Ernie Tanner Labor and Ethnic Studies Center  Nature and Purpose of the Center   History and Programs   Ernie Tanner  Nature and Purpose of the Center Nearly 300ILWU pensioners dedicated Tacoma's ILWU as the Ernie Tanner Labor and Ethnic Center in a ceremony on September 9, 1996.  The Ernie Tanner Center had been formed by west coast pensioners and member of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union in cooperation with faculty, staff and students of the University of Washington, Tacoma and the Harry Bridges Labor Center for Labor studies, University of Washington, Seattle.  The Ernie Tanner Center's purpose is to serve as a meeting place to help develop labor and ethnic studies programming related to concerns in our community.  The Ernie Tanner Center is a historic building created by one of the oldest unions in Tacoma in an industry vital to the historic development of the urban community in south Puget Sound.  As perhaps the only union hall located on the ground of a college campus, the Ernie tanner Center preserves historic legacies of a working class and ethnic culture in the community.  It serves both the community and students at the University of Washington, Tacoma as a meeting place for continuing education and community action. The ILWU built its union hall at 1710 Market in 1925, with construction and funding coordinated by Ernie Tanner.  Like Other workers and residents of our community, Members of Local 23 continue to struggle with racial, ethnic and gender discrimination.  The Tanner Center is part of a continuing struggle in the labor movement to make freedom, justice and equality real for all people History and Programs The curriculum at the University of Washington, Tacoma Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program includes a concentration of course in Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies, some of which involve public events at the Tanner Center. In the spring of 1995, the Ernie Tanner Center began a speakers series with distinguished scholars speaking on labor and ethnic histories.  Organized in cooperation with the labor, ethnic and gender studies curriculum of the University of Washington, Tacoma, these programs involved union members as well as the general public and students, staff and faculty from UWT.  Others workshops and programs followed. The Ernie Tanner Center is coordinated by an action committee of union members, community activists, and university faculty and staff.  It also has a board representing various interesting in our community.  The Tanner Center program is coordinated by the University of Washington, Tacoma faculty, staff and students in cooperation with the board and working committee. Ernie Tanner Ernie Tanner was a stalwart union member from 1918 until his death in 1956.  He was the only African American to serve on the 1934 Northwest Strike Committee.  Ernie convinced Harry Bridges there could only be one waterfront union, and that union had to have people of color as members.  As an officer of the Longshore union,  he insisted that everyone have equal pay and the same working conditions.  It was Ernie Tanner who proposed and chaired the building committee for the Longshore Hall on Market Street.  He persuaded the Bank of California officers to loan the union the construction money.  The rank and file accorded Tanner the seat of honor when the hall was opened during 1952.  Ernie cared about the plight of other ethnic groups.  When the Japanese Americans returned from internment camps in 1945 to face aggressive boycotts,  Tanner got the union to guarantee their safety and patronize their shops.  American families in the Old Tacoma Cemetery.  His descendants continue to be actively involved with labor and civil rights concerns.