Silbert Billouin: Maine Shipbuilder, Union Brother & Civil Rights Leader
When Silbert Billouin and his wife Enid immigrated to Canada from their native Trinidad so he could study medicine at McGill University in Montreal, he could have never dreamed that he would eventually end up in Maine working as a blue collar union welder. However, it wasn’t long after the couple arrived that they had their first child, Crystal-Joy. Billouin soon realized that he had to leave school to support his young family. They decided to move to New York City where they had relatives and friends from Trinidad.
Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Uncle Sam immediately needed a vast number of workers to build the military arsenal to defeat Japan and the fascists in Europe. Prior to the war, black men like Billouin were banned from jobs in the defense industry because of their race. But after African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened to launch a march of “100,000 loyal Negro American citizens” on Washington, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order banning discrimination against black workers in the defense industry.
Responding to this patriotic opportunity to support the war effort and earn good union wages, Billouin went to welding school and found his way to a Maine shipyard in 1943. At the time, two South Portland shipyards — Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding and the South Portland Shipbuilding — had merged into the New England Shipbuilding Corporation and there was a shortage of housing for the 33,000 workers, including some 3,700 women, who would work at the yards until the war ended in 1945.
The Federal Public Housing Authority immediately got to work building villages comprising 2,000 permanent housing units in South Portland in three months. The Billouins were placed in a segregated black neighborhood on Powers Road in the newly built Redbank Village, near where the Maine Mall is today. At that time, it was common for Maine communities to prohibit black families in certain neighborhoods until the Supreme Court ruled those racial covenants unconstitutional in 1948.
“There was a lot of housing discrimination,” recalled Billouin’s daughter Crystal-Joy Albert in a phone interview from her home in Florida. "We were all delegated to the last street in the village. Black people didn’t live in any other sections. Fortunately for us it was the best street to live on because we had easy access to the woods. We had acres and acres to play on and to grow gardens. We became a little community of our own.”
Albert was eight years old when the family moved to South Portland and she describes Maine as a “lovely place to grow up.” It was a safe community, the schools were excellent and she loved ice skating and playing in the nearby woods. During those years her mother gave birth to three more sons and the family made many friends, both black and white. But it wasn’t always easy being a black family in Maine.
“It was the first time I was called ’n——.’ It was a real shock,” said Albert. “The white parents didn’t want their kids to play with us. That went on for a while, but my father helped to break down that prejudice because he was so active in the local schools and community. When people got to know him, they really liked him.”
[caption caption="The grand opening of the Redbank Tennis Courts Silbert Billouin built at Redbank Village in South Portland in 1944." align="center"]
Silbert Billouin soon began serving on neighborhood boards, built a public tennis court behind the family's house and founded a community newsletter called “The Liberty Bell.” But while her father was thriving, Albert’s mother Enid was miserable living out in the country at first. She was writer, a poet and a “city gal,” who came from a family of intellectuals. Her father, F.E.M. Hercules, was an anti-colonial revolutionary and labor agitator. Her brother, Frank Hercules, was a widely read Harlem author who wrote about race and colonial oppression. When the Roosevelt administration urged Americans to create Victory Gardens to supplement their rations and boost morale during the war, Albert’s mother found enjoyment tending to the local Victory Garden while her husband worked at the shipyard.
“My mother liked gardening and that finally gave her something to do along with writing, answering poetry contests and creating crossword puzzles — whatever she could do to keep her mind active,” said Albert.
In those days, Albert remembers her father coming home with blinding flash headaches from welding and she and her mother would give him ice packs to reduce the pain. As a member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Ship Building Workers of America (IUMSWA), CIO Local 50, Billouin had become heavily involved in his union and joined the housing and welders’ shop committees. He was also the first African-American in Maine to attend a state Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) convention as a delegate for his union.
As an industrial union, the CIO actively engaged members in anti-racism education because it sought to organize all workers in a shop — whites, blacks and women — under one union, as opposed to organizing workers by craft. CIO leaders understood that racism divides the working class and is a barrier to building solidarity and worker power when trying to organize an entire workplace, from the janitors to the skilled craftsmen. As the preamble to the IUMSWA Constitution states:
"Recognizing that craft unionism, as practiced in the past, has been proven to be both ineffective and dangerous to the interests of the workers, the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America advocates and practices the program and tactics of militant industrial unionism, based on the principle of One Industry-One Union. [IUMSWA] calls for the united front of all workers in the industry, regardless of creed, color, nationality, religion, sex or political affiliation. It bases itself upon the principle of rank and file control, unrestricted trade union democracy, and at all times an aggressive struggle for an ever higher standard of living.”
As Maine labor historian Charlie Scontras noted, the progressive stance of the IUMSWA Local 50 was further reflected in the election of George Washington, a “colored welder,” to serve on the union’s negotiating team. The Maine Industrial Union Council also appointed a committee “to study prevention of any possible racial discrimination in Maine war industries,” and named a number of black members to the committee. According to Scontras, the Maine CIO "crusaded against" Maine’s two senators for voting against the anti-poll tax and anti- lynching law on so-called “states’ rights” grounds.
In 1945. Billouin became chairman of the Interregional Council, a representative body of all the housing projects in the Greater Portland area. The Maine CIO News reported that with the appointment of Billouin as chairman, “we can readily bet that the Mayor learned plenty about housing in Southern Maine, particularly slum housing. . . .” It was during those years that Billouin became an advocate for ending housing discrimination for black Mainers and his daughter remembers her mother complaining that he was always at meetings.
“Whatever committee he was on he usually chaired it because that was his talent. He had the power of persuasion and could always inspire people to do things,” said Albert. “When addressing housing discrimination, he was subtle about it. He was not one to go out and hit people in the face with the fact that black people were being discriminated against. He would approach them and use logic to change their minds because assimilation was beneficial for everyone.”
Unfortunately, when the shipyards closed and Silbert Billouin was laid off after the end of the war in 1945, the family went through some very hard times. It was difficult enough finding work for white men during the post war recession, but for African Americans, opportunities were much more limited.
“There was a lot of discrimination in hiring in Portland back then,” said Albert. “Black people could not work for the telephone company or in the department stores. The only job black women could get in the department stores was running the elevators. If you got a job at the Porteous department store as an elevator operator on Congress Street that was considered a big deal in the black community.”
Some black workers at the shipyard got jobs as Greyhound bus porters, Pullman porters on the rail line or as butlers for white families. But Silbert Billouin had other talents that he wanted to use, so with few job opportunities at home he went on the road as a traveling salesman using his power of persuasion to household wares. Eventually he began working in Boston and would come home weekends. His wife Enid went to work to supplement the family’s income by working the nightshift with other working class black and white women at B&M Baked Beans, Brunswick Sardines and a clothespin factory.
Meanwhile, after winning a talent contest, Albert launched what would become her lifelong music career as the "Fabulous Crystal Joy." She helped support the family in high school by playing gigs with such popular local country and western groups as Tony and Juanita . With her top marks in school and her musical talent, she won scholarships to a number of colleges including Radcliffe and Boston University, where she ended up going in 1952.
“If you were black you couldn’t even get a job in the five and ten cent stores selling soap. It was just ridiculous, but I was making more money playing music gigs anyway” said Albert. “When I got into music that was a whole new experience with people because the music isn’t like the regular world. The music world is based on the kind of music you present. If you’re good at it you find acceptance, so it didn’t matter who you were, what your skin color was or where you came from. I loved Portland. I really did. But I knew there were limitations if I stayed there.”
The federal government later sold the village in Redbank in 1954 and the development was renamed South Portland Gardens, but the Billouin house is still there. Eventually, Albert and her father saved up enough money to buy a home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Silbert Billouin got a job as a sales manager and got right back into community affairs, serving on numerous boards to promote integration through housing reforms. As the President of the Jamaica Plain Bank and Mortgage Committee, he worked with banks to diminish the effects of red lining, which prevented African-Americans from securing mortgages to purchase homes.
“There were beautiful homes in black neighborhoods that had been left in disrepair and people wanted to buy them but banks wouldn’t give them mortgages,” recalled Albert. “A lot of my friends from college told me they bought their homes because of my dad's work.”
Silbert Billouin died in 1978 at the age of 66 and was remembered in Boston as a community leader and dogged advocate for fair housing policies. Although few Mainers probably remember him or his work as an activist for workers’ rights, racial justice and fair housing during his short time living here, Silbert Billouin no doubt left Maine a better place than when he found it.
“My father was very soft spoken, but a brilliant speaker and very, very kind,” said Albert. “He was so special.”