80th Anniversary of the RJ Reynolds Strike and the debt the labor movement owes Black women
- Peter Gaughan
- Jun 19, 2023
- 4 min read
Eighty years and a day ago, on June 18th, 1943, the team of Black women who work in one of the stemmeries at the RJ Reynolds tobacco factory will arrive for their shifts but refuse to work until their grievances are heard and addressed by management.
The conditions these laborers faced were intolerable. They worked in a haze of thick. coating tobacco dust, surrounded by moving blades, within a sweltering and suffocating heat. They did all this for any average of 46 cents an hour (the equivalent of about eight dollars an hour in 2023's purchasing power). And then when management ordered a speed up in the May, the work from hellish to a dangerous.
Leading up to the work stoppage, management had created an environment of division and fear. For many of the laborers on that top floor, there were few other work opportunities in Jim Crow's North Carolina. Many of the women working in stemmeries had children and were still recovering the trauma and financial disaster of the Great Depression.
On the day of the stoppage, before the slowdown could happen, the white foremen learned of the plan and threaten to fire the entire team. So the organizers, lead by Theodosia Simpson and her friend Geneva McClendon, met at lunch and decided to stop work upon return of the afternoon shift.
So when the whistle blew and the women returned to their work stations, instead of working, they turned to the foreman and started making demands. They demanded more humane treatment, better conditions, and more job security.
It's reported that at some point during the back-and-forth, James McCardell walked into the room. He worked as a hauler, bringing tobacco to the women in the stemmery. The story then goes that he declared is support for the women demanding their rights before dropping dead.
He'd been complaining about feeling ill during the week leading up to his death. He had even visited the company nurse the morning he died but he stayed at work. He stayed at work out of fear he would be replaced if he called out. He ended up dying of a stroke.
McCardell's death is a catalyst. Immediately the women of the stemmery exclaimed that RJ Reynolds worked him to death. The new spread immediately. The entire fourth floor shuts down. Twenty-five women walk off the job before management can lock the gates and command everyone to stay at their work stations.
McClendon recalled years later that, "We told [management] we were tired of the workload, tired of the boss standing over us with a whip in his hand. We wanted better working conditions, and we wanted more money. We wanted equal pay for equal work.”
That night, about fifty labor leaders met at the Union Mission Holy Church. They were hosted by a Reverend on RJ Reynold's payroll and there were fears as the highest-paid Black employee at RJ Reynold's, the Reverend Frank O’Neal would side with the company. But his convictions and community-ties won out.
The next day, women in the two largest stemmeries at RJ Reynolds hosted a sit-down strike. They sat at their work stations and refused to work until their grievances were heard and handled. The women choose Robert “Chick” Black at their representative. Management agreed in hopes they could coerce Robert Black into returning the women to work. In response, Robert Black encouraged the entire building to stop work.
All five floors, hundreds of workers, stop working. When their shift ends, the laborers of RJ Reynolds are met by Union organizers at the gates. The laborers are signed up by the hundreds and a strike commences.
The day after McCardell is buried, there is a mass Union meeting. This time the meeting is attended by almost 10,000 laborers. A vote is taken and by overwhelming majority the workers decide to strike. They will not return until there's a binding agreement protecting their employment.
After the vote, solidarity-strikes and inspired actions across the state follow. Predominantly Black and women dominated industries at other tobacco companies, at boxing and shipping companies, at knitting companies, and in domestic work all walk out. Including the mostly Black maid staff at the Robert E. Lee Hotel. Black churches across the state begin preaching the gospel of class consciousness and unionism.
The negotiations at RJ Reynolds take months. The laborers become affiliated with Congress of Industrial Organizations through the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers of America, Local 22. Eventually, the RJ Reynolds workers win pay increases, grievance policies, workplace safety protections, quality of life increases, and protected holidays/time-off.
The Union goes on to be a powerful civic force. It propels the first successful Black electoral challenge against the city's white political establishment by getting Reverend Kenneth R. Williams elected alderman. Rev. Williams doesn't just disrupt Salem-Winston's political machine, he becomes the first Black challenger to beat a white candidate within a southern city in the 20th century. The Union also champions and expands affordable housing throughout the city and surrounding communities.
The Union also becomes a source of nonstop agitation. Constantly expanding into more of sectors of the factory and to neighboring companies. Their agitations draw the attention of the press, both good and bad. While their victories are celebrated, their leaders are also "exposed" as Communists and the Union's loyalties are questioned. Its inarguable that leaders within the Union organize alongside and even join the Communist Party, but many explain its more strategic than ideological. The Communists are one of the only American institutions which is vocally pro-worker's rights.
Still, as the Union continues to have success, engaging in more strikes and earning more pay increases, it becomes harder for the Union to shake the stink of being "red"-affiliated. Eventually the "red"-scare infects the nation's psyche. The Union becomes derecognized by its own workers out of "red"-fear and the RJ Reynolds factory loses its Union-status.
But, the victories remained. The industry-wide leap in conditions and pay remained. The political power and engagement of working class Black laborers remained. The Black women of the stemmeries in 1943 through bravery, wit, determination, and solidarity built a new foundation. Upon which the Civil Rights Movement will springboard, upon which the modern Labor Movement is built, and for which we all owe an endless debt.
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