A seemingly banal, classic mid-20th century image of a white mail carrier that is today’s #stampoftheday turned out deliver a timely lesson about the ways that the government, particularly the federal government, can be used to both further oppression and foster opportunity.

The stamp is a 15-cent stamp special delivery stamp issued on June 6, 1955. (Special Delivery service, which was established by Congress in 1885 gave senders of very timely materials, the option of having letters delivered from the destination post office to the addressee immediately upon receipt, instead of having them delivered on the next scheduled mail delivery to the recipient’s address.)

The stamp led me to a question I haven’t thought about: how—and in what ways—has the nation’s troubled racial history been reflected in the history of the post office, which, after all, was one of the first and most important services offered by the public sector? An admittedly quick exploration of that history reveals a very interesting and illustrative story. (Most of what follows comes from a fascinating piece on “African-American Postal Workers in the 20th Century” on the USPS website).

I wasn’t surprised to learn that in the early 19th century Congress banned African Americans from carrying U.S. Mail, nor was I surprised to learn that during the post Civil War reconstruction era, newly-enfranchised African Americans began receiving coveted appointments as postmasters, clerks, and city letter carriers or that things shifted back with the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Jim Crow era. (Control of such appointments, it bears mention, was a major political prize that often drove local involvement in federal elections).

But I was surprised to discover that in the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt pushed back at efforts to get rid of black postal workers. In a letter written in November 1902, for example, Roosevelt wrote “it is and should be my consistent policy in every State, where their numbers warranted it, to recognize colored men of good repute and standing in making appointments to office. . . I cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope – the door of opportunity – is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color.”

In January 1903, Roosevelt (whose record on civil rights was otherwise pretty weak) put his power behind this sentiment when he refused to allow the town of Indianola, Mississippi, to drive out its African-American postmaster and instead suspended service at the town’s post office. Nevertheless many whites violently resisted. In 1904, for example, the post office in Humphrey, AK was dynamited in the middle of the night and completely destroyed, reportedly because some of the town’s citizens objected to the appointment of a black postmaster.

Despite the resistance of whites, many African Americans sought work in Post Offices largely because it was one of the few places where they could get jobs. As a 1908 article in The Washington Post noted “Comparatively well-educated negroes are willing, indeed, glad, to take minor clerkships under the government, places which do not appeal to white men of ability for the simple reason that the white man can do better. The consequence is that the most capable of the negroes compete with whites of at best only mediocre ability. However, those working for the Post Office, particularly in the South, were steered away from positions as clerks in post offices to jobs as letter carriers, a policy that as Booker T. Washington noted in 1906 led to the bizarre fact that “in many parts of the South the white people would object seriously to colored people handing them a letter through the post office window, but would make no objection to a colored mail carrier handing them a letter at their door.”

Roosevelt’s two successors were less supportive of black postal workers. William Howard Taft, Roosevelt’s successor, said “it is not the disposition or within the province of the Federal Government to interfere with the regulation by Southern States of their domestic affairs.” In keeping with this view, Taft appointed no black postmasters in the South and didn’t reappoint black incumbents as their four-year terms expired.

The administration of Woodrow Wilson, Taft’s successor, went even further, adopting de facto policies that of segregating postal work crews and postal buildings. African-American political leaders, many of whom had encouraged their followers to vote for Wilson, complained in many venues including a meeting with the president. Angered by their attacks, Wilson claimed that there was no discrimination in federal agencies, but added “segregation had been inaugurated to avoid friction between the races, not to injure the negro.”

Things apparently improved modestly in the 1920s under Republican administrations and as a growing number of blacks left the South for northern cities, many found jobs in those cities’ post offices. By 1928 blacks comprised nearly 20 percent of the postal workforce in Philadelphia and nearly 24 percent in Baltimore. Not surprisingly, however, they tended to have lower-level jobs. In 1930, for example blacks comprised about 70 percent of the Post Office laborers in Chicago, but only 28 percent of the clerks, 16 percent of the letter carriers, and just 5 percent of the foremen.

Nevertheless blacks still found the Post Office to be a better option than most other available opportunities. For example “Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City,” a notable book written in 1945 by St. Clair Drake and Horace Clayton, found that noted that: “In the [Chicago] post office one will find not only colored high school graduates, but also men with advanced college degrees seeking economic security and students studying medicine and law. In 1939, at least a half-dozen Negro postal employees were writing books! The “postal worker” is a social type . . . of definitely high status.” Similarly, a 1939 survey of African-American adolescent boys in New York City, for example, found that “Post Office clerk” topped the list of 22 possible jobs and “mail carrier” was number six. (Further illustrating this point is the fact that famed author Richard Wright worked in the Chicago post office in the late 1920s and early 1930s.)

More opportunities for black postal workers began opening up starting in the 1940s when a series of U.S. Presidents – spurred on both by civil rights organizations and war-time necessity – began using their powers of office to encourage more opportunities in workplaces. The Post Office was a leader in these efforts (or perhaps was less of a laggard than others). In the 1960s, as the Civil Right movement grew, the number of African-American employees promoted to supervisory positions grew exponentially, and African Americans were appointed as postmasters of the nation’s three largest Post Offices – New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. By the end of the 20th century African Americans comprised 21 percent of all postal employees, serving at all levels of the Postal Service. (In an of itself, this provides a noteworthy frame on the current president’s recent attacks on the postal service.)

None of this was on my father’s mind when he sent away for the first-day cover with the 1955 stamp or created a special page in his album featuring the stamp, the cover, and other related materials.

Nevertheless, looking at that stamp in 2020 it seems clear to me that it clearly shows that if the political will is there, the public sector – particularly the federal government – can play a major role in addressing major social inequities. But it’s also clear that absent such leadership, the government can reflect and perhaps even foster the forces that support and benefit from current social structures.

It’s an important message that, in today’s climate, deserves the urgent attention that special delivery was created to convey.

Stay safe, be well, fight for justice and work for peace.