Standing Tall
Willie Long & the Mare Island Original 21ers
A Legacy of Courage, Activism, and Social Justice
An important, yet long unknown story about the civil rights movement is now brought to life through Jake Sloan’s inspiring firsthand, well-researched account of the courage and activism of a brave group of African American men working at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California during the 1960s.
Mare Island Original 21/25 activists forced sweeping civil rights change
In 1961, more than 1,000 African Americans worked at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. For decades, they had suffered under organized, systematic, and, sometimes, unconscious discriminatory working conditions in hiring, training, promotions, and equal pay opportunities.
Standing Tall: Willie Long & The Mare Island Original 21ers, a new book by Jake Sloan, is an inspiring firsthand account of historic events in the civil rights movement that took place at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the 1960s. In this book, the author recounts his role as one of the Mare Island Original 21/25, an activist group of pipefitters, mechanics, welders, painters and laborers working at the shipyard. As a pipefitter, he worked side by side with other men who suffered under unfair labor practices at the shipyard.
The unsung heroes of the Mare Island Original 21/25 and their historic racial discrimination complaint filed with the President’s Committee for Equal Job Opportunities on November 17, 1961, led to sweeping change in the unfair labor practices at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard and played a part in influencing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and other affirmative action that continue to benefit African Americans across the United States today.
The Mare Island Original 21/25
Willie Long, Sr. - Founding President
Boston Banks, Jr.
Matthew Barnes
Robert Borden
Eddie Brady
Willie Capers
James Colbert
James Davis
Kermit Day
Charlies Fluker
Louis Greer
James D. Hall
Virgil Herndon
Jimmie James
Levi Jones
Thomas King
Herbert Lane
Matthew Luke
John L. McGee
Herman Moore
W.J. Price
Charles Scales
Jesse "Jake" Sloan
Brodie Taylor
Clarence Williams
Honorary Members
John Edmondson
Vernon Taylor
Attorney for Mare Island Original 21/25
Charles Wilson, Esq.
"Across the country, there are unmarked graves of unsung heroes and heroines who represent countless acts of resistance which stand as testaments to the enduring struggle of African American people in the struggle for equality, democracy and economic justice. Standing Tall: The Mare Island Original 21ers, is a monument that brings to light a virtually unknown group of men who made history by standing up for what was right and just."
— Leonard McNeil, former council member and mayor of the City of San Pablo, California, retired political science professor at Contra Costa College, and retired union iron worker in Local #378
Timeline
"There was a Martin Luther King movement at that time. There was an uproar throughout the nation at that time in trying to get equality. And I said to myself, 'If these people in the South can die for what they believe in, certainly I can put this little job on the line for what I believe in,' "
— Willie Long, Sr., leader of the Mare Island Original 21/25
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Standing Tall: Willie Long & The Mare Island Original 21ers
An important, yet long unknown story about the civil rights movement is now brought to life through Jake Sloan’s inspiring firsthand, well-researched account of the courage and activism of a brave group of African American men working at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California during the 1960s..