Location: NC 97 (Atlantic Avenue) at Spruce Street in Rocky Mount
County: Edgecombe
Original Date Cast: 2018
There was a great deal of labor activism in the South in the 1970s and it can be viewed in the context of what has been called the “long civil rights movement.” There were several strikes during 1978 in North Carolina, including longshoremen in Wilmington, textile workers in Haw River, auto mechanics in Greensboro, poultry workers in Durham, metal industry workers in Thomasville, truck drivers in Rocky Mount, and city employees in Charlotte and Asheville.
In July 1978 the sanitation workers in Rocky Mount walked out in a show of support for an African American coworker who was charged with theft on the job and then not supported by his supervisors. The sanitation strikes, unaffiliated with labor unions and based on the desire of the workers to be treated with dignity and respect, galvanized the African American community in Rocky Mount.
Central to the strike was a deeply religious and well-respected African American man named Alexander Evans, known to his colleagues as “Preacher.” Sanitation workers had long salvaged discarded goods, but Evans went a step further by distributing salved items to the needy in his community. In the summer of 1978, a supervisor asked the staff if anyone had picked up a suit of clothes in the wealthy Englewood neighborhood. Evans said that he had collected a suit and that he would bring it in the following day.
Evans was arrested and the supervisors, refusing to defend him, suspended him from work. Leonard Giles, a Vietnam veteran who participated in a mining strike in West Virginia, recalled that he told Sam Gray in human resources, “If I go out there tomorrow and somebody says I stole something, y’all aren’t even going to give me a chance to say anything…I can’t work like that. We stand. We’re going to stand with Mr. Evans until he gets his stuff straight.”
Evans called on the Concerned Citizens Association (CCA), which included the Black Coalition, local chapters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Thomas Walker, leader of the CCA, intervened on Evans’s behalf and the city reassigned Evans to the parks department and assured all that the criminal charges would be dropped. The strike had ended. However, a few days later, the sanitation workers learned that the charges against Evans were not dropped. The strike was reinstated and remained focused on simple goals. They wanted “to clear Evans of all charges and restore him to his job in the sanitation department; to return to their jobs free from retaliation; to secure the promotion of black workers into supervisory positions; and to end abusive treatment by existing supervisors.”
National organizations with local representatives, such as Naomi Green, Rocky Mount’s SCLC coordinator, and Golden Frinks, North Carolina field representative for the organization, stepped in to assist the sanitation workers in executing successful rallies and marches. Sally Bermanzohn, who led a state delegation to the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), stated that the sanitation workers’ strike was not an economic one, rather, “Those guys went out four times in one month over an issue of national oppression. It was the national movement that came out and supported them, not the trade unions.”
Evans was convicted of misdemeanor larceny and appealed to the Superior Court. The CCA retained attorney Quentin Sumner, but the most effective defense of Evans came when his fellow sanitation workers carried into the courtroom a console color television set that had been salvaged from the garbage. Following that demonstration, the jury took only fifteen minutes to declare Evans not guilty.
Evans was returned to the sanitation department and promoted to driver. Naomi Green and Thomas Walker remained important local civil rights leaders and became active in local government. Quentin Sumner was eventually elected a judge on the N. C. Superior Court. Of the strike, Leonard Giles stated that it gave him the confidence to “stand up and speak the truth…because somebody needs to hear it.” The strike was critical to the development of local leaders who would continue the fight for voting and civil rights, and it served to reshape the labor movement in North Carolina.
References:
Signe Waller, Love and Revolution: A Political Memoir (2002)
Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, "A Question of Ownership: The Sanitation Workers Strike of 1978 and Ideological Divisions in Rocky Mount, North Carolina's African American Freedom Struggle," paper for LAWCHA/Southern Labor Studies Conference, Durham
(May 2007)
(Rocky Mount) Evening Telegram, July-September 1978, various articles; August 21, 2007, and August 31, 2008
Concerned Citizens Association news conference press release, August 30, 1978
Workers Viewpoint, September 1978, page 3 and page 12
Brandie Kay Ragghianti, "The 1978 Rocky Mount Sanitation Workers Strike, An Argument for Statewide Significance" (unpublished paper in Research Branch files.)