Willard Saxby Townsend

Townsend, Willard Saxby (1895–1957), one of the first African-American labor leaders. He served as the first president of the Auxiliary of Redcaps (1936), a union that represented railroad baggage porters. In 1955, when the American Federation of Labor (AFL) merged with the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) to form the AFL-CIO, Townsend became the new union organization's first vice president.

See also: Labor movement.