Joe Jacobs, Lucille Thornburgh, and Union Organizers Interview 7

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Remember your talking to middle class Southerners, who think that racism is strongest amongst those lintheads.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and union organizers discuss why working class whites are often associated with racism and how that affects their work as organizers.

Keywords: lintheads; racism

Subjects: Lynching; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Well now I'll ask each of you , when you were growing up, what did the word union mean to you?

F1: Oh well, communist, communist, it was a dirty word.

Segment Synopsis: The union organizers discuss what they thought of the unions prior to their work as organizers.

Keywords: African-American mill workers; Cannon Mills; racism

Subjects: Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union; Carpenters--Labor unions; Kannapolis (N.C.); Knoxville (Tenn.); Labor unions and communism

Partial Transcript: JOE JACOBS: It wasn't until we got into World War II, if you want to really look at history, what changed the textile industry. And with the advent of the rayon mills, and the nylon mills, that we no longer were called cotton mill workers.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh and the union organizers discuss how the labor shortages of World War II opened up positions in the textile mills to African Americans and women.

Keywords: African-American mill workers; labor legislation; loom fixing; prejudice; spinners; weavers; winders; women mill workers

Subjects: Sex discrimination against women; World War (1939-1945)

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell the story about wanting to be a loom fixer?

LUCILLE THORNBURGH: Who me?

JOE JACOBS: Yeah.

THORNBURGH: No it was a winding machine operator

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and the union organizers discuss the discrimination faced by women and African American workers in the textile mills.

Keywords: Cherokee Spinning Company; loom fixing; weavers; weaving; winding; women mill workers

Subjects: Sex discrimination against women; Working class women

Partial Transcript: JOE JACOBS: That because, the difference is because, you have a union in the plant, you have a machinery you can go through and grive and do something about.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and the union organizers discuss they ways in which unions can help fight discrimination in the textile mills.

Keywords: spinning; women mill workers

Subjects: Sex discrimination against women

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Well its signifgcant to me that you had the Civil Rights movement, I don't think that the blacks in the mills now are in there just because of the World War II. You had a lot of politcal pressure with the Civil Rights movement.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and the union organizers discuss the way the unions have made changes in the textile mills even when they have lost elections.

Keywords: African-American mill workers; racism; spinning; women mill workers

Subjects: Kannapolis (N.C.); Knoxville (Tenn.); Labor Unions organizing; Segregation