Onzelow Adair and Corine Adair Interview 1

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: Okay with any luck this should be Onzelow Adair 13 April '93 Gadsden.

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow Adair discusses his childhood and how he got a job a Dwight Manufacturing Company.

Keywords: African-American mill workers

Subjects: Dwight Manufacturing Company; Gadsden (Ala.); Rural-urban migration

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: Now did the mill run steady all through the Depression?

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow Adair discusses what it was like to work at Dwight Manufacturing Company as an African American.

Keywords: African-American mill workers

Subjects: African Americans--Segregation; Great Depression; Strikes and lockouts--Textile industry

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: Did you all live over on the village then?

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow Adair discusses working at the steel plant,

Keywords: mill villages

Subjects: Steel-works

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: So did you join that union?

ONZELOW ADAIR: Yes sir.

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow Adair discusses joining a union while working at a steel plant, and occasionally striking.

Keywords: picket lines; union organizing

Subjects: Iron and steel workers--Labor unions; Strikes and lockouts--Steel industry; Working class African Americans

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: But y'all didn't get anything out of that strike? The cotton mill strike?

ONZELOW ADAIR: Yes sir?

WALDREP: Y'all didn't get anything out of that.

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow Adair discusses the textile workers' strike of 1934.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: Did you particpate when they had the marches in Gadsden in the '60s?

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow and Corine Adair talk about their involvement with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

Subjects: Civil rights demonstrations; Gadsden (Ala.); Working class African Americans; Working class women

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: Mrs. Adair were you from Gadsden also?

Segment Synopsis: Corine Adair discusses her childhood.

Subjects: Working class African Americans; Working class women

Partial Transcript: G.C. WALDREP: Did a lot of black folks here in Gadsden go up to New Jersey and to Detroit?

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow and Corine Adair discuss how Gadsden has changed over the years.

Subjects: Discrimination in housing; Gadsden (Ala.)

Partial Transcript: CORINE ADIAR: No problem.

G.C. WALDREP: Where did y'all go to church?

CORINE ADAIR: I'm a Baptist, he's a Methodist. I go to Friendship Baptist Church on 6th street.

Segment Synopsis: Onzelow and Corine Adair discuss their religious affiliations and public housing in Gadsden.

Subjects: African Americans--Religion; Baptists; Gadsden (Ala.); Methodist Church; Public housing