AFSCME Office of the Secretary-Treasurer: William Lucy Records

Accession Number: 
LR001989
Extent: 
88 linear feet (88 SB)

The AFSCME Office of the Secretary-Treasurer oversees the general financial health of the international union, keeping records for its locals, councils, and the headquarters staff. The Office keeps files on council and local trusteeships, maintains per capita dues payments by locals and councils, issues charters to new locals, and suspends and disbands locals or councils when problems arise. William Lucy held this position for 38 years, 1972-2010.

Lucy joined AFSCME as a civil engineer in Contra Costa, CA in 1956. A decade later, he was working for the International in Washington, D.C. Proving his leadership abilities during the 1968 sanitation workers strike in Memphis, during which Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, Lucy became AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer in 1972. Alongside his work with AFSCME, Lucy also served with countless labor, civil rights, and civic organizations to advance causes for blacks, women, and workers locally in Washington, D.C., nationally, and internationally. Lucy helped found the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) in 1972 to represent African Americans in the labor movement. He was instrumental in the Free South Africa Movement's efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. He served as president of Public Services International (PSI) and as a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council. These activities are reflected in the Records. Lucy retired from the position of Secretary-Treasurer in July 2010 at the AFSCME biennial convention.

The AFSCME Office of the Secretary-Treasurer: William Lucy Records document the activities and operations of AFSCME International, the Office of the Secretary-Treasurer, and AFSCME’s state and local councils. The Records also convey the actions of William Lucy in a number of labor and civil rights organizations, including TransAfrica, the NAACP, CBTU, PSI, and the AFL-CIO. The Records include correspondence, reports, speeches, financial information, legal documents, convention transcripts and proceedings, publications, and meeting minutes. Several boxes of audio recordings of International Executive Board meetings are included, and a very small number of photographs appear in the collection.

Date: 
1970-2001, bulk 1972-2000
Attachment(click to download)
LR001989.pdfLR001989_guide.pdf602.62 KB