Blast from the Past: Vintage Jet Mags Feature DC-Area Labor Folks

Kathleen McKirchy’s twin interests in antiques and labor history converged last summer when the Community Services Agency’s Executive Director stopped in an antique store in Indianapolis. “I bought three old Jet Magazines at random, and it was only when I was looking at them later that I discovered a familiar face from the labor movement.” In a 1972 article entitled “American Library Association Votes to Fight Alleged Job Bias in Library of Congress,” Metro Washington Council President Jos Williams – who was then president of AFGE Local 1826 – is shown testifying before the American Library Association about discrimination in promotions at the Library of Congress, where he and AFGE 1826 members worked...

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“It was our belief that dialogue between the Library of Congress’ employees and administration was going nowhere fast,” Williams says in the Jet article. “We were talking about remedying a problem and the administration was talking about whether or not a problem existed.  Had the administration seen fit to see that a problem existed, we would not have had to come to the ALA”. Williams wasn’t the only local labor person to be featured in Jet. In a 1967 issue, Emily Silver, who now works in the HR Department at the AFL-CIO, was featured as runner-up for the “Queen of the 1967 Virgin Islands Carnival.”

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