Joe Jacobs, Lucille Thornburgh, and Union Organizers Interview 8

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Well I was born and brought up in Winston Salem, which is as you know a mill town cause of Reynolds Tobacco Company, but there were a lot of cotton mills around, and my perception of you cotton mill people, was the same as every middle class person had in the South almost.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and union organizers discuss their childhood perceptions of being a textile worker.

Keywords: African-American mill workers; lintheads; paternalism

Subjects: Bibb Manufacturing Company; Cannon Mills Company; Columbus (Ga.); Kannapolis (N.C.); Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934); Textile workers

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Well for a long, long time this has been traditionally a white man's job. The blacks got very menial jobs in the mills, and I just wondered how you feel coming in to this. When did you come into textiles and how did you regard it?

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and the union organizers talk about segregation and racism in the textile industry.

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

Subjects: Race discrimination; Rural-urban migration; Sharecroppers; Textile workers; Working class African Americans

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Well now this history,how has it affected you, when did you learn about this history?

M1: The um-- Well I grew up in Martinsville Virginia, which is a mill town.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh, and union organizers discuss how learning textile labor history has affected their work as organizers.

Keywords: Honea Path funeral; Honea Path murders; mill villages

Subjects: Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: And what has surprised me when we go to these places, to try to get people to talk about it, so many people are ashamed of talking about it.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh and union organizers talk about the shame surrounding the memory of the strike and how they have dealt with it.

Keywords: Cherokee Spinning Company; aftermath of the strike; legacy of the strike; lintheads; winding

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

Partial Transcript: F1: I feel that what you said about getting credit and all, that really hasn't changed until the last 30 years, uh because I remember when I first started, uh becoming aware of what my grandmother did for a living, and you know asking her.

Segment Synopsis: Jacobs, Thornburgh and union organizers discuss living in the mill village, corporate paternalism, racism, segregation and other topics.

Keywords: African-American mill workers; brown lung; domestic workers; labor legislation; lintheads; mill villages; paternalism; prejudice; racism; women mill workers

Subjects: Segregation; Segregation in education; Textile workers