Editing Waterloo, Iowa (section)

==== Civil rights ====
[[United Packinghouse Workers of America]] became the main union of the Rath Company, welcoming black workers,<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|title = The Politics of Youth: Civil Rights Reform in the Waterloo Public Schools|last = Schumaker|first = Kathryn|date = 2013|journal = The Annals of Iowa |volume=72|issue = 4|pages = 353–385|doi = 10.17077/0003-4827.1740|doi-access = free}}</ref> but United Auto Workers Local 838 continued to refuse black members.<ref name=":2">{{cite web|title = Report: Waterloo is Iowa's most segregated large city|url = https://medium.com/@dmegivern/the-10th-worst-city-for-african-americans-in-the-u-s-has-a-story-this-is-how-the-dream-derailed-9a1e12a8ad41#.c27ch0ul7|website = Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier|access-date = 2016-02-15|first = Tim|last = Jamison|archive-date = February 23, 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160223150523/https://medium.com/@dmegivern/the-10th-worst-city-for-african-americans-in-the-u-s-has-a-story-this-is-how-the-dream-derailed-9a1e12a8ad41#.c27ch0ul7|url-status = dead}}</ref> With the power of the union, Anna Mae Weems, Ada Treadwell, Charles Pearson and Jimmy Porter formed an anti-discrimination department at Rath by the 1950s. This department helped organize protests against local places that discriminated against blacks.<ref name="Halpern"/>

Porter would go on to organize the first black radio station in Waterloo, KBBG, in 1978.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Weems became the head of the anti-discrimination department and local NAACP chapter.<ref name="Halpern"/>

On May 31, 1966, Eddie Wallace Sallis was found dead in the local jail. The black community felt the death was suspicious, and protests were held. On June 4, Weems led a march on city hall to encourage investigation into his death.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The march led to the creation of the Waterloo Human Rights Commission, which lasted only a year due to lack of funding.<ref name="Foster"/>

On Sept. 7, 1967, a city report, "Waterloo's Unfinished Business", was released.<ref name=":3">{{cite web|title = Waterloo race relations still an issue 40 years after city report|url = http://wcfcourier.com/news/top_story/waterloo-race-relations-still-an-issue-years-after-city-report/article_42d89ae7-9c4e-5048-9877-ad949bbfc893.html|website = Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier|access-date = 2016-02-15|first = AMIE STEFFEN Courier Staff|last = Writer| date=September 9, 2007 }}</ref> The report covered the ongoing problems in housing, education and employment faced by Waterloo's black community. It confirmed the housing bias faced by black residents, that many of the schools were generally 80% of one race, and that 80% of black residents held service jobs.<ref name=":3" /> In a 2007 article, the Courier covered some changes in the 40 years since, finding that housing was now mostly divided by socioeconomic status, schools still violated the desegregation plan, and black unemployment was still double that of white residents.<ref name=":3" />

The [[Iowa Supreme Court]] outlawed school [[Racial segregation|segregation]] in 1868.<ref name="Foster"/> A 1967 commission found most schools were still segregated and recommended immediate desegregation, which Mayor Lloyd Turner opposed.<ref name=":1" /> In 1969, the Waterloo school board voted to allow open enrollment in all their schools to encourage integration. Many parents felt it was not enough.<ref name=":1" /> Despite the efforts between 1967 and 1970, already-black schools in the area increased in their segregation.<ref name=":1" />