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Former Langston Strike Leader Still Fighting for Rights Cause
by Mary Goddard
Henry Floyd, who led a successful student strike at Langston University back in 1949, is still working vigorously against discrimination in all its forms.
But now, the incoming president of the Oklahoma City branch, National Association for Advancement of Colored People, taps a heavy book upon his desk and says confidently, "Law is going to be the thing."
Floyd, 37, reflected on prospects for civil rights progress over the weekend. He sees several hopeful signs, especially in the crucial field of employment.
The new president, who succeeds state Sen. E. Melvin Porter, will meet with his officers and 14 standing committee chairmen Tuesday night to complete the 1965 program of action.
All 14 areas, ranging from membership and finance to legal redress and housing, will be important, Floyd stressed. However, he made it clear that the "more and better jobs" platform upon which he sought the office will be strongly pursued.
Negroes form 10 percent of the Oklahoma City population, but their unemployment rate is more than 7 percent, compared to the white rate of 3 percent, he pointed out. "And over 70 percent of the Negroes who are working are under-employed for their qualifications.''
Floyd ls a, postal clerk (as well as a third year law student at Oklahoma City University and a real estate broker), and he cites an example from the city post office ranks.
More than a third of the 150 Negro employes hold at least one college degree, a majority have had a year or two of college, and only three didn't finish high school, he said.
Floyd said a similar pattern exists at Tinker Air Force Base.
"We're not taking full advantage of our tax dollar anytime we prevent a segment of the community from contributing to the fullest extent of its ability," he declared.
Opening jobs for the jobless will cut the welfare rolls while advancing qualified Negroes to jobs matching their abilities would leave less-skilled work for someone else who needs a chance, Floyd said.
Floyd sees hope in the increasing Washington determination to enforce equal job opportunity regulations in federal agencies and among contractors handling government work.
He noted a recent statement from the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights predicted that within the next 18 months there will be a terrific increase in job opportunities for minorities.
Changing attitudes, which now see civil rights suits handled by attorneys who felt discrimination cases were hopeless and lacked respectability a few years ago, is another hopeful trend, he said.
"The fact that we now have an Oklahoma Civil Liberties Union will be helpful, too."
Floyd himself might be considered under-employed, if he weren't so busy leading his many lives. He is a distribution clerk—with a bachelor's degree in sociology from Langston University, and graduate work in political science at Oklahoma State University.
"I have not and will not take a supervisory examination, because as a supervisor I would be bound to take the agency's side in discrimination disputes. I can't serve two interests," he said.
A grocer's son, Floyd first entered NAACP work at McAlester as a high schooler in one of the state's first NAACP youth councils.
He recalls he began to see the long, basic struggle ahead when he read a newspaper article about the late Mississippi white supremacist senator, Theodore Bilbo, during a civics class assignment.
"I just wondered how people could call themselves Christians and speak and perform the way they did. . . "
Floyd finished the 11th grade before entering World War II (quartermaster corps). Upon his discharge, he passed a general educational development test and qualified for college.
He was a campus leader when a separate law school was set up for one Negro student in the state capitol basement. Reasoning that the "Langston School of Law" was college premises, a group of students demonstrated peaceably around the capitol.
With the ensuing frowns from education leaders, two Langston faculty members who had chaperoned the demonstrators were discharged. "So the students voted to go on strike until they were reinstated. It lasted about three days, and we won."
Floyd speaks eloquently of his NAACP challenge and philosophy, in a deceptively easy-going manner with glints of wry humor. "You have to have some humor about this thing or it will get to you," he said.
Floyd joined the postal service in 1951, and became a real estate broker in 1956. How does he manage it all in 24-hour days?
"I do certain things on certain days. And of course I couldn't do it without the complete cooperation of my wife and family."
Floyd and his wife, Dorothy, have three children, Donna, 13; Jennifer, 12, and Henry, jr., 8. All three, as their father once did, hold Youth Council memberships.