By Michael Honey, former Harry Bridges Chair and LAWCHA president, and UW Emeritus Professor of Labor and Civil Rights History
On July 20, 2025, ILWU Local 23 threw a super extravaganza retirement celebration for Willie Adams, who retired in January after two terms as ILWU president and as previous Secretary-Treasurer. Hundreds of people showed up. As the first Black President of ILWU, Willie steered the union through some very tough times during Trump, COVID, and anti-union attacks. Paddy Crumlin, leader of the Maritime Union of Australia and the president of the International Transport Federation, testified to Willie’s strengthening of the union’s strong international links among workers across the globe. Along with Mike Jajielski of the ILWU Pensioners Association, Willie visited the home turf of Harry Bridges in Australia. In his remarks, Brother Adams warmly recalled the ways internationalism has kept the union strong. He shared with us his experiences of tough times migrating to Tacoma from Kansas City, where he became registered as a union dock worker in 1980. He treasured that day, but especially the Tacoma among unionists who showed him the ropes and helped him move along to become a strong voice for both labor and civil rights.
I first met Brother Adams in support of his Black Labor History programs from 1991-1993 and 2001-2005. He brought Danny Glover, the daughter of Betty Shabazz (partner to Malcolm X), Yolanda King, and Ossie Davis, who gave an inspiring overview of the struggle against slavery and segregation. These years coincided with the beginnings of our UW Tacoma campus in 1990, and I brought my students to all his events. During those early years of UWT, when we had no campus, Local 23 on Market Street hosted our community/campus labor and civil rights history events. After the union moved closer to the waterfront, the old hall became our student center with a mural dedicated to the union inside the entrance. I was privileged to meet Local 23 President Phil Lelli and other Local 23 leaders who introduced me to the Tacoma labor movement and its special relationship to solidarity on the waterfront. Zack Pattin, one of our best UWT students in the Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies major, has continued his family’s longshoring tradition of promoting working-class consciousness and organizing.
In moving comments, Brother Adams told us he treasured his beginning days in Tacoma and offered a remarkable testament to the power of persistence. “Hard times,” he said, “can make you stronger to face the assault on union and civil rights today from the highest office in the land.” Yvonne Wheeler, African American President of the LA County Federation of Labor, the hotbed of resistance to immigrant deportations, spoke about the sterling role Brother Adams played in the California labor movement. The Local 10 (San Francisco) Drill Team opened the evening with inspiring songs, chants, and choreography that infused the whole evening with a great feeling of interracial friendship and happiness among veterans and young people today. “We are the union, the mighty, mighty union,” they chanted.
This feeling of resistance also permeated the Labor and Working-Class History Association national conference in Chicago and the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association conference in Portland that I attended. The spirit of “an injury to one is an injury to all” lives on in the coming generations as well as with us veterans. Solidarity forever.