Hidden Histories: Lester Blackwell Granger (NASW-NJ FOCUS - March 2022)

A social worker, educator, National Urban League executive director, and civil rights leader, Lester Blackwell Granger introduced civil rights to the social work agenda as a national and international issue. He focused attention and advocacy energy on the goal of equal opportunity and justice for all people of color, even while focusing on the condition of Black people in the United States. He is credited with leading the development of unions among Black workers, as well as integrating white unions. He led the integration of Black workers in defense industries and the beginnings of racial integration in the military services during World War II. 1

Lester Granger was born on September 16, 1896, in Newport News, Virginia, to William Randolph Granger and Mary Louise Turpin (Granger). His father was a Barbadian immigrant and medical doctor; his mother was a schoolteacher. 2,3 The Grangers chose to raise their family in a racially-tolerant community where educational opportunities were available to Black people, and relocated from Virginia to Newark, New Jersey. Lester was the only one of the Granger’s six children not to pursue a career in medicine. 4 Rather, he aspired to a career in international banking, but found "that American banks had a colored bar as unyielding and as brutally applied as [Jim Crow] rules on southern trains." Therefore, he enlisted in the United States Army during World War I and was stationed in France with the Allied Expeditionary Force as a Lieutenant in the field of artillery. 5 He earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in 1918, following his discharge from the Army. 6

Upon graduation from college, Granger joined the National Urban League (NUL) where he became the Newark chapter’s industrial relations officer. He left the League and was employed as a social worker from 1922 to 1934, working with Black youth in New Jersey’s Bordentown vocational school system. 7 In 1934, Granger left his social work position at Bordentown to return to the NUL. He worked in its New York headquarters as business manager of its publication, "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life." From 1934 to 1938, he also served in the organization’s worker educational division where he led the NUL’s fight for Black trade unionism and the right to collectively bargain, as they challenged the exclusively white American Federation of Labor. 8

In 1940, Granger became NUL’s executive assistant secretary. A year later, he was appointed national executive secretary. 9 Serving in this role from 1941 to 1961, he was a champion of integration and equal treatment for Blacks. Granger and Martin Luther King became acquainted in 1957, and the following year they and other civil rights leaders met with President Dwight Eisenhower to push for civil rights reform. Although Granger declined King’s later invitation to serve on the advisory board of Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s “Crusade for Citizenship,” citing a lack of time, he made it clear he admired the campaign as “a significant step toward full citizenship rights” (Granger, 27 December 1957). 10

During World War II, Granger championed the elimination of racial segregation in defense employment and in the military. His work led President Dwight Eisenhower to issue an Executive Order that affected thousands of defense firms during World War II and led to a surge in hiring Black Americans in manufacturing industries. 11

Granger also fought discrimination in the U.S. military during World War II. He served as a special consultant to Navy Secretaries James V. Forrestal and Charles S. Thomas and was instrumental in drawing up the Navy’s post-World War II integration program and later helping solve problems arising from the Navy’s abolishing segregation. For his contributions, Mr. Granger was awarded the Navy Medal for Distinguished Service and the President’s Medal for Merit by President Harry Truman. 12

After World War II, Granger’s National Urban League focused mainly on fund-raising, educating the public on the ills of racism, and getting economic opportunities for Black students at historically black colleges and universities. 13

Among his achievements, Granger was the first Black person to serve as President of the National Conference of Social Welfare and the International Conference for Social Work. He also had been vice president of the American Association of Social Workers, honorary president of the International Council on Social Welfare and a member of the board of directors of the Council on Social Work Education. 14

Upon retiring from the National Urban League in 1961, he served for a number of years as a visiting professor of sociology at Princeton, Loyola, Tulane, and Dillard Universities. Lester Granger died in Alexandria, Louisiana, on January 9, 1976 at the age of 80. 15, 16

Resources:

1 https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/granger-lester-b/

2 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/granger-lesterblackwell-1896-1976/

3 https://lestergrangerblackwell.weebly.com/

4 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/granger-lesterblackwell-1896-1976/

5 https://lestergrangerblackwell.weebly.com/

6 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/granger-lesterblackwell-1896-1976/

7 ibid.

8 ibid

9 ibid

10 https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/granger-lester-blackwell

11 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/granger-lesterblackwell-1896-1976/

12 https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/granger-lester-b/

13 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/granger-lesterblackwell-1896-1976/

14 https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/granger-lester-b/

15 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/granger-lesterblackwell-1896-1976/

16 https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/granger-lester-b/