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Show ‘escape’. the growing union professional men raided union movement in the North. The headquarters, destroyed strikers’ secretary of the Florence, South food, attached a demonstration and Ella May Commerce of Chamber Carolina Wiggins planning to move south: from $6 to $12 per week.” Memorial by B. Joyce When Ella May Wiggins was murdered, she had worked sixty hours a week for ten years in the North Carolina cotton mills, supporting nine children and an invalid alcoholic. Somehow she learned to read and write, and found time to turn her musical talent into a source of inspiration for her co-workers. When the National Textile Workers Union Organized her mill, she joined, worked on strike committees, and soon became famous as a leader of the tumultous 1929 Gastonia Workers’ families lived in company houses, ate company food bought on company credit at company stores, and even prayed in company built churches presided over by company-paid ministers. Seventy percent of company houses had indoor plumbing; health care depended on the company’s generosity; secondary education was virtually unknown for the died a martyr before she was 30. At a meeting in Gastinia she once told the mill hands about her their schools. worked night shifts as often as the life, which men, no different from that of thousands of other working women in the South: never made more than nine millhand’s children—the mills were Women whooping and children cough or not. The mill worker's average earnings in 1929 were $671. yearly mother of nine. Four died with the The depression hit the Southern textile industry half a decade before the rest of the country, as competition, synthetics, short whooping skirts, unstable dollars a week, and you can't do for a family on such cough. money. | was I’m the working nights, and | asked the super to put me on days, so ‘s | could tend “em when they had their spells. But he ‘wouldn't. He’s the sorriest man ‘alive, | reckon. So | had to<quit, and there wasn't no medicine, and they couldn't do for my more than you money for just -died>~ children any women on. the money we got. That's why | came out for the union, and why we all got to stand for the union, sos we cotton prices, and pressure from middlemen drove prices down. ‘The bosses took their losses from the pockets of the workers. Wages .and . working conditions deteriorated; there was the “stretchout. > harder-work at-longer hours the which for the current many has same pay, industries other mill women—by a lifetime of hard labor, and childbearing. Those who knew her as a girl remembered that she had been pretty, with a clear voice and strong sense of rhythm. The voice and musical talent survived her life of poverty. When Ella May was ten, the exhaused soil on her parents farm in the Smokies company could these raid on in the police prosecution's the union death of chief. Thirteen theatrical Wiggins and tactics a truck-load of other union members drove towards a meeting, a mob ambushed their truck, turning it over in the road. The mob fired several shots, mortally wounding Ella May. Her fellow workers believed that she had been singled out because of her leadership and songs. The 16 strike leaders were re-tried for conspiracy, convicted, and given heavy sentences. This time, much of the prosecution's case rested on the defendant's views stepped a red’ union, the National on religion and race relations. Four. Northerners were sentenced to 17-20 years in prison; two of the Gastonia men got 12-15. years. These six jumped bail; some hid in America. while others fled to Russia. Charges were against the women and men. But by this time support the Ella May Wiggins’ murders were acquitted by the same jury that tried her comrades, although more than fifty witnesses had been present at the shooting. During the hearing one of her companions testified: : “A lot of them in the truck with the Communist Party, USA. They selected the Loray Mill in began jumping out and them that Gastonia for their first organizaing called themselves the law yelled, drive the largest mill of it’s kind in ‘Halt them damn Russian Reds,’ Textile workers the country, textile state. Union, connected in the most important The NTWU consistently fought discrimination. against women and Blacks (there were only two Blacks and “Folks where run?” the situation in the DAVIS This is the worst to see how quick we are to turn our backs. someone said, she wanted to be caught: as If she could wish the jail away too, | don’t want to hear these denials, we were all still believing in her invincibility. don’t tell me she wanted not to be free, or that Fred Hampton wanted to be dead or that women want to be raped, or that Viet Nam wants to be bombed. do we want her in jail? want to be helpless, to be frightened? and some said, the judge didn’t want to be dead. don’t tell me about him either, he wanted to judge, he wanted to jail, to: chose his side and | don’t have time to cry for him, /’m sorry for all the dead, but we are at war now, we are at war for the sake of the living. Susan Griffin GET TAY LOR’S CAFE specialty-barbecued ribs INVOLVED no. 7 south Salt Lake FIGHT RACISM 3rd west City, Utah 84101 phone 355-0715 Mrs. Ophelia 6. Taylor CATHOLIC CHARITIES CARES « the unwed mother | come from don't “No, they hain’t apt to.” eo those wanting to adopt children needing homes CALL US FOR HELP Gastonia in 1929. The workers was married. At seventeen her first: decided to strike before the NTWU child was’ torn. Before the second organizer felt they were ready, so was TO THE CAPTURE OF ANGELA they began shooting at them.” At the age of sixteen, Ella May tense POEM ON THE PUBLIC REACTION “Did you run?” “No | don’t come from a sellin’ out country. e in the Gastonia mill). It’s ability to father’s logging work by washing communicate with local people was bachelors: laundry—scrubbing it in not always good, but its militancy seemed to fit the conditions of tubs outside their flatcar shanty. child arrived a log fell on it’s father, .. SIMPLY MEANS ALIVE, AWAKE, AND DIGGING EVERYTHING” dropped the other the strike had failed. The NTWU'’s relief fund was not sufficient to hungry strikers. TO BE A POET tent included display of the weeping widow and a wax dummy representing the bloody corpse of the police chief. One of the jurors went insane with fear and the judge declared a mis-trial. Angry anti-union mobs responded immediately by raiding the union hall again, surrounding the jail, and threatening the defense attorneys. The following week, as Ella May no longer produce food, and the family moved down to the logging camp in Andres, North Carolina. Ella May and her mother supplemented her among men and three women were charged with conspiracy to murder. — The trial which followed won national attention. The the past few years. to respond with spontaneous walkouts (often led by women) and attempts at union organizing—at a time when no laws protected this as a right. Into this explosive situation Ella May was a small, dark-haired woman, — prematurely Gastonia’ in they won't have lives like we got.” the The Finally an exchange of gunshot during Workers around the South began morale during a police hall resulted system become’ common American lifted similar to “‘speedup’’ can do better for our children, and aged—like organizers. dwellers with nightly concerts of mountain-style ballads describing ' their troubles. The labor of women and elilergn was key to’ the mill Owners* control of their worker. The mills hired each family as a unit, knowing that no one member could earn enough to support the others. The labor of children took the place of retirement pay and unemployment insurance: for their parents. No other jobs were available in the mill towns. textileworker’s strike. For this she “| up up a tent village. Ella May Wiggins “| believe you will find the labor - situation here unusually attractive. Our wages for female labor range was bsat wrote to a factory owner who was evicted sixty-tw o families, who set Page 322-2569 320 East Fourth South | mill. crippling him for life, but bringing _The strike demands included: a 40 no ‘workman's compensation hour week : the abolition of ‘money. The Wigginses moved to a stretchout aed other improvements cotton mill town so Ella could spin in conditions; equal pay for equal to support her growing family. Her work by women and children; $20 husband deserted her after ~ their per. week. minimum wage and union ninth child was born. _ recognition. The Southern textile industry lf the workers were determined, 7 ‘ “Advertisers RgOgg ON GO OE IE OE gee iat nett aati eG anti RDP RO eit gs ate. aa yg ; Our S — “ae, PLN, England mil -owners had “sermons,..mob violence broke out . - moved their: operations South: in» against the* strikers. Mobs led by -: the previous decade, mainly to prominent Gastonia business and __ ; ~ New - Patronize SS ~ had- fallen. on hard times, and the: so ‘were the mill operators and their ~..men, women.and children who had friends. Amid inflammatory - worked in the mills bore the brunt.- * newspaper editorials .and fiery ee ee ee a Re . OE” . a _fe or thal fririe store = - df. yo proplee 7 |
