Biographies of Oneil and Adele Cannon Essay Example for Free

Biographies of Oneil and Adele Cannon Essay Oneil and Adele Cannon will be honored this year as they celebrate fifty years of an activist marriage. The following is just a short summary of the many ways Oneil and Adele Cannon have contributed to the history of Los Angeles. The great French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) wrote in his work Emile: â€Å"there is no happiness without courage nor virtue without struggle†. This is a quote that certainly can apply to the lives of Oneil Cannon and his wife Adele. As they celebrate fifty years of an activist marriage, their life journey has exemplified the qualities of courage and struggle. The causes that they have fought together are a chronicle of the progressive movement over the last half century. Oneil Cannon was born in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana on January 28, 1917. He attended grammar and high school in New Orleans, Louisiana. In his 20’s he was drafted into the Army in Louisiana. He first visited L. A. during his furlough from the Army, to visit his sister and younger brother. He met and married his first wife, Elizabeth, in New Orleans in 1939. After his discharge from the Army in 1945 he felt that Los Angeles would probably offer better opportunities for a man and his young family, so they moved to Watts. This was during the era of a large migration of African-Americans from the south to California and other northern states. In order to sustain an income in those beginning years, he had various jobs. In 1946 he obtained a position as an Insurance Agent with the historical Golden State Insurance Company (the first insurance company to predominantly serve the African American community in Los Angeles). As Oneil puts it: â€Å"My brother Fred and I had opened our own printing shop in Watts before either of us knew very much about printing. We were both just out of the Army (World War II) and after a time, we decided that I would go to school and learn printing. I studied printing at Frank Wiggins Trade School which later became Trade Tech Junior College in the years 1947 to 1950. Fred would stay and take care of the shop and then I would come home and teach my brother what I learned at school about printing. That was my job. That’s the way we did it. So we both became printers at the same time, but I became a printing teacher, the same day that I became a printing student. We ran the shop and studied between meetings and other community activities, which we were both involved in Mrs. Carlotta Bass, editor and publisher of the California Eagle Newspaper, (who also introduced Oneil to Paul Robeson) also had a printing shop needing someone to take it over at that time. So Oneil went in and made a deal with hershe rented him the use of the printing shop. Therefore Oneil was in business for himself as the California Eagle Printing Company (1950-55). Also, he still worked with his brother at the Quick Service Advertisers Print Shop on 111th and Wilmington. They printed signs, leaflets and advertisements for various funeral establishments, political causes and groups, and businesses in the community. One day Carlotta Bass came into the printishop with some people to talk to Oneil about the Printers Union. Because of his hands-on work and training as a printer, they invited him to join in starting a campaign to break the color line in the Printers Union. This was a significant point in continuing the struggle for equal opportunities for all, and shows his genuine concern and courage to bring justice to the community. Philip â€Å"Slim† Connelly from the CIO, asked if he could participate in this very important campaign. Prior to this time, the Union did not have any African American members. Considering Oneil’s history of activism, from the voting rights movement in the south in the 1930’s, to being involved in breaking the color bar in the International Typographical Union (ITU), this was one of the most important, telling and dramatic labors of his life. Oneil stated, â€Å"This is how I got started to working on getting into a printing union. After getting all sorts of â€Å"run arounds† from printing unions, somehow some of the Communists who were in the ITU came to me and offered to help, if I was really interested in breaking the Jim Crow status in the printing industry and unions in Los Angeles. I had absolutely no doubts that I was ready for this struggle; â€Å"a piece of cake†, after all, hadn’t I just come from â€Å"Jim Crow† Louisiana where I’d lived all my life, and hadn’t I just gotten out, after three years in a â€Å"Jim Crow† Army. I had been all over Los Angeles looking for, and working on different jobs. But you â€Å"ain’t† lived until you have to deal with well-organized trade union bigots. These dudes were really pros. Interestingly, I never once heard them attacking my desire for membership on the basis of race, but only because the people who advocated my membership were Communists. Incidentally, I never saw any membership cards, but saw that they knew of my efforts to become a printers union member, and that they were the ones who came to my assistance. Logic tells me that there was something strange about the Union’s argument, because if they hated Communists so badly, why were these white Communists â€Å"in the union†, and not one African American? This point was raised by one of the comrades on the union floor and he was roundly booed, but not put out of the union. † Oneil finally became a member of the Printers Union, but then was never sent out to jobs. When he went to the Union Hall, somehow there was no work for him. However, some of his friends benefited by Oneil breaking that barrier, and did get jobs. So the struggle continued. Meanwhile, Oneil continued operating his own â€Å"Union† printing business Fidelity Lettershop, which he continues to run today. â€Å"I ended up not only running my own printing shop, but also teaching graphic arts at S. T. E. P. ne of the â€Å"Poverty Programs† and eventually I retired as a California State credentialed graphic arts teacher in 1999. This is where he first met (now Congresswoman) Maxine Waters. I still teach on a volunteer basis at the Paul Robeson Center in south Los Angeles, of which I am the director. I’ve been teaching printing a long time. † Oneil and Adele met in 1947, while working together as part of a political team in South Los Angeles during the campaign to put Henry Wallace (who was running against Truman) and the Independent Progressive Party (IPP) on the Ballot. Adele was also an activist, beginning with the Franklin Roosevelt campaign as a precinct worker. Adele Marx Rosenfield was born in El Paso, Texas in 1923. Her family moved to California in about 1936 and she graduated from Fairfax High School in 1940. She then attended UCLA to study Chemistry. After Pearl Harbor, she enlisted in the WAVES, but was discharged after only 17 days due to â€Å"political activities in civilian life†. It turned out the government had interviewed a friend of the family who told of her activities. She married and had two children—Jan and Dale Goodman. Adele and Oneil were married in December, 1954. When her youngest child, Jan Goodman, was in Junior High School she went back to school at UCLA Extension and then for her Masters of Business Administration at Cal State Dominguez, while working as an office manager, and raising a family. After earning her CPA and working as a full-time accountant, she served as the Peace and Freedom Party’s State Treasurer for 16 years and is still a State Officer of the Peace and Freedom Party. Since starting to work together as part of a political team in South Los Angeles during the campaign to put Henry Wallace and the Independent Progressive Party (IPP) on the ballot in the late 1940’s, they continued as a team when fighting to free the Rosenbergs and later Angela Davis. One fight always led to another, as they fought as part of the IPP to force employers to hire African and Mexican- Americans, where the slogon was don’t bank or buy where you can’t work. As part of the South-East Inter-Racial Council, they fought to end segregated housing and restrictive covenants and to bring Negro History Week into the Los Angeles City Schools. Always striving to bring peace, they gathered signatures to the Stockholm Peace Petition, fought and demonstrated against the wars in Vietnam and continue to fight for Middle East peace. As they raised their six kids, the Cannons fought to bring equal education to South Los Angeles, including the multi-years struggle led by Odessa Cox to bring a Junior college to South Los Angeles, which culminated in the establishment of Southwest Community College. They were also involved from the beginning to acquire a health facility of some kind in Watts, which ultimately came under the leadership of Ted and Bernice Watkins and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), a predecessor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital. Oneil Cannon is known to current activists as owner/operator/union printer at his print shop, Fidelity Educational Press. Oneil, along with his wife Adele and others co-founded the Paul Robeson Community Center in 1986. When they were thinking about a name for this Center, their daughter Jan Goodman suggested it be named in honor of Paul Robeson since their goal was to establish a multi-cultural/multi-ethnic community center. Therefore, who better to exemplify multi-culturalism than Paul Robeson. In the Cannons’ fifty years as a team, they have certainly lived their motto to improve our community. Instead of leaving when the kids were grown, they stayed to continue the fight for better schools and living conditions in South Los Angeles. In this way they have been able to truly contribute to a multi-cultural South Los Angeles.