directly stipulate this intention and provide adequate safeguards to assure it.

A final aspect of the aforementioned Civil Rights Commission investigation bears more directly upon the public employment bills now under study by your committee.

A State agency which undoubtedly would have an even greater authority under both the administration and the Steiger bills is the Texas State Employment Commission. Please permit me to quote from the report directly:

According to 1960 Census figures 69 percent of rural Spanish-surname families living in Texas and 47 percent of those urban families had incomes under $3,000. Thus the need for employment counseling and job information is especially accute for Mexican American job seekers. The public agency primarily responsible for providing such help in Texas is the Texas Employment Commission. Since for many of these families Spanish is the first and in some cases the only language, there undoubtedly is a need for bilingual persons.

Of the 2,946 full-time regular employees employed by the Texas Employment Commission, however, 226 or less than 8 percent were Mexican American.

In the higher grade positions, the number of Mexican American employees was even less. Of 527 managerial and supervisory positions only 14 or less than 3 percent were held by Mexican Americans.

Of 1606 professional and technical employees, only 118 or slightly over 7 percent were held by Mexican Americans.

The Texas Employment Commission does not have offices in many of the counties with populations over 50 percent Mexican American. They do have offices, however, in the following areas with a high proportion of Mexican Americans: Bexar, Cameron, Hidalgo, Webb and Willacy Counties and the cities of Corpus Christi and El Paso.

With the exception of El Paso and Webb County the figures show a disproportionately small number of Mexican American employees, particularly among the professional employees. For example, In Bexas County only 9 of 73 employment interviewers were Mexican American and there were even fewer Mexican American employment counsellors, 2 out of 49. In Corpus Christi, only 4 out of 55 professional and technical employees were Mexican American.

While TEC, at least locally, appears to be showing interest in the hard core unemployed, apparently there is quite a long way to go on a statewide level to even become an equitable employer themselves.

It is questioned whether, under present circumstances, they can hope to reach those of minority groups who have long been out of the mainstream of manpower channels. More recent data indicates there are 22 Mexican-Americans in supervisory or managerial positions and eight black people.

It seems vital to the welfare of the poor as well as imperative for the black people for any manpower program legislation passed to be under the direct authority of the Department of Labor, and for it to assure racial and ethnic equality in contracting with State and local enities.

A bright spot on the national level, and Congress is certainly to be commended, is the recent action of Congress to include the Philadelphia Plan on federally assisted construction. Appendix C provides cumulative data on the present status of the apprenticeship outreach program as of September 1969.

Texas can be proud of the job being done in Dallas, but other Texas cities, including Houston, do not score so well. Corpus Christi has the dubious distinction of having 12, or two-thirds of the building trades unions listed, still not having any apprentice trainees as of September 1969.

Currently there is at least one trainee in all local unions except the bricklayers, electricians, and painters. This abysmal record is bested only by Fort Worth which showed 14 unions still not having trainees. We prefer to see Federal Government retain control over funds and programs rather than making block grants to States or placing program development and implementation within their jurisdiction.

It is important to have coordination and cooperation, but there must also be a strong desire to subsidize the poor, at least as much as those who are not poor. Housing is a good example of what we mean; FHA has long been the subsidizing agency for middle-class housing through their guarantee of loans, but when the Federal Government chose to also enter the housing subsidy field for the poor there was a "great outcry about something for nothing to lazy people." In a similar fashion, remedying entrenched discrimination patterns often is construed as "making a special exception for unqualified people."

One of the methods by which change in patterns of employment can occur is through public agency employment. There must be an accompanying reordering of national priorities for the additional employment to significantly alter the "busboy, custodian" stereotype for the balck man.

For example, testifying before the Texas Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights at a hearing in Houston, the regional director of the NAACP stated that his organization surveyed six of the black schools in the area and found that four of them had never received a visit by representatives of the Bureau of Apprenticeship Training or the Texas Employment Commission regarding various programs for on-the-job-training.

However, referring to the schools that did receive such information. the representatives of the NAACP stated "*** In the area that was predominately Negro, we found the type jobs referred were in the custodial or janitorial or menial type classification."

The reordering of national priorities will enable the transition to peacetime full employment to meet the needs for long overdue public services and also needed public construction. "Make work" definitely won't suffice.

Political patronage job making too often falls in this category. We want to see evidence of change in the basic ideas of what is important to get done in our Nation. Urban ills, rural isolation, abuse and misuse of our resources, natural and manmade, as well as the resource of people themselves need money and programs with teeth in them to implement the changes to which we refer.

The black man and all minority groups can take part in building and rebuilding our Nation if the white man will include him in the process.

Our information indicates that with all three proposed bills under consideration by your committee the involvement of the OEO is to be reduced. In our local situation we do not believe this is advisable at this time. Efforts are being made to utilize the communication structure of OEO to reach hard core unemployed and underemployed.

These persons have not been reached by other established channels of manpower programs and would be served through neighborhood councils. This would supplement, not duplicate efforts, both within and beyond the OEO structure, and thereby afford a greater possi

bility of successfully helping the hard core poor who are unemployed or underemployed.

Although we have information of general patterns in Federal employment in the State of Texas which we will be happy to make available to your committee upon request, we will limit specific comment to one local installation, ARADMAC, the largest single employer in our area.

Col. Luther M. Jones, the commanding officer of ARADMAC, shows a real interest in alleviating discrimination. We have had numerous conferences with him and his staff. Many of these meetings were initiated at Colonel Jones invitation to inform us of their efforts to assure greater equity in employment.

However, there is such a long way to go, as appendix E and their latest statistical data show, that we believe it will take an intensive effort to begin to significantly alter the pattern which has existed there. As you will note, the total employment force in 1965 was 2,015 persons.

The black people made up 3.2 percent and the Mexican-American 27.8 percent of that total. Now in 1969 the total employment was 4,612, an increase of 129 percent, but the black people now make up only 2.9 percent of that total work force while the Mexican-American has gained to 36 percent of that total.

To put it mildly we are distressed by these figures. We provide this information to demonstrate to your committee that merely increasing public agency employment does not necessarily meet the black man's needs.

Again you will note, this is especially true in higher salary positions. Discrimination is woven into the whole cloth of our economy. The black man does not consider it necessary to plead for acceptance, or threaten for acceptance. It is his right as much as any other citizen to expect acceptance, and equity of opportunity.

Although we received notification of this subcommittee hearing somewhat later than other groups here in Corpus Christi, the NAACP exerted a special effort to provide you with a sampling from the black community as of January 1970.

Appendix D shows you the survey form used and summarizes the findings. While we do not propose that this is a comprehensive sampling of the black community of Corpus Christi, we do think it probably profiles fairly accurately the black members of our organization locally.

You will note: Most are between the ages of 35 and 65. Over two-thirds were not the only wage earner in their family. About two-thirds had incomes under $5,000. One-third had incomes under $3,000. Yet over two-thirds had a high school, some college, or a college education. Although 28 had never taken part in a government training program. Twenty-nine would be interested in a job training program. Twelve indicated that a lack of skills made it more difficult to obtain a job or get a better one.

Only two specifically listed "segregation" as a reason for job difficulty, yet 18 gave no answer at all to this question of the problems they feel make it more difficult to obtain a job or get a better one. Almost one-half of those who would be interested in a job training program would be able to arrange for the care of their children.

If you will permit me to interpret the way we view the information obtained from this survey, I believe you will find that the black people have common aspirations with other ethnic and racial groups.

There is a desire for a better way of life, and it usually takes both husband and wife working in order to have even a living income. We hope you will not overlook the fact that one-third have incomes of less than the poverty index last year, even though they are currently employed. It appears that it is more difficult for the black people to reach an income level comparable to that of other "working couple" families who might have similar education.

The black people want equity. The old cliche that "you can't legislate morals" may be true, but it is certain that a democratic government can, and must, legislate equity for all its people. We think our testimony gives you evidence of this need, and we charge you with its imperativeness in the Manpower Program Act of 1969.

Thank you.

Senator NELSON. We appreciate having you here today.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Brown, I have been reading all of your tables. All of your appendixes that you have attached here will be printed in full in the record.

(The documents follow:)