BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " ERNEST C. TANNER " WAS A LABOUR LEADER AND WAS THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TO PLAY FOOTBALL AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL IN THE PACIFIC NORTH WEST : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK HEROES "

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Ernest C. Tanner (1889-1956)

 

 

Image Ownership: Public Domain

Tacoma, Washington labor leader Ernest Charles Tanner (Ernie) was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 5, 1889. His father was a trapeze performer and his mother, a nurse. Moving to Tacoma with his family in 1900, Ernie Tanner attended Stadium High School where he emerged as an outstanding athlete in track, basketball, baseball and football. He attended Whitworth College in 1908-1909, and according to the Oregonian, was the first African American to play football at the college level in the Pacific Northwest. Tanner helped Whitworth defeat the University of Oregon in 1908. His obituary identified him as once being named “the greatest athlete ever developed in the Northwest.” After attending Whitworth, Tanner played in the local Negro League where he was captain and manager of the Tacoma “Little Giants.”
After college Tanner worked as a Tacoma elevator operator and in 1918, he joined the Tacoma chapter of the International Brotherhood of Longshoreman and remained a member until his death in 1956. In an era when racial discrimination was common against African Americans in the labor movement, Tanner rose to a position of leadership. He served as a trustee of Local 38-97, and also was a member of the union’s executive board. From the beginning, Tanner insisted that African American dockworkers be paid the same wages and work under the same conditions as white longshoremen.
Tanner’s defining moment as a longshoreman came in the bitter strike of 1934. He was the only African American on the strike committee and worked closely with labor leader Harry Bridges to keep black and white workers united during the strike so that employers would have difficulty breaking the union. In 1936 he was elected by his peers to serve as the chairman of the union publicity committee.
In 1950, the Tacoma longshoremen decided to build a new hall at 1710 N. Market St. and the local’s members elected Tanner to be the chairman of the building committee. In 1996, this same building was named the Ernest C. Tanner Labor and Ethnic Studies Center as part of the University of Washington’s Tacoma campus.
Perhaps Tanner’s most lasting legacy was through the work and career of his son Jack. Born in 1919, Jack Tanner went to law school, after working briefly on the docks with his father, and became the Pacific Northwest’s first African American federal judge when in 1978 he was named to the Federal District Court for Western Washington.
Unfortunately Ernest Tanner did not live to see his son sworn in as a federal judge. He died in Tacoma in 1956. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife, Irene, his son, and daughter.

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