Shipyard workers mill about in front of the entrance to the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co. in Mobile. Clyde Odom worked here as a foreman.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (Addsco 3-416)

Workers pass through the gate at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co. in Mobile.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (Addsco 3-416)

Portrait of Mobile's Clyde Odom at 18 years. He would serve as a foreman at Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding during the war.

Source: Clyde Odom

Clyde Odom grew up in Mobile and went to work as a mechanic at the Alabama Dry Dock Ship and Building Company in October, 1940. He became a foreman during the war and worked twelve hours a day five days a week, ten hours on Saturday, eight hours on Sunday. . .

Getting time off on Sunday made one feel like they had a vacation.

A woman listens to the radio in her boardinghouse room. January 1943. For those back home, the radio proved the best source for news on the war.

Source: Library of Congress (LC-USW3- 038331-E)

Two enormous vessels docked at a Mobile pier. Men move cargo in the foreground.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (Addsco 49-A)

Two servicemen cross a street in downtown Mobile.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (MN-159B)

A pre-war view of a busy street in downtown Mobile.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (N3075)

Welders at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co. where Clyde Odom served as a foreman.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (MN-379)

Workers labor beneath the mammoth hull of a dry docked ocean liner at Mobile Shipyards. Clyde Odom worked these docks as a foreman.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (Addsco M-34)

Rear view of the interior of an empty Mobile city bus. "WHITE" sign hangs from the ceiling.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (CO-10020)

Bustling Mobile ship channel.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (C-9089)

Black shipyard worker at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co. in Mobile guides a giant propellor. Clyde Odom worked as a foreman at the segregated docks.

Source: The University of South Alabama Archives (G-25)

Signing up for sugar and food rationing in Taos, New Mexico. February 1943.

Source: Library of Congress (LC-USW3-019115-C)

Color made a difference at the recruiting office and to the general population, but things were changing. On Tuesday morning, May 25, 1943, tensions explode at the Alabama Dry Dock shipyard.

Cities across the country exploded with work needed to keep the Allies fighting overseas.