Hilburn M. Garrett and Barbara Ellis Interview

BARBARA ELLIS: That would be a good idea.

JUDITH HELFAND: You know, I have a question. While they're doing this, I'm just going to ask you, (inaudible) or those kind of things that were floating around that you had accounted --

HILBURN M. GARRET: Oh yeah, we had to fight that too.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about that, those rumors that you had to fight.

GARRET: You ready?

GEORGE STONEY: Mm-hmm.

JAMIE STONEY: Yes, sir, we're ready.

GARRET: Well, we brought in a lot of people that was afraid to even mention the union because they went to that other, and I [sent?] some other people not so dirty about it, (inaudible) was afraid.

GEORGE STONEY: What were the rumors?

GARRET: Oh, well you'd get run off, and everything else. Now I just headed 00:01:00(inaudible). They run me off, I'd find something else to do. Because I knew we had a government to give us a right to [want?] the union, and I know we could -- we could go to the labor board and get things straightened out, but try to make these people believe that, they didn't know so they didn't keep up with union business like I did at that time. I studied everything I could find about unions, and where the government was backing the unions and everything, that's what get me (inaudible) [trial?].

GEORGE STONEY: Now, I understand that, uh, there was some of the reason why a lot of women joined the union, and men too, was because some of the supervisors were taking advantage of some of the young girls.

GARRET: Oh yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk to me about that --

GARRET: They (inaudible) they could.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell us about that?

GARRET: Well, I didn't know enough about it to tell. That was just rumor.

GEORGE STONEY: You didn't see it, or know about it?

GARRET: No. I don't believe in telling something I can't back up.

GEORGE STONEY: Right. Barbara, did you hear anything about that?

ELLIS: No, I really didn't.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, uh, then finally, uh, back then, were there any blacks in the mills?

GARRET: No, not at that time. They hard to people like [Civil Wars?] time, very few that worked at the mill. What (inaudible) a lot of yard men, warehouse men, was colored. But it was, in the mill, that a colored come in there for a long 00:03:00time. They hardly few, and what few (inaudible) on their job.

GEORGE STONEY: Did they join the union?

GARRET: The colored boy did, he was (inaudible) they hardly, mill, they just (inaudible) low enough, they had more sense than we did, I guess, they had sense to get out of the mill. Make a living some other way, I don't know how. We never did have many colored people inside the mill.

HELFAND: Um, a lot of, uh, uh, you know, we've heard a lot -- you know, in all the traveling that we've been doing, we've been talking to different people, we were in Newnan, and a lot of the folks that were involved in the strike in '34, and even people that weren't, we had found that people are afraid to 00:04:00talk to us 57 years later --

GARRET: Yeah.

HELFAND: -- about this. Can -- what do you think about that? (pause)

ELLIS: What do you think about it, Daddy?

GARRET: Well when the bosses see me with that CIO badge, he didn't have the guts to come over and talk to me about it. But my second-hand come and talk to me about it, and he -- he just -- me and him were just like that, we was good friends, and, uh, he was involved in the -- the other strike, he was just a worker then, but he got up to boss's job. And, uh, me and him talked -- he 00:05:00talked me just like we was brothers. He wasn't afraid to talk to me, and I wasn't afraid to talk to him, 'cause we knew it wasn't any further. And, uh, course he believed in the union but he had to play he didn't 'cause he had a boss's job, and he wanted to keep it. He finally quit it, he finally quit it, it took him a job there in the mill, working just like I did, and he joined the union.

GEORGE STONEY: OK?

HELFAND: Yeah, did you sing any songs in your meetings?

GARRET: Huh?

HELFAND: Did your meetings have union songs in them? When you were holding meetings?

GARRET: No, no, we never did that, we had bunch of musicians come in every once in a while, play music for us. Course, [Jam Straight?] was one of our union men, he was officer of our local, and he had a band at that time that played music, and they'd come to our union hall a lot of times, make music for us.

HELFAND: One more question.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember the Canucks, the Canucks who sang?

GARRET: Oh yeah, (inaudible).

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about the Canucks.

GARRET: Oh they was good people. One of the Canucks was my boss for several years. James [Canuck?].

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: OK. All right, do you know the song "Solidarity"?

ELLIS: (inaudible)

GARRET: I don't remember what those songs were sung then.

HELFAND: All right, let me ask you another question. Some people, they say that it's a rumor, yeah, that a lot of people say, a lot of communities where there's no union at all, where they've tried, that Southern cotton mill people, they can't make a union happen, that lint heads just don't have it, they can't do it, they could never organize, I guess we've never been to Gadsden, Mr. Garret, what would your response be to that?

GARRET: Uh. They tried to organize the mill, the people, and, uh, they got to 00:08:00organize, they scared to go in there, they never did organize. But what -- what killed it, we had a union started there, we had a (inaudible) come up there, this union, and he stook [sic] a bullet hole went out the window, was had that office up -- oh, Main Street in town, he stuck it over (inaudible) went out the window, what (inaudible) the company. Well that (inaudible), what, I mean, (inaudible) that had always been good to their people, paid good wages, and, uh, they never caused no trouble. And, uh, he come up there, I was in the union 00:09:00hall when he come by taking that machine, 'cause it's sticking out of the wood, and pop-pop, but (inaudible), I told them he's gonna kill you right now, you take that (inaudible), and people at those, they always had good work 'cause they -- everybody got along fine. He want to kill you before it starts, you get up on that loud horn. He did. Was up there popping off about the company, everybody just [blowed?] up.

JAMIE STONEY: OK, room tone.

HELFAND: Do you want to just look at the picture that he has?

JAMIE STONEY: Don't think so?

HELFAND: OK.

GARRET: I had been going up working around with people I knowed [sic] and, uh, 00:10:00had a brother-in-law, he's always been a union man, (inaudible) in the union as we get around talking to people, I, uh, I guess we had 200 people signed up, but we went up (inaudible) landlord popping off, fighting the company, well, it was that forget about the damn union, and they didn't want no part in it. Like you couldn't have blamed them.

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

GARRET: 'Cause the company hasn't been fighting them.

GEORGE STONEY: Everybody has to be very quiet for about half a minute.

JAMIE STONEY: OK, you rolling.