Committee to End Slave Labor in America Collected Records

Committee to End Slave Labor in America; formed in 1946; headquartered in Los Angeles, California; concerned with conscientious objectors to World War II who served without pay in Civilian Public Service camps who were held beyond the end of the war; considered it "America's first official experiment with unpaid forced labor since the Civil War"; after the 1946 withdrawal of the American Friends Service Committee sponsorship of some of the camps, regarding them as peacetime conscription, the camps came under military control, and some of the camp occupants went on strike; the Committee to End Slave Labor supported the Glendora Strikers' Defense Committee; some of the sponsors included Allan Knight Chalmers, John Haynes Holmes, Allan A. Hunter, Dwight Macdonald, Milton Mayer, A.J. Muste, A. Philip Randolph, Kenneth Rexroth, Evan Thomas, Norman Thomas, Howard Thurman, and Oswald Garrison Villard. The executive secretary was Allan Hunter.