Fighting Many Battles: Max Mont, Labor, and Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Los Angeles, 1950-1970 (original) (raw)

2012, Beyond Alliances: The Jewish Role in Reshaping the Racial Landscape of Southern California

Angeles-based Jewish labor organizer and civil rights activist, ... • Max Mont, developed a commitment to social justice at an early age. "When I was six years old," Mont recalled in 1987, "I was trying to make speeches in our living room about the 'oppressed people'" ("Max Mont, 'Labor Pioneer'"). While Mont remembered his concern for the oppressed as part of his childhood identity, his work as an organizer began in earnest on the floors of machine shops and union halls during the 1930s and 1940s in and around New York City. Still, while Mont's lifelong commitment to social justice and his dedication to the fight for civil rights causes were both forged in the northeast during the depression, it was in Los Angeles after World War II that he made his greatest impact on the advancement of racial and ethnic equality. California's racial demography and Democratic politics reshaped and broadened Mont's definition of civil rights and social justice from one based in the struggle for workers' rights to equal opportunity for all. Yet it must also be noted that his interactions with the wider array of ethnicities in Southern California-Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans as well as African-Americans-often led to tensions and conflicts. If Mont always maintained a desire to advance the interests of "oppressed people," his vision and theirs did not always prove to be entirely the same. Born in 1917 in New York City, Max Mont moved to Los Angeles in 1949. During his four decades in Los Angeles, he worked for a number of Southern California branches of national Jewish organizations, including the 111 112 Max Felker-Ktmtor American Jewish Committee (AJC), 1 the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC), and the Jewish Community Relations Conference of Los Angeles (CRC). He was also a key organizer for California civil rights organizations and was active in the Los Angeles labor movement (Mont, "Resume," 1965; "Obituary"). Mont's work with Jewish organizations and organized labor demonstrates the intertwined, multifaceted, and mutually reinforcing nature of his identity as a Jew, a liberal and an activist for equal rights. Although his involvement in Jewish organizations oriented toward civil rights issues pushed Mont into progressive political circles, his background in the labor movement and experience during the Great Depression was an equally important-and formative-source of his commitment to social justice. His work with Jewish organizations, labor, and civil rights groups nurtured a willingness to fight for social justice on multiple fronts and to cooperate with various racial and ethnic groups in Southern California and the Los Angeles area. Yet, by the same token, a close look at Mont's broad-based activism also reveals conflicts among racial groups in the struggle for social justice in California. By exploring Mont's involvement with a variety of labor and civil rights struggles in Los Angeles during the post-World War II period, our aim is to demonstrate Mont's commitment to activism but also closely considers the limits to interracial organizing. Fighting Many Battles 113 and civil rights activity based on mutual interest and liberal anti-communism of the Cold War (3-16). 2 Groups such as the Jewish Community Relations Conference worked alongside Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, and Japanese-Americans to promote civil rights initiatives throughout the 1950s. Max Mont's social democratic and anti-communist leanings reflected this commitment to liberal civil rights activism that bridged the struggles of the 1930s with those of the 1960s. Mont's willingness to work with other groups was not only an aspect of his Jewish identity and his labor organizing ability; it was a product of both. Together they contributed to Mont's willingness to work across racial and ethnic boundaries. As noted above, Mont's commitment to labor developed out of his experience during the Depression and began through his work as a machinist and union organizer during World War II. Throughout his organizing career he remained concerned with issues relating to the exploitation of labor. After moving to Los Angeles, for example, Mont aided unionization efforts of Los Angeles-area office and professional workers, helped organize the Emergency Committee to Aid Farm Workers (ECAF) during the 1960s, and served as a representative for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. He also became involved in issues beyond labor rights and union organizing. He was active in civil rights causes with the California Committee for Fair Practices, the struggle for fair housing, and the campaign against Proposition 14, a 1964 antifair housing ballot initiative pushed by the California Realtors Association in response to the Rumford Fair Housing Act. At times, however, Mont's broadbased liberal activism conflicted with Los Angeles civil rights organizations, activists, and communities of color. Mont's work with other racial and ethnic groups in the battle against Proposition 14 revealed the different meanings that the "No on Proposition 14" campaign had for different groups as well as organizational tensions that developed amid the effort to create a broad based interracial coalition. While Mont attempted to make the Californians Against Proposition 14 (CAP 14) campaign an interracial one by reaching out to organized civil rights groups such as the NAACP and the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), other groups saw Mont and CAP 14 as paternalistic, controlling, and unwilling to fully support race and ethnic-based organizations in their efforts to mobilize their communities against the proposition. Mont developed a broad social justice agenda and willingness to work across racial and ethnic groups. What I intend to make clear in this study is that Mont's commitment to interracial organizing and cooperation developed out of his experience working in labor and Jewish community organizations.