Recreational facilities and churches were segregated at Hanford. COURTESY OF DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
In 1943, the federal government established a project in Hanford, Washington, that provided many working-class Americans with something they desperately needed: jobs. A good number of the people who came to Hanford to do jobs like welding, cutting, digging, hammering, typing, serving, and cooking were black and from the South. They too needed jobs, had American dreams, and wanted a piece of the wartime pie. A current exhibit at the Northwest African American Museum, titled The Atomic Frontier: Black Life in Hanford, WA, is devoted to their stories and includes recruitment posters, oral histories, maps, declassified photographs by the federal government, and more…
