Long hours, little pay, and unfair treatment. Black workers in the 1800s faced a lot of challenges. As a shipbuilder, Isaac Myers experienced these struggles firsthand, and he decided to build a better future for Black workers.
Myers was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1835. When he was 16, he began studying under Thomas Jackson, a well-known Black ship caulker in Baltimore. Ship caulkers like Jackson put materials called pitch and gum on the seams between wooden planks and beams in boats. This sealed up all the cracks and kept water from getting into the ships. By the age of 20, Myers was put in charge of a whole crew of workers.
At the shipyard, Myers was part of the Caulkers Association, one of the first Black in the United States. Black workers had created it in 1838, and it represented the Black caulkers and made deals with the shipyard owners. The union made sure the working conditions and pay were fair for the caulkers.
By the late 1850s, the caulkers made $1.75 per day, which was more money than many white workers in similar jobs. Some white shipyard workers in Baltimore didn’t like this, and started in 1858. In response, the shipyard owners, worried about causing more fighting, stopped hiring Black workers.
In 1865, the situation got worse for Black workers at the shipyard. That year, white workers in Baltimore’s shipyard went on . They didn’t want to compete with the Black workers. The strike resulted in 1,000 Black caulkers losing their jobs.
After the job losses, Myers had an idea to start a worker cooperative. Those kinds of businesses are owned and controlled by the workers — not just a few company leaders. Myers organized a group of Black and white business owners and created the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company. The company hired 300 Black workers and paid them $3 a day.
Myers was a leader for the company, but he also spent time fighting for fair work for Black men and women around the United States. In 1868, he became the president of the Colored Caulkers’ Trade Union Society of Baltimore. He used his position to speak with Black union members working all sorts of jobs in other cities. Myers wanted more unions with Black workers to join the National Labor Union (NLU), a new group that connected unions in different states and fought for fair working hours and higher pay.
At the 1869 NLU meeting, Myers and other Black union leaders gave speeches to encourage white labor leaders to accept the Black labor leaders. Myers said, “I speak today for the colored men of the whole country, when I tell you that all they ask for themselves is a fair chance; that you shall be no worse off by giving them that chance.”
The NLU did not let Myers and the other Black union leaders join, so instead the men created the Colored National Labor Union (CNLU). Both the NLU and the CNLU ended in 1873, but Myers wasn’t done working. He started the Colored Men’s Progressive Cooperative Union, which welcomed white and Black members and even women, which was uncommon at the time.
In the 1870s, Myers became involved in politics and worked as a postal inspector. He ran a coal yard in Baltimore in 1880, and edited a weekly newspaper called The Colored Citizen. Myers led several Black community groups, including the Maryland Colored State Industrial Association and the Colored Building and Loan Association of Baltimore.
Myers died in 1891, but his efforts laid the groundwork for future labor leaders to keep fighting for Black workers.
By Hannah Marcum
Updated February 7, 2025, 5:00 P.M. (ET)
