As a young man doing his job as a pipefitter at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Jake Sloan didn’t realize that one day he would join the ranks of other men like him who would change history. But he did. He was the youngest member of the “Original 21ers” who, in 1961, filed a suit against the United States Government for discriminatory practices toward African Americans employed at the shipyard. Decades later, he penned a book, Standing Tall: Willie Long vs. US Government at Mare Island Shipyard, to ensure that the story and the impact of the action live on.
Meeting Jake Sloan
Jake came into my life after I spoke at a summit about book marketing. One of his colleagues happened to be a participant. Soon after, the three of us had a meeting. His passion for his calling touched my soul. I knew I wanted to help him achieve his vision and leave a legacy.
Jake has spent most of his adult life working in the areas of civil rights and affirmative action, advocating and fighting for opportunity and income equality for African Americans. Since 1985, that work was as an owner of Davillier-Sloan, Inc., one of California’s largest labor-management consulting firms, with a focus on the construction industry. Recently, he was recognized as a “Visionary for Diversity” by the Marcus Foster Education Institute in Oakland, California.
Standing Tall
Standing Tall recalls a period in the early 1960s that is part of the social justice continuum in the U.S. This is the story of how Willie Long led a protest for economic and social justice at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California.
The “Original 21ers” were a courageous group of African American workers willing to risk everything to create change. The inequities experienced at work, and the churning energy of the Civil Rights Movement inspired them.
This small group of men did the unthinkable by taking direct action against the U.S. Government. They challenged the largest West Coast United States naval base to provide equal opportunities and wages and WON!
The “Original 21ers” believed that their actions may have influenced the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, in part, prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In so doing, their protest and action built part of the cornerstone upon which our twenty-first-century economic justice movements are built.
Praise for Standing Tall
“Jake Sloan is a trained historian, but his book about the ‘Mare Island 21ers’ is not just radical history, not even radical labor history. His recounting of the ‘forgotten,’ unsung men and their struggles at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard of post-WWII California is more than just an important contribution to the activist archive of those resisting enslaving forces of racism and economic oppression. Sloan’s book transcends any glorification of his own contribution and acknowledges the collective spirit which made this happen then and ripple forward in time and space to impact so many others.”
Michael Mavoy M.A., Scholar-Activist, is a member of the Core Faculty, Western Institute for Social Research, Berkeley, California
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