December 2001/
January 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Ode to the Postal Workers

Bernice Powell Jackson is executive minister of the United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries.

I know first-hand how important the Postal Service is to our nation. My father was a postal worker, and when he died nearly half a century ago he was in charge of the State Department's post office. Many of my uncles and cousins have worked for the Post Office, and one of my cousins is still a letter carrier in the Washington, DC area.

I also know how important the Postal Service has been to the African American community in particular. Indeed, during my father's time there were many black men and women who worked in the post office while going to law school, divinity school, or medical school. It was a job that had some flexibility in its hours, had good pay and benefits, and most importantly for them, it hired black people.

Martin Luther King Day March, Atlanta, Jan. 1999. Photo: Skip Schiel (part of his series, "In the Footsteps of the Freedom Fighters: Photographs from Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina" on display at Cambridge Friends Meeting, Jan. 6 to 30, information 617/876-6883)

So I understand the anger expressed by many postal workers in the Washington area as two of their coworkers died from inhalation anthrax. They were especially angry when they learned that the dogs of the Capitol police had been given Cipro for anthrax, while the human beings of the US Postal Service had not even been tested for the disease. Only belatedly did the postal workers receive the tests and the medication, too late for two men and their families.

Granted, public health officials seem to have had to go through a steep learning curve and initially gave the postal service bad advice. But the same public health officials were advising all the government agencies. Officials wasted no time in evacuating the office buildings on Capitol Hill or in providing them with medication just in case they might have been exposed. They even protected their police dogs.

So two questions have been haunting me ever since. Why is it that we value the men and women who work for Congress and may or may not have come into contact with the mail more than those we know delivered the contaminated mail to them? Why is it that we value the dogs of the Capitol police more than the human beings of the postal service?

I don't know what the racial breakdown of the postal workers in the Washington, DC area is, but I would guess that most are African American. And I don't know what the racial breakdown is of Capitol Hill workers, but I would guess that while many are African American or other people of color, most are not.

Did race play a conscious part in the decision-making about which government workers were expendable? No, I am sure it did not. Was it an unconscious factor? That would be my guess.

Did class play a role for the blue-collar postal workers who only received medication after two of them died? That would be my guess.

So, to my brothers and sisters in the United States Postal Service--thank you! Thank you for continuing to deliver the mail during the most frightening of times. Thanks for being the everyday heroes that you are. May God bless each and every one of you.

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