This story was originally published by Verite News.
For Harold John, a job with the federal government meant a more stable, comfortable life than the one he knew as a child. John grew up in the Melpomene Projects with his three sisters. Neither of his parents, both of who had grown up on rural farms in Louisiana, had obtained more than an elementary school education. John was able to finish high school, join the U.S. Navy and then get a job with the U.S. Postal Service, all of which helped carry him into the middle class in the 1980s.
But today, the now-retired letter carrier is concerned that that same pathway may not be available to young people growing up in similar circumstances.
That is because the second Trump administration has set its sights on dismantling the federal workforce, especially through the slash-and-cut measures of the Department of Government Efficiency, which until recently was led by Elon Musk. In its first few months, DOGE had already targeted diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and initiated mass layoffs across multiple federal agencies, which, some allege, have disproportionately impacted women and people of color.
The U.S. Postal Service has not yet been subject to the same types of abrupt and indiscriminate cuts seen at agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Department of Education but DOGE has its sights set on the post office, which worries John.
“There’s been a dedicated narrative from the right that federal workers aren’t necessary for a long time,” John said. “This is not the first time that they’ve come after the postal service or federal unions, but it’s the most disastrous and dangerous time.”
The U.S. Postal Service is highly diverse. As of 2023, 45% of postal employees were racial minorities. Though Black people make up about 14% of the total U.S. population, 30% of postal workers that year were Black.
To John, who is Black, that diversity is one of the Postal Service’s greatest strengths.
“That was one of the better things about having a federal job: you knew they weren’t going to discriminate when it came to hiring,” John said.
There are approximately 34,000 federal employees in Louisiana, 38% of whom identify as Black – the second-highest share of Black federal workers among the states, behind only Georgia. This trend is consistent across most of the South. In Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, at least one-third of federal workers are Black.
Part of the reason Black people are overrepresented in federal workers in the South is due to the fact of demographics: There are more Black people in the South.
But Gary Hoover, an economist at Tulane University, said that overrepresentation of Black people in the federal workforce also has to do with the fact that public sector work is one of the few on-ramps to the middle class for historically marginalized communities of color, especially in the South.
“You have to go back nearly 60 years to … the Civil Rights Act in 1964, where employment discrimination became a federal offense,” Hoover said. “There’s the creation of the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] that looks into unfair hiring and labor practices. And with the creation of the EEOC, the federal government becomes a leader in fair hiring practices – not by doing anything particularly progressive, just by actually upholding the law as it is written in regards to employment.”
At that time, many Black workers, especially educated Black workers, struggled to get hired or be promoted within the private sector due to widespread racial biases. This was not only the case in white-collar and professional industries, but also in skilled blue-collar industries.
Especially since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, public sector work, notably with the federal government, has provided an opportunity for upward mobility for Black workers. It was also a workforce that was rapidly becoming more unionized following a 1962 executive order by President John F. Kennedy granting federal workers the right to engage in collective bargaining
In Louisiana and across the South, a unionized job with the federal government was a good job – and one that ultimately helped build the Black middle class, Hoover said.
“Once I have job security, I can start thinking about buying a home,” Hoover said. “Once I start thinking about buying a home, I’m thinking about stable communities. Once I have a stable community, then I can start thinking seriously about the future and intergenerational wealth transfers.”
‘Nobody is living high on the hog’
On a recent steamy afternoon in May, a group of protesters gathered outside Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise’s Metairie office. The protest, which was organized by the grassroots organization Step Up Louisiana, featured about two dozen people decked out in union garb, holding picket signs above their heads. Marching in a circle outside the 18-floor Heritage Plaza office tower, the protesters took turns leading raucous chants.
“Step Up,” one protester shouted.
“For federal workers!” the rest replied.
“Step Up,” went another call.
“For U.S. Mail,” came the response.
The protest had been organized in response to a Trump-championed budget reconciliation bill, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which, as drafted, would significantly cut assistance for Medicaid and food stamps. Scalise was set to vote on the bill that same day (May 22). (He ultimately would vote in favor, along with 214 of his colleagues, and help the bill pass the U.S. House of Representatives.)
The group outside Scalise’s office included a contingent of current and former federal workers — all of them Black — who were also protesting DOGE’s cuts to the federal workforce.
Terrence Johns, a current employee of the National Finance Office, a New Orleans-based federal office that manages payroll and personnel across multiple federal agencies, stepped up and spoke into the megaphone.
“Here in the South, you know there’s largely a minority population that makes up these government service jobs,” Johns said, noting that his own office was majority Black. “Believe me, brothers and sisters, everything that comes out of this administration attacks Black and Brown people.”
Johns, who has also served as the longtime president of a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees union, said that both federal jobs and social welfare — necessary to sustaining the people of the Deep South — have been gutted since the Reagan administration.
“Don’t believe the rhetoric,” he added. “Nobody is living high on the hog. But these are decent jobs and have always set the standard for American workers.”
‘It is just so disheartening’
When John started at the Postal Service in 1985, that there were a small number of good, unionized jobs across the greater New Orleans area, such as at the Avondale Shipyard and the port, John said. But apart from those, the best opportunities were in unionized public sector work. Many educated Black people like him found opportunities with the federal government at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (then known as the Veterans Administration), or at the nearby NASA Michoud facility. Or with the Postal Service.
“We had a definite economic impact on New Orleans,” he said, referring to the Black middle class that was emerging through public sector work.
Troy Lee Davis, another Postal Service employee in New Orleans, grew up in the Desire Projects before moving to New Orleans East. His dad, who had served in World War II, worked in construction while his mom worked as a housemaid and cook. Davis, like his father before him, joined the military, which helped pay for college at the University of New Orleans. After that, he got a job as a mail handler.
“This was one of the better-paying jobs in New Orleans,” Davis said, adding that the job came with benefits, paid time off, holidays and regular cost-of-living adjustments. “So, it was a big opportunity for anybody coming from poverty to get to have a comfortable lifestyle.”
Being part of the Postal Service has a long, storied reputation among Black communities because it was one of the earliest available public sector jobs – and one that paid decent wages.
But these days, both John and Davis are worried that the second Trump administration may unravel the gains that post office and other federal employees have made.
In March, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy entered into an agreement with DOGE, allowing the team to find “further efficiencies” in the postal service, targeting a specific list of issues, including the management of retirement plans, workers’ compensation costs, lease renewals and counterfeit postage. He also said he would seek to cut 10,000 of the Postal Service’s 600,000-plus employees through early retirement offers. (DeJoy resigned later that same month.)
However, some worry that the DOGE partnership, along with Trump’s pick of a FedEx board member to lead the USPS, means that the Postal Service may soon be privatized – an idea that Trump and Musk have expressed support for in the past.
“I’ve seen all the progress that was made during my lifetime destroyed in less than one hundred days,” John said. “It is just so disheartening to see it all gone, pretty much overnight.”
This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
