Cleophas Williams tells the reader of his significant and historic journey in his own words. His story includes his early years in rural Camden, Arkansas, his arrival in the San Francisco Bay Area, and his rise in the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, within the greater context of the Black liberation movement.
"Cleophas Williams My Life Story in the Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 10" is a compilation of Williams' writings selected by Clarence Thomas and edited by Delores Lemon-Thomas. Every effort was made to stay true to his original manuscripts:
"I write these memories speaking in my own name because I think the story should be told. I write them because there is universal silence about the contributions of Black Longshoreman on the West Coast, as though we never existed. People from many sources have come to me for interviews and I have given some. I have spoken into tape recorders for someone else to transcribe, but the story of my 38 years working as a longshoreman cannot be told orally in two hours with a professional writer. I am writing the story myself. I take responsibility for all errors and omissions. I have no axes to grind. I am comfortably retired with a good longshore pension and social security which I have a right to because I earned them. "I also write as a witness to one of the greatest stories ever told, 'The ILWU Story.' It is the history of a leader named Harry Bridges and a rank and file who supported his ideas and dreams and built the best union in the country. It is also about men who differed with Bridges and were unafraid to take him on."-Cleophas Williams
Clarence Thomas, a leading African American radical labor and community activist, introduces Cleophas Williams' story. Thomas writes, "Cleophas Williams' election as president of ILWU Local 10 in 1967, made him the highest-elected African American to serve as an officer in the entire ILWU. Born in Camden, Arkansas, and part of the Great Migration to the Bay Area, he arrived in Oakland, California, in 1942, seeking to escape the horror and multifaceted structure of systemic racism and white supremacy. He was amongst the leaders who placed Local 10 into the vanguard of the labor movement by engaging in civil-rights unionism and other social movements in the 1960s and 1970s."
This is the second in a series of books from DeClare Publishing, co-founded by Clarence Thomas and Delores Lemon-Thomas, with graphics and book design by Lallan Schoenstein. The first in this series is an anthology, 'Mobilizing in Our Own Name: Million Worker March.' It chronicles the struggles in organizing for the MWM, and subsequent movements emanating from the MWM. Only by building a unified rank-and-file movement, committed to the struggle for democracy, can labor address the crisis facing working people, and achieve political, economic, and social transformation in the United States. The book includes abridged articles, reports from conferences and meetings, endorsers, and interviews from The ILWU Dispatcher, The Organizer, and Workers World newspapers, along with other periodicals. There are also selections from the Labor Video Project, Peoples Video Network, from individuals' writings and books on Labor, as well as leaflets, photos, posters, speeches, and other video transcripts.
Thomas states, "Now more than ever workers around the world must act in unity in our own interest. Workers must build an international rank-and-file fight-back movement to defend the rights of workers internationally to achieve economic security and a peaceful world."