Allyn Wright, an African-American engineer at Electric Boat in Connecticut, was challenged by tradesman Stephen Judge, who is white, on how to handle equipment.
Judge called Wright “a dumb engineer.” He noted that he was the only black, and they all could “get” him. Judge said, “We got a black boy surrounded, and what’s he going to do now. We got you and you can’t go nowhere.” One man mentioned that he thought Wright would fit in a nearby trashcan and lifted its lid. All laughed, and ultimately dispersed.
Judge isn’t laughing any more. He was just sentenced to six months in federal prison for civil rights violations.
“Instead of going forward, we sometimes go backward.” [Wright’s uncle in testimony] invoked the recent racial conflict involving the “Jena Six” in Louisiana. “This racial thing has got to stop.”