This document examines the relationship between the emergence of large unions in the mid-20th century and the advancement of civil rights and economic well-being of African Americans and Latinos. It also considers the extent to which unions and labor laws of that era were problematic for civil rights movements or diminished by growing rights consciousness in the 1960s. The document prompts consideration of how Wagner-era labor laws and 1960s-era civil rights laws impacted these relationships.

1. To what degree did the emergence of a large union
To what degree did the emergence of a large union movement in the middle decades of the
20th century advance the civil rights and general economic well-being of African-Americans
and Latina/os during those same decades. To what extent did these new unions and the
new laws that helped sustain them prove problematic for the civil rights movement; and
conversely, to what degree did the emergence of a powerful “rights consciousness” in the
1960s and afterward diminish the appeal of trade unionism and collective bargaining?
Consider the nature of the Wagner-era labor law and also that of the civil rights laws
enacted in the 1960s.