After IAM finally did join the AFL, AFL President Samuel Gompers urged IAM to drop its whites-only rule. But IAM maintained racial segregation, arguing that it needed to retain southern members. IAM chief Talbot's wanted the union to be a fraternity of white men born in the United States who possessed good moral character. Though the AFL president urged the dropping of the color bar, member unions routinely discriminated against Black workers through racial exclusion policies on the local level which the AFL rarely commented on.