box. It had four beds in it. And if they needed more space they would put 8 beds in it, double beds. It had a big pot belly stove in the center of the floor and that was the heat. So we had no running water, no place to cook and no bathrooms in this place. They had a big long place they called it the latrine. That’s where you had to go to do your washing, do your cooking if you wanted to cook anything, take a bath and use the bathroom. 

MR. ALBRECHT: When you arrived and you saw where you would be living, did you suddenly have second thoughts? 

MRS. AYERS: I didn’t see where I was going to be living until I was bused there. No, I was too far from home then and broke at that. (Laughter) I didn’t have any second thoughts. I thought, “Well, we’ll make it.” That’s what I thought to myself that we will make it.

So, they had only one building and we came to the K-25 area. They had one building then that was the K-25 building. Of course, you know they built more building, which were 33 and 1401 and all that. But there was only one building then and that was the K-25 building. We went to work at that building.

If you were Black, even if you had a master’s degree it made no difference. All you could do was sweep up, clean up. In ’43, that’s all that you could do. So, I wasn’t making but $1.47 an hour, but it was better than where I came from. I worked at the K-25 building I guess maybe for a month.

After I began to learn things, I went to the J.A. Jones. They owned the cafeteria. J.A. Jones was building that area down through there. That was the construction gang that was building down through there. So I went to work for J.A. Jones in the cafeteria and I didn’t have to buy my food. That’s why I went there.  . . .

MR. ALBRECHT: Were you married when you came to Oak Ridge? 

MRS. AYERS: No, I was not. But I hadn’t been here very long before I got married. My husband came from Huntsville, Alabama. He was a concrete finisher here. He had worked with Hal Williams and the construction and all that because that was the only thing for Black males to do was construction and my husband worked in construction. 

MR. ALBRECHT: You mentioned a few minutes a go about it didn’t matter as a Black person, it didn’t matter if you had a master’s degree you were going to be sweeping the floor. 

MRS. AYERS: That’s right.

MR. ALBRECHT: Did you know of or did you meet any, or hear of any educated Black people that were here pushing brooms. 

MRS. AYERS: As every Black person here. Every Black people here. No Black person held a high position or worked in an office or anything like that.

MR. ALBRECHT: Where there any of the Blacks that had college degrees that you know of?

MRS. AYERS: Yes, yes, it was.

MR. ALBRECHT: And they were pushing brooms.

MRS. AYERS: Yes, they were still a maid. You know, I have made the statement once that this place was owned and operated by the federal government and it was sad the way that the Black people were treated.

MR. ALBRECHT: Now at that time, at the time of the war, President Roosevelt signed executive order 8802 that said it was illegal to discriminate if you were a war time industry. And yet in Oak Ridge that was patently ignored. They said they would go along with the local customs instead. Was that widely known among the workers that there was that executive order and it was being ignored? 

MRS. AYERS: Maybe some of them knew about it. But not everybody. People just didn’t have time to talk with each other. Even if they did it wouldn’t have done any good. . . .

MR. ALBRECHT: You had mentioned that you hadn’t been here very long at all before you met and married your husband.

MRS. AYERS: Yes.

MR. ALBRECHT: Once you became man and wife, were you able to live together?

MRS. AYERS: No, we was not. They had, in these huts that I was talking about; they were inside what they would call a pen. They had all the women in one pen and the men were in another pen. They had board, five foot board around it with a strand of barbed wire at the top that you could not get in or get out. You had to come in by the guard. They had one way in and one way out. That was the men and the women. There was no family life for Black people here until the late, late ‘40’s. That was just the life for Black people. That was the reason that I said a while ago that it was awful the way that Black people were treated and it was in the federal government, all of it. . . . .

MR. ALBRECHT: You said that the white workers had different housing.

MRS. AYERS: Yes.

MR. ALBRECHT: Where were they housed?

MRS. AYERS: They was housed, oh, it was called Clinton Engineer. It was where Scarboro, old man Scarboro owned all that property in there. It was something like barracks for soldiers and of course they moved all the soldiers and everything out. That is where white people lived. They had running water; they had family lives, because a man could live with his wife there and the children. And they had white schools for white children. There was no Black children here, so there were no schools. It wasn’t until ’46 and ’47 that they started letting Black children come here. So… 
/ / /
MRS. AYERS: I worked at the cafeteria the longest and when they finished this part over here which was called Clinton Engineer, they had a hospital over here. So, then I transferred to the hospital and went to the hospital to work. I worked there for 56 years at the hospital.

MR. ALBRECHT: Tell me a little bit about what your work was at the cafeteria, and then I want to hear about what you did at the hospital.

MRS. AYERS: Well, in the cafeteria, you just cleaned up after, it’s just like working in a cafeteria, and you know a restaurant. You just clean up and washed dishes and stuff like that. Kept it clean. . . . 

MRS. AYERS: Well, I was always off into the medical departments, where ever I was, you know. That was really my field, was medical. And they were hiring everybody. It didn’t make any difference who and where. They would hire you, whether it was sweeping a floor, whether it was cooking, or cleaning, or what. Any time that you could walk off of this job over to this job, they would hire you over there. You could get a job anywhere you say I want to work.

So, I went to the hospital and I started working there as an aide. You know what an aide is? Helping patients. And I started to working there. I stayed there for 56 years. I worked in the emergency department and when the doctors took over the emergency room, I had too much seniority with the hospital to go under the doctors. So I went to surgery and I started working in the anesthesia department. That is where I retired from was anesthesia. 

MR. ALBRECHT: I assume you got training along the way and constantly… 

MRS. AYERS: Well, yes, I did get some training, but I did a lot of training myself. I did because I always had my ears open to everything. I worked with the doctors. I waited on them and I helped them. If there was anything I wanted to know, I would ask them. Of course, they would tell me whatever I asked them, they would tell me. I always had an exploring mind. I told you that. (Laughter)

MR. ALBRECHT: You alluded to it earlier, when you first decided to come from Mississippi up here to work. You said part of it was the lure of good money. What kind of money did you make throughout the war years? …

MR. ALBRECHT: Oh, my. I have heard some other folks being asked to and agreeing to giving a day of work for the bomb.

MRS. AYERS: Yes, everybody was asked to give one of the time and a half days, or a double time day, which if you worked a Saturday or Sunday, it was Saturday was a time and a half, Sunday would be double time. Everybody gave a day’s work to the building of the atomic bomb.

Building of the Atomic Bomb

MR. ALBRECHT: Which brings up another question. This was during the time that the atomic bomb was being developed. This was a big secret. This was a secret city. Say nothing, ask nothing. How did people, how did they ask you to donate to the bomb if nobody knew they were building a bomb.

MRS. AYERS: Well, people knew that they were building a bomb. They knew that. Of course, you know the bomb wasn’t built here. Only part of it. They had six plants in the United States where the bomb was built. Of course, It was assembled in California and then shipped on over to be dropped. People didn’t know that and people really didn’t care anything about that. But that’s what happened.

MR. ALBRECHT: So it was, the bomb wasn’t too big a secret. It was just a little bit of a secret, I guess.

MRS. AYERS: Well, it was a secret because they had like Hal said, “What you see here, what you hear here, you leave it here.” You didn’t talk about anything. 

MR. ALBRECHT: What about while you were here? Did people talk; did people try to figure out what was going on? 

MRS. AYERS: No, I don’t think they really cared. I don’t think so. Maybe they did care. There wasn’t anybody to talk to about it. Who could you talk to? I couldn’t talk to my neighbor because they didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t want to know anything about it.

MR. ALBRECHT: What typically were you told about the overall mission of the Manhattan Project and the Clinton Engineer Works? Or did anybody ever say, just do your job.

MRS. AYERS: Just do your job. That was it. Just do your job. ...

---

By the numbers

• 30,000 people: the number originally expected for providing housing
• 75,000: Oak Ridge’s population by war’s end
• 2,000 African American workers (of 7,000 total) lived on-site

Quotation to consider

“If you were Black, even if you had a master’s degree, it made no difference. All you could do was sweep up, clean up. In ’43, that’s all that you could do.”

--Mrs. Ayers (Reading 2 above)

Reading 3: African Americans at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge: A Historic Context Study

Excerpts from African Americans at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge: A Historic Context Study (nps.gov) (p.39, 40)

Recreation

A common complaint from African American residents living in Oak Ridge was the lack of recreational opportunities. Planned neighborhoods for white workers included community facilities such as pools, schools, and shops, but a comparable development for African Americans was never constructed. The small commercial area developed near the African American hutments included a cafeteria, a necessity considering the basic communal accommodations and lack of food preparation space in the hutments; however, its limited hours meant those who worked long hours or night shifts potentially missed meal periods. Without other places to eat, some African American workers faced the choice of sleeping during their off-hours and missing meal times or sacrificing sleep to eat during the cafeteria’s limited open hours. Other facilities in the hutment area included a recreation center, a one-chair beauty shop, a barber shop, the Atomic Club—a juke joint that served fried chicken—and an administrative office, which employed white secretarial staff to oversee African American workers.

The bare-bones recreation center located in the African American hutment area took the place of the theaters, gymnasiums, and community buildings constructed in white neighborhoods. The recreation center became the location of weekly showings of dated “race” films—films with all-black casts produced for black audiences—card games, weekend dances, and church services. . . .

Baseball

One of the few organized recreational opportunities available to African American men at Oak Ridge was baseball. An August 10, 1944 Oak Ridge Journal article mentioned the creation of a new African American baseball league that would be playing on the “colored ball diamond” located near the hutment area and the K-25 diamond. At the time, the five teams were named for the contractors that employed the players: Roane-Anderson; Stone and Webster; J.A. Jones; Ford, Bacon, and Davis; and Keith Williams and Carbide and Carbon.140 This entirely African American league could have been the genesis of the “Oak Ridge Bombers,” a semi-pro team that was created and managed by Robert Lee as early as 1944. Lee organized African American men who were excluded from playing on white teams but wanted to travel and compete against other black men who were excluded from professional teams. There is no mention of the African American Oak Ridge plant teams after 1945, but the Oak Ridge Bombers, which was primarily made up of workers from the Oak Ridge facilities, continued to play into the 1960s, well after Jackie Robinson integrated professional baseball in 1947.

Student Activities

Review Readings 1 and 2 and view photos 1-5 in the above album. Answer the following questions:

1. Describe the different housing conditions as seen in the photographs and described in the readings. Use details from both.
2. How does Reading 1’s description (newspaper) of living compare to the interview description (reading 2)?
3. Mrs. Ayers (in Reading 2) blames the federal government for the discrimination faced by African Americans at Oak Ridge. Why is this? Do you agree with her reasoning? Why or why not?
   • Hint: In the interview, the interviewer says, “Now at that time, at the time of the war, President Roosevelt signed executive order 8802 that said it was illegal to discriminate if you were a war time industry. And yet in Oak Ridge that was patently ignored. They said they would go along with the local customs instead. Was that widely known among the workers that there was that executive order and it was being ignored?”
4. How does Mrs. Ayers describe working at Oak Ridge, and the knowledge, or lack thereof, of the atomic bomb? Did any details surprise you?

Review Reading 3 and view photos 6 and 7 in the above album. Answer the following questions:

1. How does the reading compare the African American community facilities to those provided to white residents?
2. What was a difficulty faced by residents with unique working hours?
3. Who were the “Oak Ridge Bombers?”
4. Why is baseball a historically significant activity to note for recreation opportunities at Oak Ridge (for African American residents)?

Extension Activity

If time permits, teachers may offer the following optional activities.

Video

Support your students' understanding with another resource.

Oak Ridge's segregated and oppressed history not forgotten - YouTube

• What are the strengths of the video?

• What could be added or revised to strengthen it?

Teacher tip: The Manhattan Project included more than one site. You may wish to research with students how the site location did, or did not, impact discrimination and/or segregation. You may also wish to research African American scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project.

Additional Resources

The links below provide additional information about African American experiences at Oak Ridge.

NPS Resources
African American Houses of Worship
African Americans at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge: A Historic Context Study
Oak Ridge Alphabet Housing
Curiosity Kit: African American Baseball

Other Resources
African Americans and the Manhattan Project - Nuclear Museum (Atomic Heritage Foundation)

---

This lesson was written by Sarah Nestor Lane, an educator and consultant serving the National Park Service’s Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education. This lesson was funded by the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.