Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”
The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.
One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.
For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).
Mayors, police chiefs, and university heads have defended their violent attacks on student protests by claiming “outside agitators” are the cause of unrest. This racist trope was used during the civil rights movement and is equally obscene today.
My brother was arrested almost 10 years ago now and the Salem New Hampshire police applied for a search warrant for his phone, but they didn’t wait for it they went through it first. They did obtain the search warrant, but he filed a lawsuit because they went through the phone first. He was a financial advisor And he was concerned that they were able to get into his Fidelity stuff and see communications with clients.
They ended up paying him $30,000. They were really mad about it he thought they were gang stalking him after.
Since people are talking about Kent State, Ohio, 1970, it's a good time to talk about Jackson State, Mississippi, 1970.
Similar situation, except there was no active protest, just a bunch of students hanging out. The mayor of Jackson declared a riot and called in the pigs. Someone threw a glass bottle, not at the pigs, but they still opened fire. Phillip Gibbs, a student at Jackson State, and James Green, a high school student who was walking home from his job, were murdered by cops. Many others were wounded.