Gay-Baiting As Right-Wing Tactic Gay-Baiting Is New in Southern Politics

Gay-baiting as Right-wing Tactic Gay-baiting is new in Southern politics. There is reason to believe that it will replace racism and anti- communism on the to p qfth

TED -.• 11 The Music Teachers Sick Chickens Brought Us on Strike 0outheriaMmposure

Editors: Ashaki Binta, Marc Miller, Linda Rocawich Publisher: Institute for Southern Studies/Mary Neely Eldridge, director; Paul Pooley, development coordinator Advertising: Merryl Sloane Circulation: Sharon Ugochukwu Page 17: THE Production: Southern Types/Joe Pfister, Barbara NEWEST RIGHT- Culbertson, Nancy Webster WING TACTIC Design: Jacob Roquet Special Projects-North Carolina: Bob Hall Interns: Rob Abbot, Robin Epstein, David Schwartz Front cover photos: left/photo by Elemore Morgan, Jr.; center/courtesy Trella Laughlin; right/courtesy United Food and Commercial Workers Special thanks to: Joanne Abel, Maxine Alexander, Ron Bittle, Ray Bunnage, Lamont Hart, Liz Holmes, Chris Mayfield, Page The McCullough, Marcie Pachino, Stuart Rosenfeld Music Brought The Institute for Southern Studies is a nonprofit, publicly sup- Page 28: CAJUN ported corporation working for progressive change in the region. Us .--- In addition to publishing Southern Exposure, the Institute spon- MUSIC _ sors a variety of research, education, and organizing programs. At the center of each is an emphasis on (1) building effective grassroots organizations with strong local leadership and well-informed strategies; (2) providing the information, ideas, and historical understanding of Southern social struggles necessary for long-term fundamental change; and (3) nourishing communication and understanding among the diverse cultural groups in the South. Write us for a free brochure on the Institute's activities. Southern Exposure is published bimonthly by the Institute for Southern Studies. Subscription price for one year (six issues) is $16 for individuals and $20 for libraries and institutions. Southern Exposure is indexed in The Humanities Index, Alternative Press Index and Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals. Ad- Page 33: TEACHERS dress all editorial and subscription correspondence to: Southern ON STRIKE Exposure P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702. Second class postage is paid at Durham, NC 27702 and at additional offices. Copyright © 1985, Institute for Southern Studies, 604W. Chapel Hill St., Durham, NC 27701. ISSN: 0146:809X. Post Office Publi- cation No.: 053470. Issues are mailed in January, March, May, July, September, and November of each year. POSTMASTER: Send form 35'79 with address changes to Southern Exposure, P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702. To reach possible new subscribers, we occasionally exchange our mailing list with other progressive organizations and publications. We believe you will have a keen interest in what these groups are doing, but if you do not want your name given to other groups, just Page 42: FOLKLORE drop us a note asking that your name not be included in future list CONNECTIONS exchanges. That's all there is to it. Contents VOLUME XIII, NO. 5 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1985 FEATURES 17 GAY-BAITING: THE QUIET EPIDEMIC 17 GAY-BAITING IN SOUTHERN POLITICS Right- wing tactic for the '80s, by Joe Herzenberg 20 ANATOMY OF AN ELECTION Gay-baiting in a Senate race, by Mab Segrest 26 VEIL OF HURT Richmond survey reveals impact of homophobia, by Edward Peeples, Jr., Walter W. Tunstall, and Everett Eberhardt 28 THE MUSIC BROUGHT US Cajun music, by Barry Jean Ancelet 33 TEACHERS ON STRIKE 33 THE BATTLE OF ST. JOHN Upsetting a small town's plantation economy, by Lance Hill 38 THE FINAL CARD The 1985 Mississippi teachers' strike, by Trella Laughlin 40 MIXED MARRIAGE A short story, by Chap Reaver 42 HONORING THE ANCESTORS Kongo American graves, by Elizabeth Fenn 48 SICK CHICKENS Strikers win big benefits for consumers, by George Green and Jim McClellan 56 POSTCARD POEM and UNDER THE KNIFE Poetry, by Judith Ortiz Cofer

DEPARTMENTS

2 LETTERS FROM OUR READERS Homing in on Homer 3 READERS CORNER Private journal, by Mary Ellen Fuess 4 SOUTHERN NEWS ROUNDUP Toxic waste dumps, terrorist training, Georgia workers organize, Boy Scout religion, and more 11 FACING SOUTH Rebels in Law, by Lincoln Bates 12 RESOURCES Films on labor, stereotypes, alternative views 13 VOICES OF OUR NEIGHBORS India: The South's Bhopal Connection 58 REVIEWS Wobbly poet, Klan people 63 BULLETIN BOARD OF THE SOUTH 64 VOICES FROM THE PAST This great profession, by Jesse Stuart LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

ing conducted in early 1967 that the have the effect, whatever the intention, Homing in on Homer museum was given a copy of Mr. of obscuring the drama of the picture Goodrich's report on the painting. The and undercutting its meaning. Perhaps Dear S. E., museum decided to adopt the title, At this is why Gordon Hendricks, in The I am writing to you concerning your the Cabin Door, not to undercut the Life and Work of Winslow Homer (New commentary that accompanies the meaning of the painting but to reflect York: Abrams, 1979, p. 304) said of reproduction of Winslow Homer's At the the most reliable scholarly opinion. Lloyd Goodrich's recommendation of a Cabin Door on the cover of the The interpretation of any work of art new title, "I am not sure 1 agree that [November/December 1984] issue of the later title is the better" Southern Exposure. Certainly Mr. Goodrich has long I am not sure where you received the been a major Homer expert, indeed the information concerning the history of acknowledged authority in the sense of the painting, but there are several inac- still having sole rights to many of the curacies and misrepresentations. This artist's papers. But there are now painting was "discovered" in the attic numerous competent Homer scholars, of one of the Kellog/Corbin family and, as Mr. Reynolds points out, in- member's New Jersey house in the ear- terpretations continue to change. Only ly 1960s. At that time it apparently recently have some academics begun to bore no title and was given Captured pay closer attention to the numerous Liberators by an antiques dealer called blacks in Homer's works. See, for ex- in to appraise the painting. Before ample, Sidney Kaplan, "The Negro in donating the painting to the museum in the Art of Homer and Eakins," Mas- 1966, the Corbin family had it authen- sachusetts Review 7 (Winter 1966); ticated by Lloyd Goodrich, then direc- Michael Quick, "Homer in Virginia," tor of the Whitney Museum of Los Angeles County Museum of Art American Art and the acknowledged Bulletin 24 (1978); Mary Ann Cabo, authority on Homer's work. He ac- "Winslow Homer's Visits to Virginia cepted the painting as by Homer but During Reconstruction," American felt that Captured Liberators "seems — its meaning to the artist, his or her Art Journal 12 (Winter 1980); Peter H. strangely inappropriate for Winslow public and to present viewers — is al- Wood, "Waiting in Limbo: A Recon- Homer." At that time Mr. Goodrich ways open to change and is the kind of sideration of Winslow Homer's The noted that he had been un-able to find activity that the Newark Museum has Gulf Stream, "in Walter J. Fraser, Jr., any record of a "lost" Homer of this always encouraged. However, by mis- and Winfred B. Moore, Jr., eds. , The period with a title or description that representing the painting's history and Southern Enigma: Essays in Race, would fit the painting. (Almost 20 emphasizing a title that Homer himself Class, and Folk Culture (Westport, years later this remains true.) Mr. did not give it, Southern Exposure has Conn.: Greenwood, 1983); or the Goodrich's own suggestion was At the given a mistaken and distorted view of forthcoming volume of The Image of Cabin Door, a more generalized title this important and very meaningful the Black in Western Art by Hugh that focuses on the predominant figure work of art. Honour. in the painting. It should be empha- — Gary Reynolds, The Newark Incidentally, we were tempted to use sized that the painting had no title writ- Museum, Newark, New Jersey an unusual oil sketch entitled "The ten on it and there was no family Editors' reply: We are grateful to the Shackled Slave," signed by Homer. But tradition for calling it Captured Newark Museum for allowing us to use alas, the picture is in the private col- Liberators. Homer's painting on the cover of lection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, When the museum first received the "Liberating Our Past." With or without and we are informed that when Lloyd painting in late 1966, it was almost im- title, it proved an appropriate image for Goodrich was asked to examine the mediately put on exhibition and pub- the threshold of our history issue, and picture he pronounced it a probable lished as Captured Liberators in our we have received numerous compli- foTery. Perhaps it is, but few others press releases and the several ments. But we'll stand by our commen- have been allowed to evaluate it. With newspaper articles concerning the gift. tary and raise the ante. The name art, as with history, it is rarely easy It was only in the course of further change mentioned in our caption and to say whose views are mistaken and cataloguing and research on the paint- outlined in detail by Mr. Reynolds did distorted. 2 SEPTEMBER/OCIDBER READERS CORNER c:

front, the strange silence from within, sure do miss you.) But he was always Private Journal the sensing of tragedy. handsome. From Daddy's side, though. I don't know. I don't care. I don't Casanova, even, at seven years. The — by Mary Ellen Fuess know. kids weren't named, fortunately: It only I came tripping in the side door, be- said "Surviving are his parents, Mr. and 4 4 T he Survivors" by Sarah Wilkerson (see S. E,, Nov.! cause I knew if David was already there, Mrs. John Q. Public, three brothers, Dec. 1982), reminded me he'd be in the den. ("Robert, you three sisters, all younger." (Of course of a brief journal I kept under similar remember David, he's my best friend, it said our last name, but what circumstances (as a sibling, though, not remember? Sure you do, Robert!") difference?) a wife). My brother Robert was killed But David wasn't there and Denny This evening I feel better. A queer in Vietnam. wasn't either. No one was, and there sort of calm has settled over me; I feel were hushed voices from the living that I am living in a cloud. Tomorrow room. "That must be her. Take it easy, I will go away. I will go to school. I will SUNDAY NIGHT now, this'll be the hardest," I think I go to David's. I will get away. It's been a long day. I'm not even sure heard a man say. I came tiptoeing in, Oh, God. Did I fall asleep? It is dark; if it's still today, really; I've no concep- because if Daddy had another insurance I am sick. I saw you, Robert. I saw you tion of time, now. man in there, I'd have to make a hasty mad. Remember the Pattons? I saw you It is painful to write, to think, to retreat. happy. I saw you relieved, understand- remember, but I want to remember be- I peered around the corner and two ing, believing. I relived all the summer. cause it is somehow sacred, in spite of men, in full uniform, stood up. One All summer long. the agony. Nothing is right. It is so bad, held out his hand and I cautiously ap- I must be sick. Pain is wracking my it is not true. proached. Terri was sort of. . . well, head, I am tense. My hands are cool, what? She was kind of "quiet." Mom- my mouth is dry. I want to cry, but the TUESDAY ma left the room and I could tell Dad- only sound is the rasping of my voice, I still ache all over. I cannot leave dy was mad. Furious. So I didn't say an interference with the predominating your room, Robert, or I'll never return anything. silence of his room. Robert's own mom. again, I know. The officers were nice; nice enough. My brain asks questions that my mind Mother is taking it pretty well. She I liked their flashy medals but now they cannot answer. It is frustrating, nerve- has tried gently to comfort me, but I am only repulse me. An award for murder? wracking. cold. My blood is frozen in my veins I'm glad you only wore ribbons, Robert. The pain is stronger, now; beating, and I can no more eat, or speak, or slaying. sleep, than fly. I will not. All I can do I think of tomorrow, the kids at is write; it is all I could ever do. THURSDAY AP I ERNOON school. What will they say, how will . . . And today was the worst, so far! they act? I am afraid to see them, terri- WEDNESDAY Today it was in the paper. the Houston fied. I feel as if I have hurt them, and I think, now, the truth has only hit newspaper! (And damn it, I didn't want now will be hurt. me, slapped me in the face, hollered its anyone to know, and now everyone will! Why, God? obcenities in my aching ear. But I heard Well, it's a lie, that's all: a lie.) Oh, God.111

it. And I am forced to believe it. The newspaper. d

Sunday morning I walked home from Oh, God. oy church alone. It was a beautiful, sunny (A person can't even keep his death ol day. It smelled like Easter. I was in a a private thing, anymore. Now proba- inoa happy mood, but not giddy, and the idea bly people we don't even know will be an of a picnic occupied my mind. I consid- sending us letters about their poor sons •syi ered the possibilities of approaches to and brothers and sweethearts that were

use to Daddy, to present the enthusiasm killed "in this senseless war!" 'Well, if xumv to the other kids before he could they do, I'll just tear them up, that's all: decline. tear them up and spit all over them and I never got the chance. return them to the old biddies who have I don't remember whether or not nothing better to do all day than mimeo- there was a car parked in front or not, graph sympathy letters to people. Oh, but doesn't it seem that there must have God.) been? In all the stories, in all the arti- His picture was good. (Oh, Robert, INFANTRY TRAINING cles, you read about the strange car in you're so cute. I love you so much; I SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 3 SOUTHERN NEWS ROUND

The South's Link to the Real Terrorists

he South continues to be an important link to U.S.-spon- T sored terror, covert and subver- sive wars against sovereign nations, and liberation movements throughout the world. Alabama may be emerging as a key link in this chain of politically motivated, unofficial acts of aggression and terror. The latest chapter in this ongoing story took an interesting twist in July when reports emerged in the mainstream press that a mercenary training camp in Alabama was linked to two ter- A U.S. MERCENARY SALVAGING SPARE PARTS IN NACARAGUA rorist bombings. The irony is that at about the same time, President Reagan sion in Japan. Two people were killed "not conducive to bilateral relations" came before the American Bar Associ- in the baggage explosion, and 329 died between India and the United States. ation with his major policy statement in the plane crash. The Sikhs had been Thirty-eight-year-old Vietnam vete- accusing Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, and trained in terror in a Dolomite, Alaba- ran Frank Camper runs the Mercenary North Korea as forming "a new inter- ma, mercenary school, U.S. officials School, as it is called, and his school national version of Murder Inc." Said said. And, as a further twist in this sun- had generally maintained a low profile Reagan, the U.S. is "not going to toler- dry episode, the Sikhs had reportedly until the Sikh story broke. Once the ate these attacks from outlaw states run been infiltrated by the FBI before they story came to light, however, Camper by the strangest collection of misfits, arrived for training at the camp. revealed the extent of the school's in- looney tunes, and squalid criminals Sikhs, engaged in an independence ternational impact. "We've got guys since the advent of the Third Reich." movement against India, seek to [graduates] working in every major con- Several of the countries assailed by separate the state of Punjab, where they flict now," Camper reportedly said. Reagan pointed up U.S. "state organized constitute the majority population. Sikh "But they do this on their own. We don't terrorism" as mainly directed against nationalists were also responsible for hire them out," he stated. Camper's "nationalist and progressive move- the October 31, 1984, assassination of wife, Mavis was also quoted as saying ments" and "nations unfavorable to" Indira Gandhi. that she and her husband started the U.S. policy. Nicaraguan President The infiltration of the Sikhs by the school "because we don't like com- Daniel Ortega commented, "No amount FBI supposedly contributed to the ar- munism. . . . Americans are very naive of incendiary rhetoric will hide the fact rest of those involved in the assassina- when it comes to what's going on." that the U.S. administration promotes tion plot against Prime Minister Rajiv Several news reports reveal a connec- the systematic use of terrorism against Gandhi. But statements by India's press tion between the Mercenary School, the Nicaraguan people." secretary Deepak Vohra expressed con- Camper, and school students with var- The attention focused on the Alabama cern "about opportunities for training ious U.S. government agencies includ- training camp in June supports Ortega's terrorists in Alabama. . . . We value our ing the CIA, the Drug Enforcement charges. A small group of Indian Sikhs relations with all countries but we can- Agency (DEA), and the FBI. "We've — under investigation by the FBI for not compromise when it comes to ter- worked with a number of an alleged plot to assassinate India's rorism," he said. "It is unfortunate if federal agencies, including the FBI," prime minister Rajiv Gandhi during his the United States took an extreme Camper said. recent visit to the U.S. — were also legalistic view on the issue by allowing One of the school's instructors, reported to be involved in the crash of such terrorist training camps to oper- 41-year-old Paul Johnson, has said that an Air India jumbo jet off the coast of ate freely." Vohra also complained that he consults with federal agencies after Ireland and an airline baggage explo- the mercenary school in Dolomite is his mercenary missions. "Don't think 4 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER SOUTHERN NEWS ROUNDUP

I don't have CIA dealings," Johnson munities face from unclean air, unclean said. "When I go down there, I report Kentucky Citizens water, and unclean land have their ori- to the CIA, the DEA." CIA and DEA gins in the workplace." spokespeople don't confirm or deny vs. Toxic Waste Citing the example of the Bhopal these charges. In any case, Camper has tragedy, Donahue said, "Most people been an FBI informant or witness on have a short attention span, and they several occasions since 1981 when the oxic substances and hazardous have already put Bhopal out of their school opened, including his coopera- waste have been the target of minds. They. . . wrote the whole thing tion with the agency in the Sikh Topposition both locally and na- off as though it were somehow unique incident. tionally. In June members of the Sloans to the developing countries around the One question remaining is: consider- Valley Concerned Citizens (SVCC) in globe. Unfortunately, that is not true. ing the involvement of federal agents, Sloans Valley, Kentucky, discovered a Had that particular chemical plant been was the training of the Sikhs a snafu spill of suspected toxic substances that located in the United States rather than or a scam? were being taken illegally into the com- India, none of the conditions which led The Mercenary School is located munity's controversial landfill. The to the disaster would have violated any about 10 miles west of Birmingham, on material was traced to a fiber glass specific standards which currently ex- a heavily wooded 77-acre site in west manufacturing plant and when state offi- ist in this country. The point is, it can Jefferson County along the Warrior cials fmally tested the spill material, it happen here." River. The two-week training courses was found to contain a number of The U.S. Environmental Protection cost $350 per student and are held about hazardous substances. Agency has designated 540 National seven times a year. Students (including SVCC subsequently called for the Priorities List (NPL) sites for cleanup lawyers, doctors, plumbers, painters, closing of the landfill pending a full in- under the federal Superfund program, policemen, investigators, and reporters) vestigation of the dumping practices al- including 95 in Southern states. The who attend the sessions are taught the lowed there. The state has yet to respond NPL list is composed of hazardous use of automatic weapons, Israeli Mos- and the dump site continues to operate waste sites that pose the greatest poten- sad assassination techniques, explo- without a permit. tial long-term threat to human health sives, and hand-to-hand combat. In Lawrence County, Kentucky, The Sikhs who attended the school members of the Lawrence County Con- TOXIC WASTE SITES were specifically trained in explosives. cerned Citizens are fighting to keep a MARCH 1985 Describing the training the Sikhs hazardous waste incinerator out of their NPL Proposed received, Mavis Camper stated, "We community. The proposed PyroChem Sites Sites tell them what to look for in the ele- plant would burn methylisocyanate Alabama 4 8 ments of construction of a bomb . . . (MIC). MIC is the substance that es- Arkansas 6 1 what the components are and how caped from a Union Carbide plant into Florida 29 8 they're made, but there's no instruction the surrounding neighborhoods in Georgia 3 2 in making them." The explosives sec- Bhopal, India (see p. 13). Kentucky 7 2 tion of the course was "a small part, not While these citizens' groups were Louisiana 5 1 even a day," she said. fighting hazardous waste in their com- Mississippi 1 1 Despite public knowledge of the munities, labor and environmental lead- North Carolina 3 5 school and its relationship to "interna- ers called upon Congress to strengthen South Carolina 10 0 tional terrorism," the school remains the Superfund for the cleanup of toxic Tennessee 6 2 open and apparently is under little pres- waste dumps and pass a new job dis- Texas 10 16 sure. It operates under a Jefferson ease bill to protect millions of workers Virginia 4 8 County business license and is adver- from exposure to hazardous substances. West Virginia 4 2 tised in Soldier of Fortune magazine. This challenge to Congress was is- South 95 56 The news reports also state that Cam- sued at the third annual convention of U.S. 540 272 per has a federal license to own auto- the OSHA/Environmental Network. Source: EPA/Environmental Action matic weapons and to operate as an The convention was attended by lead- international weapons dealer. ers of labor and environmental groups and the environment. In addition, states Congressional legislators are said to such as the Machinists union, the AFL- have proposed another 272 sites to be be looking for ways to eliminate the CIO, the Wilderness Society, and the added to the NPL list. Campers' school along with about 15 Sierra Club. However, in the five years since the other survival and mercenary camps AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Thomas Superfund was established, only six known to exist in the U.S. So far, how- R. Donahue praised the coalition for sites have been cleaned. And, accord- ever, law enforcerment agecnies claim uniting previously separated forces ing to a study by the National Campaign there have been no violations of the fed- toward a common goal. "All of us," he Against Toxic Hazards, the cleanup at eral Neutrality Act or any other laws said, "workers and environmentalists, most of these sites was insufficient. One by the school's organizers and teachers. are aware that many of the dangers com- of the six sites is Luminous Process, SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 5 too familiar. employing newtactics.Theissue—the century, boththeunionandMasseyare workers andtothecommunity—isall responsibility ofthecompanytoits union-management battlesearlyinthis 6 SEVrEMBER/OCTOBER Company, reminiscentoftheviolent geted forastrike whileworkatother ticular company(orcompanies) istar- dustry inordertoobtainfavorable I Old Battles contracts. Withaselectivestrike, apar- wide strikesagainsttheentire coalin- UMWA conductedexhausting nation- New Strategies, "selective strike."Inthe past, the kers orcleanupworkersforexposure and thefailuretotestLuminouswor- to radiation. of testsforgroundwatercontamination the cleanup.Amongthesewerelack Washington; butinOctober1984,the ards listedseveralmajordeficienciesin National CampaignAgainstToxicHaz- to astoragedumpinRichmond, cubic feetofsoilhadbeenhauledaway task finishedinJuly1982,after15,000 perfund sitein1982.EPAdeclaredits of radiocativecontaminationatLu- in earnestafteritwasclassifiedasaSu- made, wasclosedin1978.Thecleanup Inc. inAthens,Georgia.Theplant,at minous, begunin1979,wasonlydone which radioactivewatchdialswere The union'snewweaponisthe Workers ofAmerica(UMWA) strike againstA.T.MasseyCoal nthe 10-month-oldUnitedMine SOUTHERN NEWSROUNDUP Board agreed.E.MorganMasseymain- partnerships" ofthiskindareexempt controlled NationalLaborRelations The newownersclaimthat"limited pany's holdingsfromE.MorganMas- Fluor Corporationpurchasedthecom- from laborlaws,andtheReagan- sey andcreateda"limitedpartnership." union. In1984RoyalDutchShelland est coalproducer,whichintroduceda back towork." a lotofincentivetonegotiateandget new tacticofitsowntotrybreakthe Coal Company,thenation'ssixthlarg- selective strikeagainstA.T.Massey ing money.Thesecompanieswillhave other companiesareworkingandmak- the restofindustrywhenall will sacrificeitsownprofitstoprotect tive striketonegotiate.Speakingonthe definite periodoftime. UMWA presidentRichardTrumlcasaid, efficacy oftheselectivestrikeoption, will pressureacompanyunderselec- conduct aselectivestrikeforanin- a union-wideassessment,theunioncan benefits tothestrikingworkersfroma companies continues.Byproviding is oneofthefactorsunionbelieves $70 millionstrikefundraisedthrough "I don'tknowofanycoalcompanythat (examples): 10 resourcegroups Operating units: In OctobertheUMWAtriggered Competition withinthecoalindustry St. JoeCarbonFuels Fluor Corp. St. JoeMinerals St. JoePartnershipGroup Sydney Coal both UMWAandnon-union Dozens ofminesandpreparationfacilities inseveralstates, j A.T. MasseyCoal Massey CoalCo. Marrowbone! mands thatthecompanysignmaster legal responsibility."TheUMWAde- Buckner, "It'saslickwayofavoiding UMWA researchdirectorMichael arduous andexhaustingtask.Says each ofMassey's50-oddmines,an ate andsignaseparatecontractwith plexes functionasasingleproduction sey insiststhattheunionmustnegoti- the onlycoalcompanythathasstillnot non-concessionary BCOAcontract. Massey amongthem,refusedtosignthe negotiations) beforetheexpirationof Coal OperatorsAssociation(BCOA— ceeded insettlingwiththeBituminous entity." tains that,becauseheisnotonthecom- settled withtheunion.E.MorganMas- Now, 10monthslater,A.T.Masseyis in 18years.Afewcompanies,however, the unionhadsettledwithoutastrike majority ofcoaloperatorsinunion the tradeassociationthatrepresents stockholders, thecompanystatesthat ary mines.However,inareportto ers havenodirectcontroloversubsidi- Coal Companyanditstwogiantown- the union.HeinsiststhatA.T.Massey company andthuscannotnegotiatewith mittee, hehasnopoweroverthe 1981 contract.Thiswasthefirsttime "Massey's networkof21miningcom- In September1984Trumkasuc- Royal DutchShellGroup- Scallop PartnershipGroup I VVyomac Rawl Scallop CoalCorp. Justin CoalCorp. Pike CountyCoalCo.

IBILIROf V Mysin SOUTHERSPNEWS ROUNDUP agreement negotiated between the un- been saying since 1977 that the state of ion and the BCOA. Florida should at least give people law- Meanwhile, Massey has resumed yers before they kill them. In June the work at many of its complexes by hir- legislature passed a bill setting up a ing non-union workers. The company unique state agency staffed by lawyers has also hired, at a cost of $200,000 a to work full-time representing indigent month, private guards from out of state death row inmates who have lost their for protection and, say union members, direct appeals. Holdman says it's the to intimidate the strikers. The local and most significant development in death national media have focused on the penalty work in 10 years. anger and incidents of violence carried Most death row inhabitants are found out by the strikers, but have been scant in the South, where the history of hostil- in their coverage of the company's ity to federal courts is so ingrained that actions, such as crushing strikers' cars, the idea of funding federal appeals is which precipitate such anger. seldom discussed rationally. Most states As the action enters its eleventh provide representation in some form for month, morale among the strikers is direct appeals of a conviction to state high. With the 1,100 strikers receiving ca (BSA) after telling a Charlottesville, high courts, but none until now provide benefits from the strike fund, the work- Virginia, review board that he did not an attorney at the time of execution. ers are prepared to hold out until Mas- believe in God. Trout was being consi- Anti-death penalty activists conse- sey signs the union contract. In dered for Life Scout, the second highest quently spend most of their time find- addition, the company's first fiscal ranking, when he told the board he being, training, and assisting volunteer quarter report for 1985 reported a loss lieved in self and self-reliance rather attorneys. There are only a handful who by its mining operations. than a supreme being. The board con- understand the law of capital appeals — The significance of the UMWA- sulted Bill Love, chief BSA executive. or who want to learn it, since there's Massey confrontation goes beyond the Love wrote to Trout's parents that "one no money in it. The volunteer lawyers coal industry, and in August members of the requirements" for youth and adult are under tremendous personal pres- of the United Auto Workers union will members of the BSA "is belief in a sure: their client will die if they don't go to West Virginia to lend their sup- Supreme Being." Raoul Chavez, direc- win. And they usually must pay the port. According to West Virginia tor of communications for the BSA, said costs of the appeal out of their own UMWA member Mike Burdiss, the is- that Trout is "a very fine boy" and "a pockets; travel, investigations, expert sue in the dispute is not simply higher good leader," but he added that "you witnesses, printing, and so forth cost pay for the mine workers. Disputes cannot be a member of this movement from $5,000 to $15,000 per case. None about wages and benefits were settled if you do not believe in a supreme be- of Florida's major law firms had been in April. At issue is job security for the ing." Chavez said that as far as he knew willing to help until very recently, so workers and the responsibility of the this was the first case of its kind to come Holdman has been bringing in attorneys company to the community. The union up in the BSA. from New York, Philadelphia, and any- members are concerned that, as coal where else she can find a willing soul. companies have historically done, Mas- But volunteer lawyers are increasingly sey will take the coal, make its pile of hard to find. money and leave. The union wants to Florida has now broken that barrier. ensure that the workers, their families, Mistress of Delay The new agency, to be called the Office and their communities, not just the large Wins Major Battle of Capital Collateral Representations corporations, receive the benefits of (OCCR), begins work October 1 with their labor and their land. a staff of 11 attorneys and 10 support — by David Schwartz he Mistress of Delay (Florida staff, and a budget of $838,000. That's version) has outwaited Governor not enough, says Holdman, but an ex- TBob Graham, Attorney Gener- cellent beginning. al Jim Smith, the state legislature, and The law came about because of broad A Good Scout Is the Florida bar; and they have given her support from an unlikely coalition. At- a law she desperately wanted. Scharlette torney General Smith had once declared Hard to Keep Holdman — who heads the Florida he would not have anything more to do Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice and with the Florida Clearinghouse — Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, was given that nickname by Newsweek Holdman once baked him a birthday helpful . . . and believes for her talents in keeping condemned cake decorated with 18 black licorice Ain God. That's what 15-year-old prisoners out of the electric chair by crosses, one for each outstanding death Paul Trout found out when he was ex- spinning webs of writs, motions, and warrant. But fences have been mend- pelled from the Boy Scouts of Ameri- pleas in state and federal courts — has ed, and Smith, who remains an aggres- SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 7 to 492,500 today. Job security has be- Job security has also become a major come the key issue for textile workers. issue in organizing drives and contract On one front, the situation has negotiations. While union members produced an unusual alliance between receive the same wages as non-union textile unions and textile management, workers in J.P. Stevens plants, they seem traditionally arch enemies in an indus- to be better protected from plant clos- try known for its virulent anti-unionism ings. A three-year contract, which went (see SE, Jan./Feb. 1985). Controversial into effect in May and which covers the joint union-management calls for Con- 3,500 ACTWU workers in Stevens's gress to enact protective legislation North Carolina plants, features several against imports have received the most job security provisions. Recall rights for publicity, but the Amalgamated Textile laid-off workers are extended from 12 Workers Union of America (ACTWU) months to 24 months, allowing workers has made a number of independent in- to return to work with full seniority. In itiatives to save jobs for workers in this addition, severance pay provisions in the threatened industry. event of permanent job loss were im- One target for ACTWU's anger is the proved. sive defender of the death penalty, K-Mart chain, which has been a lead- Perhaps most importantly, while tex- hand-carried the bill to the legislature er among retailers who oppose protec- tile plants are closing, some unionized and lobbied for its passage. Holdman five legislation. Labor Unity, ACTWU's plants are actually hiring back laid- says Smith's actions come from a sense newspaper, reports that more than 200 off workers. In Roanoke Rapids, of fairness about prisoners not having union members poured into a Knox- the focus of the union's drive to organize attorneys, but also from a sense that the ville, Tennessee, shopping center with Stevens, only 100 of the 350 people who system was about to collapse because fliers demanding to know "Why won't lost their jobs when a plant was closed no executions were taking place. K-Mart stand up for American Jobs?" a year ago are still laid off. Employees At one hearing on the bill, someone They filled every shopping cart they at Stevens's union plants are currently asked, "Does this mean these murderers could find with imported apparel items, working five to seven days a week. can't go attorney-shopping on Wall advanced on the cash registers, and sud- The reason lies in activism as much Street anymore?" While the answer to denly found they "forgot" to bring their as contract protection. Beginning in the that is no — prisoners can still be credit cards after the purchases were early 1970s, organizers both within the represented by attorneys of their choice rung up. Other union members in line union and in indepedent organizations if they can find them — it does mean behind them left their filled carts in the such as the Brown Lung Association that the Florida Clearinghouse can turn check out lines and joined the crowd pressured Stevens and other companies its attention away from the narrow outside chanting "Save Our Jobs." to improve health and safety conditions forum of the courtroom to the public The dramatic action took place after in the textile mills. As a result, money arena to begin to change public aware- K-Mart officials refused to meet with to modernize often went to those mills ness and public opinion about abolition local and regional union officers to dis- where organizing was strongest. The of the death penalty. cuss the retailer's active opposition to Roanoke Rapids plants are now among Holdman feels that she and her staff the Textile and Apparel Trade Enforce- the most technologically advanced in can leave the appeals in the OCCR's ment Act. After leaving the store, the hands. That is because the state has ACTWU members blanketed the area hired Florida Civil Liberties Union with fliers. The union leaflet charged president Larry Spaulding to head the that "Low wage paying retailers, like K- office, and she has full confidence in the way he will run it. Mart, are leading the fight to stop the legislation which could save American jobs" and noted that "12,000 Knoxville jobs are on the line right now." Job Security Key Issue in Textiles

wenty-nine Southern textile manufacturing plants closed Tin 1984. In the first seven months of 1985, 34 more closed. In all, textile employment in the Southeast has dwindled from a high of 656,500 in 1974 8 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER the industry; therefore they are the mills cently scored a major victory in Georgia This most competitive in the fight against when the 2,000-member Georgia State Is MANAGEM imports. Employees Association (GSEA) voted CHARM 13011 However, the import problems are so to affiliate with SEIU as Local 1985. PAID TO 8WEET TALK overwhelming that even the most Says Ronald Masters, president of You ouT OF modern plants are not immune. A prime GSEA, "It's the first time state work- ORSAWLING.0,0 example is the non-union United Mer- ers in Georgia have been unionized." chants and Manufacturing Plant in Bath, In voting to affiliate with SEIU, the South Carolina, which closed earlier Georgia association kept the "no-strike" this year despite its state-of-the-art provision of its own constitution since machinery. public employee strikes are illegal in the — thanks to Labor Unity state, as they are in most Southern states. The inability to bargain collectively has been a major block to organizing public employees, but the out of other concerns as well. The as- move by GSEA focused on issues be- sociation had to file a lawsuit to stop State Employees yond bargaining, such as the employees' the abuse of their pension fund by state Organize in Georgia grievance system. GSEA's 64-year-old officials, and health insurance benefits executive director Hila Stonebreaker were recently slashed. Stonebreaker says of the current system set up by the says the decision to unionize was "a s jobs disappear in manufac- state merit board, "It stinks." Even if matter of dignity. . . . They [managers] turing industries such as tex- an employee wins a grievance, it can be treat state employees as second-class Atiles, other sectors of the econ- appealed to the state personnel board, citizens." omy are becoming more important. Un- which has no union representatives on Many of the non-GSEA state em- ions representing public employees have it. Not surprisingly, "80 percent of the ployees belong to various associations become the focus of several organizing appeals are won by the state," says set up soon after GSEA was formed in drives in the South. The Service Em- Stonebreaker. 1975. Stonebreaker believes these were ployees International Union (SEIU) re- GSENs decision to join a union grew established as part of a divide-and- conquer strategy to keep workers from joining a large association that could be effective. Indeed, GSEA finances were so low before the decision to form an You can reach 20,000 SEIU local that the association had to suspend production of its newsletter. loyal readers across the South. Now, reports Stonebreaker, the initial response has been enthusiastic. She notes that a worker in one department asked for 100 membership applications, and called back a few days later to get 100 more. Advertise SEIU already had 3,000 Georgia in members in the private sector, primarily in nursing homes and in building Southern Exposure maintenance. The union hopes that with the GSEA decision, "SEIU has a real foothold from which we can make a 4 regular issues per year, plus upcoming special issues: difference in the Deep South," according to national president John Sweeney. • American Indians Since 45,000 state workers are eligi- • Theater ble to join the union, there is a lot of organizing to do — and a lot of poten- • Economic Development tial for SEIU and GSEA to establish themselves, says Stonebreaker, "as a For information and assistance, contact Merry! Sloane strong voice for employees at every lev- Advertising Dept., Southern Exposure, P.O. Box 531, el of state government." She adds, Durham, North Carolina 27702, (919) 688-8167 "Very frankly, this is what we needed several years ago." — thanks to Service Employee SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 9 lum, including Fundi about veteran current problems? How and why can Workers' School in black organizer Ella Baker and Finally the black freedom movement give Got the News about Detroit's League of leadership to all the movements for so- the Black Belt Revolutionary Black Workers trade un- cial change in this country?" ion movement in the late '60s. Accord- Dillahunt concluded, "Many peo- rom February to June of this ing to Naeema Muhammed, chairper- ple anticipate that the school will help year, organizers of the Black son of the school curriculum commit- organizing in this area take a qualita- F Workers for Justice (BWFJ) tee, the school produced a number of tive leap in the coming years." sponsored a unique and vital education- important gains for the Black Workers — thanks to Gordon Dillahunt al activity in the black belt of eastern for Justice program. She stated, "The North Carolina. The uniqueness of the school gave people confidence and Workers' School, as the program was direction in going back to the commu- called, lay in its approach and goals, nity to organize. . . . The curriculum Co-op Housing as says Gordon Dillahunt, one of the was based on the work that the BWFJ school's organizers. "Normally, when was already engaged in such as the [anti- Alternative in Austin we think of education for workers to- discrimination] K-Mart struggle of 1981, day, we think of some type of training or the CP&L anti-discrimination or- n Austin, Texas, affordable housing associated with job related skills. As a ganizing going on currently. Most of our is a key issue. As one solution, rule this training is provided by the em- focus has centered around discrimina- /reports Building Economic Alterna- ployer largely for the benefit of the com- tion, unsafe working conditions, sexu- tives, the Austin Community Neighbor- pany and production. But the Workers' al harrassment, and building stronger hood Chest recently purchased a mobile School was developed in the tradition of trade unions." park and will develop it as a limited eq- militant rank-and-file trade unionism BWFJ organizers say the structure of uity housing co-op. The people living with its objective of placing workers in the school combined nuts-and-bolts there will collectively own their homes. a better position to resist wage cuts, practical problems with the theoreti- The Neighborhood Chest is a spinoff speed-ups and increasingly worse health cal/historical underpinnings of workers' of College Houses and the Inter- and safety conditions," says Dillahunt. lives on and off the job. "Poor organi- cooperative Council, two groups begun More than 50 workers attended. Sup- zation or the lack of any organization, by University of Texas students. port for the school came from a num- the production of leaflets, developing a According to College Houses execu- ber of groups throughout the state, union shop, and methods of conduct- tive director Francie Ferguson, the including the Carolina Community ing effective meetings were among the Neighborhood Chest now owns two Project, which offered both technical practical problems tackled," said Dil- properties in town, and co-op housing assistance and resources. Instruction for lahunt. "But the school also posed and is an accepted part of the city's develop- the classes was provided by several provided views on questions such as: ment strategy. The local chamber of black activists and organizers from How did Afro-American people be- commerce mentioned co-op housing in around the country, including Don came an oppressed nation in the black a recent report, she says, and in the Stone, a former Student Nonviolent belt South? Why are the black freedom last city council election, a slate that in- Coordinating Committee organizer. movement and the labor movement cluded some environmentalists and Films were also a part of the curricu- natural allies in spite of historical and "slow-growers" triumphed in this city plagued by a number of problems associated with extemely fast growth. "We're finally hitting critical mass," she says.

Send us the news If you see an article in your local paper, newsletter, or magazine that sheds light on what progressive Southerners are doing — or are up against — send it to us. Send us the complete item, with the date and name of the publication and any comments or analysis of your own you care to include. If we use it for Southern News Roundup, we'll send you a free one-year subscription to Southern Exposure. Write: Southern News Round- up, P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702. A SESSION AT THE WORKERS' SCHOOL We'll send you a sub

10 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER related environmental issues. The Rebels in Law Sierra Club veteran saw law school as — by Lincoln Bates the best way to get involved. There she met 25-year-old Laurie Fowler. Find- wo years ago, Laurie Fowler ing a close match between their and Vicki Bremen, then recent philosophies and aims, they decided to T graduates of the University of team up to tackle environmental law. Georgia Law School, knocked on Fowler and Bremen see Georgia doors of Atlanta law firms. What they LEAF as a watchdog, ensuring com- wanted was shingle space for a practice pliance with federal, state, and local in the emerging field of environmental codes. But, says Fowler, it's not easy law. "You don't want to be with us," to get public and private sectors to illustration by Frank Holyfield they were told. "We're on the other work together unless they are "prod- problems and excessive rate hikes beside. We represent the defendants." ded with a stick." That's what we fore the Nuclear Regulatory Com- Fowler and Bremen were deter- sometimes have to do, she adds. mission. mined to use their legal skills on behalf Little more than a year after its • LEAF recently drafted strengthen- of the environment, not industry. They founding, Georgia LEAF has one staff ing language for a weak Right to Know saw a need for legal assistance to those attorney (Bremen), an office man- bill already introduced in the Georgia confronting Georgia's environmental ager, more than 200 paying mem- legislature. problems — a result of the state's rapid bers, and a lot of volunteer help. The In addition, Bremen drafted a report growth. In-state population increased chapter's organizational members in- on the 50 municipal waste sites in 20 percent between 1972 and 1982, clude such groups as the Atlanta Sierra Georgia that appear on the U.S. Super- while the city of Atlanta witnessed Club, which pays a set fee for legal fund inventory. "The purpose," she some $3.7 billion worth of new con- consultation and representation. And says, "is to highlight the problems for struction projects in the first half of the two attorneys have been very, very the state legislature." The group has 1984 alone. With Georgia already busy: also been involved in controversies ranked 20th nationally in generating • Georgia LEAF helped North Geor- surrounding soil erosion and sedimen- hazardous waste, Bremen and Fowler gia residents win a temporary restrain- tation, utility construction financing, decided it was time to do something: ing order against the federal Drug and acid rain. they opened a Georgia branch of the Enforcement Administration's pro- Has all this activity had any effect? Legal Environmental Assistance gram of spraying the controversial pes- "Georgia Power must now think be- Foundation, or LEAF. ticide paraquat on marijuana crops. fore acting," Bremen and Fowler as- Originating in Birmingham, Ala- The DEA must now produce an en- sert, "and the state environmental bama in 1979, LEAF is the South's vironmental impact statement. protection division knows we won't go only regional public interest environ- • In response to complaints about the away." Robert Kerr, director of the mental law firm. It was founded in spraying of two potent herbicides, tor- Georgia Conservancy, calls LEAF "a response to the Sunbelt's burgeoning don and velpar, by the U.S. Forest catalyst" and an "excellent" concept, environmental problems — water pol- Service on northern Georgia, LEAF but feels it's too soon to foresee lution, waste disposal, and energy use, produced a citizens' manual on pesti- LEAF' s impact. "They are taking on all part and parcel of the region's rapid cide regulation in order to provide some controversial issues," Kerr says, expansion. The LEAF chapters — lo- Georgia residents with information on "and there's a place for that in cated in Tallahassee, Florida; Knox- their legal options. Georgia." ville, Tennessee; Birmingham, • Representing a citizens' group in "One thing about the Southeast," Alabama; and Atlanta — share a com- White County, Georgia, LEAF won a says Bremen, "there's still time to mon board of directors, regional grant court verdict preventing Oglethorpe make a difference. "1=1 money, and some projects. But each Power Company from stringing high office raises most of its own funds, has voltage lines across a scenic and histor- LEAF can be contacted at: 1102 Healey its own members, and chooses its own ic stretch of the Sautee Valley. Building, 57 Forsyth Street, Atlanta, GA cases, focusing primarily on local • Georgia LEAF furthered the cam- 30303; (404)688-3299. problems. Lincoln Bates has contributed environmen- paign to deny an operating license to tal pieces to Oceans, Westways, Coastal Thirteen-year Georgia resident Georgia Power Company — the state's Journal and others. This article previously Vicki Bremen was a registered nurse largest utility — for its Vogtle nuclear appeared in Environmental Action maga- when, at age 40, she decided, "I want- power plant on the Savannah River by zine, 1525 New Hampshire Avenue, N. W., ed to refocus my career" on health- raising unresolved health and safety Washington, DC 20036. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 11 good deal of talking about Gunning's work." Called "Alternative Views," it Films on Labor ... early life, the conditions that led to the offers locally produced interviews and songs, and what concerned her in the documentaries and sometimes broad- The cameras have been whirring 1970s and '80s. Highlander also has casts films from outside Texas that are away of late, and news of interesting many other tapes documenting its never aired on the networks. The good documentaries arrives regularly in our educational and cultural work for rent news for non-Austinites is that most of mailbox. First Run Features, for exam- or purchase. Send for a catalogue: Route their shows are on videotape for use on ple, has two new films on labor issues. 3, Box 370, New Market, TN 37820; other cities' public access stations. The The Great Weirton Steal concerns the (615) 933-3443. Alternative Views Program Catalog controversial employee buy-out of the and its updates list 200 shows that have Weirton Steel Company in the company aired, most of which are available for town of Weirton, West Virginia, where purchase. There are interviews with workers were told that by taking severe numerous local activists, as well as na- pay cuts and borrowing large sums, tionally known figures lured into the they could save their jobs and town by studio while visiting Austin. And there buying out the mill. The film follows are issue-oriented shows on nearly ev- the story by letting the people speak for ery topic recently of interest to progres- themselves, probing the big questions sives. Get the catalogue from the about such plans. Are employee stock ... and on Stereotypes Alternative Information Network, P.O. ownership plans just one more way of Box 7279, Austin, TX 78712; extracting concessions from workers? Among the numerous filmstrips produced by the Council on Interracial (512)453-4894. Or can they signal a basic transforma- The Media Network, an information tion of the workplace? What is the rela- Books for Children are three on "un- learning stereotypes," geared to center on alternative media, has some tionship between ownership and resources of interest. The Guide to control? Produced by Robert Mach- elementary and junior high school audiences. The three deal, respect- Community Media recommends and over, directed by Catherine Pozzo di annotates films, videotapes, and slide Borgo; 58 minutes. ively, with Indians, Asian-Americans, and Chicanos and Puerto Ricans. Each shows about organizing campaigns, The Work I've Done depicts the emo- mostly in urban communities, where tional and psychological effects of features children of the ethnic back- retirement for blue-collar workers by ground under discussion; the children focusing on one auto worker who is talk about their culture and the harm about to retire and on several others done them and their families by expe- who already have. The significance of riences grounded in ethnic stereo- work in our lives, and how we define types. Each filmstrip comes with a ourselves after we've stopped working, teacher's guide full of ideas for discus- are explored. Produced and directed by sion, classroom activities, role-plays, Ken Fink; 56 minutes. Both features historical information, statistics, and so people have fought to better their social are available in 16mm film or videocas- forth. For a catalogue, write CIBC, 1841 conditions. Topics include economic sette and are distributed by First Run Broadway, New York, NY 10023; cat development, racial conflict, housing Features, 153 Waverly Place, New (212) 757-5339. displacement, and environmental haz- York, NY 10014; s% (212)243-0600. ards. A Guide to Films on Reproductive Sarah Ogan Gunning lived through Rights offers lengthy, critical annota- the coalfield wars of the 1930s and ••• and Alternative Views tions of dozens of films — it covers wrote and sang songs whose fighting Media activists in many cities suc- abortion, birth control, sexuality, spirit inspired union miners and their cessfully lobbied their city govern- sterilization, health care, and other people. Over the past 50 years she came ments to require cable TV franchises to subjects. Mobilizing Media is a report often to the Highlander Center for provide free access to a channel for on creative uses the peace movement workshops on the life and culture of shows produced by and for local view- has made of film for grassroots or- coalmining communities, continuing ers — public access television. For ganizing and education, and there is a to inspire, until her death in 1983. The several years now, people in Austin, also a new update to the Guide to Disar- center has now produced Always Sing Texas, have been privy to one of its nument Media. Each guide costs $2.00 My Songs, a 29-minute videotape of most creative uses — a weekly public plus 50 cents postage. Media Network, Gunning at Highlander over her last 10 affairs program that its founders see as 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY years. It includes seven songs and a a precursor to a "left television net- 10011; (212)620-0877. 12 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER VOICES OF OUR NEIGHBORS

INDIA production of MIC. This is the chemical which it is said leaked from their The South's Bhopal storage tanks, some 40 tons, on the nights of December 2nd and 3rd. It Connection caused this disaster in which about 5,000 or more people died. (Nobody nDecember 1984, methyl isocyan- will ever be able to know what was the ate (MIC) gas leaked from a Union real number.) /Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, Bhopal has a population of 800,000. killing thousands of people and affect- It is the state capital, a very fasting hundreds of thousands. John growing and densely populated city. Gaventa and Juliet Merrifield of Ten- Almost a quarter of the population was nessee's Highlander Center had been affected by the gas. And out of that, working in India earlier in that year, at some 60,000 people are still affected. the invitation of the Society for Par- For the rest of their lives, they are go- ticipatory Research in Asia (PRIA), an ing to live a very inferior kind of exis- education and research group. Among tence. They have serious headaches other things, they had been taking part RAJESH TANDON, LEFT, AND GANESH and loss of memory; many have eye- in PRIA's program on occupational PANDEY AT INSTITUTE, WEST VIRGINIA. sight problems; they also have health. When the Bhopal disaster hap- filed a demand for a union health and problems of nose, throat, and breath- pened, a joint project developed be- safety inspection at their own Carbide lessness. Most of the people affected tween the two groups, including plant. In Lawrence County, Kentucky, are very poor people, those who were information exchange, publication of a they met with a group concerned about living on the periphery of the factory. report on Bhopal, and the planning of a plans to incinerate MIC and other toxic For their survival, for their basic exis- visit to the U.S. by activists who had chemicals in that rural community. tence, they were dependent on their been responding to the tragedy in In- They found common links not only manual labor. Many of them were cart- dia. In June 1985 four Indian labor ac- with people affected by MIC and Union pullers; many were vendors; many tivists traveled through the Southeast- Carbide, but also with those involved in were domestic servants. Now it is not ern U.S. on this jointly sponsored visit. broader health and safety struggles: for possible for them to exert physical The purpose of the tour was to share Right to Know legislation; against strip labor. experiences and to develop links with mining and land destruction; for pro- We feel that the accident was avoida- community and labor groups facing en- tection from PCB contamination; for ble. Union Carbide was storing a dead- vironmental and occupational health prevention of black lung disease, ly chemical without taking appropriate problems in the U.S. , and to inform brown lung, and tendonitis. At a meet- precautions. They were not observing Americans about the continuing trage- ing at Highlander following the the safety devices that were necessary. dy at Bhopal. In the South, the tour Southern portion of the tour, the dele- There are three main devices there for connected with many groups affected gation shared their concerns about safety: the scrubber, the water curtain, by Union Carbide operations. In Insti- Bhopal and their responses to what and the flare tower. None of these three tute, West Virginia, they met with they had seen here. safety devices were working. Even if workers from Carbide's only other they had been working, the design of MIC facility and with members of the GANESH PANDEY: WHAT HAP- the plant was so defective that they community group, People Concerned PENED AT BHOPAL would not have taken care of such a About MIC. At Research Triangle Ganesh Pandey is a labor organizer runaway reaction and massive leak. Park, North Carolina, they joined with and educator from Kanpur, a major It was cold that winter night, and the North Carolina Occupational Safe- textile center. He has been traveling people were sleeping when the gas en- ty and Health Project and the East around India, helping to mobilize tered their homes. Thousands and Coast Farmworker Support Network response to Bhopal among labor thousands of people started running to demand information from Carbide's unions. from their houses. Those who had cars agricultural chemical research facility Union Carbide's pesticide factory in ran away in cars; those who had scoot- there. In Woodbine, Georgia, they met Bhopal was set up in the 1970s. Some ers and motorcycles tried to run away with the International Chemical Work- 650 workers are employed there, and on scooters and motorcycles. But ers Union local, which passed a resolu- another 350 work on the contract labor many people did not have these things, tion in support of Bhopal workers and system. In early 1981 they started and they were running on foot. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 13

VOICES OF OUR NEIGHBOIZS

People in the thousands started run- had run to. And those who remained, Bhopal. They wanted to know more, ning to city hospitals. But the hospitals those who could not die, were more un- and many people told us that they had were not in a position to deal with such fortunate. cried when they had seen the news a big calamity. They started asking the In India, we have people who are about Bhopal on television or read company management and the compa- very angry. We had this feeling that about it in the newspapers. ny doctors, "What is this chemical? they do such things to us, but they may RAJESH TANDON: AN INDIAN What are its effects? What are the anti- not be doing such things in their own PERSPECTIVE ON THE SOUTH dotes?" The company people were not country. But coming here was an Rajesh Tandon is coordinator of willing to reveal any information. astonishing experience. These mul- PRIA. Originally they said the reaction would tinational companies are only interest- Over the last couple of weeks of this be very short-lived: "There is no need ed in the almighty dollar. We have seen tour, a set of myths we held about the for panic. This gas is not going to be for ourselves that they are not interest- land of gold and plenty have been shat- more serious than ordinary tear gas." ed in the health and safety of their own tered. Traveling in this part of the Ap- They were making this kind of state- people. We have seen how the work palachian region we have seen poverty, ment when people were already dying and living is hazardous even in Insti- we have seen deprivation, we have seen on the street. If, even at that time, some tute, West Virginia. powerlessness. We have seen the un- information had been revealed, many, It has been a very emotional ex- civil, almost barbaric, character of many lives could have been saved. But perience for us to discover that wher- your society, which we in the Third they continued to die; they died in ever we have gone on this tour, we World are normally accused of by the Bhopal and they died in the place they have found people concerned about First World. You have a Third World

cides Sevin, Larvin, and Methomyl are made. NO PLACE TO RUN: Residents in this small, predomi- UNION CARBIDE'S nantly black town which crowds SOUTHERN PRESENCE close to the plant remember frighten- Communities and workers in several ing incidents, including an explosion parts of the South have a special con- and evacuation of the community in nection with the Bhopal tragedy. In- 1954. Workers recall a series of fires, stitute, West Virginia, is the only explosions, and leaks, and their own other place in the world where Union exposures to MIC and other toxic Carbide makes MIC, the chemical gases. After Bhopal, the federal En- that killed in Bhopal. MIC was rou- vironmental Protection Agency tinely shipped from Institute down in- found there had been a series of small ed with vinyl chloride. They also have terstates and railroads to other leaks of MIC from the Institute plant. four times the expected rate of leuke- chemical plants in the South: to Toxic chemicals, including known mia and twice the expected rate of Woodbide, Georgia, to be made into and suspected carcinogens, are also brain cancer. Yet three years after this the toxic pesticide Temik; to La Porte, routinely emitted into the air from the 1976 study, one of Carbide's medical Texas, to be made into similar Du Pont plant's process vents. directors was quoted in the local pesticides. Other Carbide operations Carbide has other plants in the newspaper as saying, "to my know- scattered across the South range from Kanawha Valley, and is the largest of ledge there is no evidence on the face chemical plants in Texas City, Texas, the chemical company employers in of the earth to link incidences of brain and Taft, Louisiana, to nuclear the area. At its South Charleston tumors to vinyl chloride." weapons components in Oak Ridge, plant, it makes a large range of chemi- Tennessee. A look at the health and cals. Residents of North Charleston, Texas City, Texas safety record of these operations downwind from the plant, were found A worker in Carbide's huge chemical shows a range of threats to workers' by the West Virginia Health Depart- complex here developed brain cancer and neighbors' health and lives. ment to suffer cancer at twice the na- in 1978 and noticed an unusual num- tional rate. Yet who can prove ber of fellow workers with the dis- Institute, West Virginia connections between the chemicals in ease. He alerted the National Institute The first Union Carbide plant at Insti- the air and the cancer cases? of Occupational Safety and Health tute was built in 1941 to make synthet- Workers, too, are experiencing in- (NIOSH). Three years later NIOSH ic rubber for the war effort. Now the creased rates of certain diseases. announced that it had found 22 cases plant uses a deadly item from the in- Among vinyl chloride workers at of brain cancer among 20-year work- ventory of chemical warfare, phos- South Charleston were found six of ers at the plant, a rate three times the gene, to make the intermediate the 63 cases identified worldwide of national average. The company de- chemical MIC; from MIC the pesti- angiosarcoma, a rare cancer associat- nied that a problem existed.

14 SEFTEMBER/OCI'OBER within your First World. brought out by us and Highlander We have seen the superficial charac- Center (see sidebar). One reporter got ter of democracy in this country. We up and said, "Is this objective?" And have seen how company towns operate, one of us asked, "Have you ever raised how without the company's uttering a that question of Union Carbide?" word, people in the Kanawha Valley, "No." So the information put out from West Virginia, are scared of the chemi- Union Carbide and the likes of Union cal giants there. Carbide doesn't need Carbide in this country is the "truth"; to bring out an ad in the paper, but you and the experience of the workers and feel it; you feel it in terms of the power the experience of the citizens are all of the corporation; you feel it in terms "biased." That is control of the media. of people unwilling even to talk about We have also seen the divisions that pollution. People are really scared. exist in this country — divisions around We have also seen how systematically color, around race, around sex, around and subtly information, knowledge, region. We always heard that India was and the media are used in your country a society of diversity, of divisions based to control the minds and thoughts and on castes, creeds. A very few of us working class is divided around caste actions of people. We held a press con- down in India have heard about your and religion and region. Your working ference in West Virginia to release No caste system. And let me tell you, yours class is divided among whites and Place to Run, a joint publication is as rigid as ours, if not worse. Our blacks and men and women. So we have

Pesticides: llemik operations were subject to little Taft, Louisiana Temik, a pesticide made from MIC, is government monitoring, and almost If a Bhopal were to happen in the probably the most toxic pesticide on no outside scrutiny. "National securi- United States, it might have occurred the market in the U.S. today. Union ty" was used as a screen for the in- in the pouring rain of the middle of the Carbide started marketing it in the discriminate dumping of toxic night of December 11, 1982, in Taft, 1970s to fight nematodes, tiny worms chemicals and radioactive materials Louisiana. A tank containing acrolein which attack the roots of plants. Te- into streams, unlined pits, ponds, and at the Union Carbide plant exploded, mik works on humans in much the soils, and for the contamination of blowing out windows a mile and a half same way that it works on nematodes: workers. upriver. Acrolein can be fatal when by affecting nerve transmission and Mercury is one of the worst exam- absorbed through the skin, inhaled, causing muscles and glands to fail. By ples of chemical contamination at or swallowed. Union Carbide did not 1983 Temik was being used on fruit Oak Ridge. During the 1950s and inform local emergency officials for and vegetable crops in 38 states and '60s, one-third of all the known mer- four hours after the blast, but at last exported to 60 nations. cury in the world was brought to Oak did call and recommend an evacua- Carbide claimed that Temik was Ridge for use in separating lithium-6, tion out of fear that other tanks could short-lived in the soil, and could not a vital ingredient in making hydrogen blow. Within three hours, 17,000 peo- migrate into drinking water supplies bombs. A huge quantity of mercury ple had been evacuated — an evacua- and threaten human health or the en- was lost: some 2.4 million pounds is tion plan had been developed vironment. In 1982 Temik was found unaccounted for, and most probably fortuitously for a nearby nuclear in drinking water aquifers in Florida. lies underneath the plant building. plant. Such evacuation plans are The pesticide was banned for a year Some 475,000 pounds are known to neither mandatory nor common on citrus crops there, then reinstated have been spilled into a creek, and around chemical plants. Now Union after lobbying by powerful citrus some 30,000 pounds are thought to Carbide faces scores of negligence growers. Since then Temik has been have escaped into the air. suits for damages resulting from ex- found in drinking water — and banned Meanwhile, workers were being posure to the gas. El — in several other states. exposed to very high concentrations of mercury vapor. In 1955 close to 50 This information comes from the newly Oak Ridge, Tennessee percent of the workers in one section published report, No Place to Run: Local Realities and Global Issues of the Bhopal One of the worst examples of Union had mercury in their urine at levels Tragedy. Published jointly by the High- Carbide's health and safety record has above the 0.2 milligrams per liter lander Center and The Society for Par- been in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. For which is considered dangerous. ticipatory Research in Asia, the report is over 40 years from the Manhattan Although they were probably the best available from Highlander, Rt. 3, Box 370, Project of World War II, Union Car- tested workers in industry at the time, New Market, TN 37820. Price: $5, plus $1 bide operated a nuclear weapons they were not told of the results of postage and handling. component facility for the U.S. these tests — or of the hazards to government. Carbide's Oak Ridge which they were exposed.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 15 learned about the difficulty in bringing We have seen that we alone do not gle of farm labor, has given us both in- together solidarity across the poor and suffer from lack of information. We spiration and hope. oppressed, because systematically the have seen that despite your Freedom of We have begun to recognize some- poor and oppressed are kept divided. Information Act, and despite concerted thing we had known a little, but which In India we have been struggling on efforts to acquire Right to Know legis- has been strengthened: the almost occupational and environmental health lation about hazardous chemicals in desperate need for international link- issues for a couple of years. We always your country, people in Institute, West age, collaboration, and solidarity. come up against this issue of high un- Virginia, don't know what's going on Working on the booklet No Place to employment; workers understandably in the Carbide plant there. And people Run with Highlander has exposed us to are willing to take any kind of job, ir- in Research Triangle Park, North the poor, almost deplorable health and respective of safety considerations, be- Carolina, did not know whether MIC safety record of Union Carbide world- cause they are hungry. But we have seen was stored in Carbide's research facili- wide, including in this country. That that the jobs and safety dichotomy is ty until the company was forced to an- has been powerful information in our being used in this country, too. If peo- wer questions while we were there. struggle with Union Carbide in India — ple raise an issue about health and safe- This tour has given us a sense of the understanding that Bhopal was not an ty, corporations and politicians say, kind of struggles that are being waged isolated incident; it is part of the pat- "Well, you might lose your jobs." in your country, the kind of efforts that tern. It can happen in Institute, it can That's unfair. We should have jobs and citizens collectively, workers collec- happen anywhere down the line. we should have safety. tively, are making to deal with these Observing the response of American We have seen examples of the sys- strong, powerful forces of oppression workers to Bhopal through the video- tematic perpetuation of underdevelop- and control. Those struggles have tape that Highlander made and sent to ment in the Appalachian region. We given us inspiration and hope for our us also gave us the hope that there is a have seen the extent of corporate power country. We have always believed that possibility of building working class and control. We have seen how difficult for us to tackle the forces of American solidarity across the borders, that there it has been for a textile union to un- control and hegemony in our context, is a possibility of linking up people who ionize Hanes workers in Galax, Vir- we have to have people in this country are concerned about similar issues. ginia. That has brought home to us the who challenge that force as well. People struggling in your country and essential commonalty of the forces we Without that, we will not succeed. we in our country can begin to share in- are dealing with. They may take differ- Therefore, learning about the struggle formation about problems and solu- ent forms, but they are essentially the around Right to Know, learning about tions. Without developing international same in terms of the way they affect the the struggle around unionizing a new perspectives, I think we in our differ- poor and the deprived in your country group, learning about the struggle of ent worlds are only going to fight los- and ours. mineworkers, learning about the strug- ing battles.E UNION CARBIDE OPERATIONS: illust

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16 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER this incident not only raised serious doubts about the truth of the charges but also stirred up some backlash against Bramlett. Hinds County (Jack- son) supervisor Bennie Thompson, a black Democrat, said at the time that most voters saw the incident as "a desperate roll of the dice on behalf of the Republicans." Concerned Citizens for Responsible Government replied Gay-baiting that they were trying to spare Missis- sippi the embarrassment it had suffered only a few years earlier over the career of Congressman Jon Hin- son. Elected to Congress in 1980 after in Southern denying allegations of homosexuality, Hinson, a Republican, was later forced to resign after his arrest for attempted sodomy in a House office Politics building men's room in Washington. On election day, Mississippi voters BY elected Bill Allain their next governor. He won easily, but not by the 20-point margin predicted before the emer- gence of the three black drag queens. But what to make of the effect of gay- Gay-baiting is new in Southern pol- cious, malicious lies." Outgoing baiting on this election in Mississippi? itics. There is reason to believe that Governor William Winter said he The consensus, according to Kirk gay-baiting will replace black-baiting "couldn't recall a race of such vicious Phillips, chair of the Democratic Cau- as the meanest article in the bag of attempted character assassination and cus of the Mississippi Gay Alliance, is tricks for conservative Southern politi- personal attack." that the charges of sex with black men cians. Certainly the white Southern Nightly appearances on statewide lost Allain some votes, but not many: electorate, considerably less provin- television by the drag queens in ques- "A lot of people couldn't fathom it at cial and less prejudiced against blacks tion made their accusation the prin- all. A lot of people didn't believe the than before the Civil Rights Move- cipal issue, or at least incident, of the accusations or didn't want to believe ment, and the increasing participation campaign. Sworn statements by Jack- them, and a lot of members of the local of blacks in regional politics, means son police officers saying they had gay community think the charges were that any black-baiting today, especially seen Allain cruising in areas frequent- probably true." in a statewide campaign, must be far ed by black male prostitutes provided subtler than before. This is hardly the additional evidence that the attorney TEXAS 1984 case with gay-baiting. general had crossed racial as well as Gay-baiting erupted into attention in gender lines in his sex life. Allain, Mississippi in 1983. In Texas in 1984 it MISSISSIPPI 1983 divorced since 1970, had never remar- mainly simmered. The office in ques- In Mississippi the gubernatorial ried, while Leon Bramlett, the Repub- tion was a United States Senate seat campaign in the fall of 1983 had been lican candidate, had been campaigning open by retirement of the incumbent; quiet. Attorney General Bill Allain, all along as "a family man." and the object of the gay-baiting, from the Democratic candidate, was way The voters of Mississippi were con- the spring primary campaign through ahead in all the polls. No one pre- fused over what and whom to believe. the November general election, was dicted a Republican victory in this Allain had been a popular attorney Lloyd Doggett, a liberal Democrat. state whose last GOP governor was general, noted especially for his ad- It started during the last two weeks chased out of office in 1875 at the end vocacy for consumers. The charges before the May primary. Kent Hance, of Reconstruction. against him were powerful stuff — the most conservative of the Less than two weeks before the elec- "real gutter politics. . . can't get much Democratic candidates, who has since tion, all hell broke loose when three gutterier," according to one longtime switched to the Republicans, pointed black drag queens in the state capital observer of Mississippi politics. But out on a number of occasions that of Jackson produced sworn statements, the role of Concerned Citizens for Doggett had the endorsements of the supported by results from lie detector Responsible Government, a group or- gay political caucuses of Houston, tests, charging Allain had frequently ganized by top Bramlett supporters, in Austin, and Dallas, and also that of paid them for sexual relations over locating the drag queens and then pay- Lesbian and Gay Democrats of Texas. several years. Allain immediately ing their expenses during several days (These four gay groups had indeed en- denied the charges as "damnably vi- of overwhelming media attention to • dorsed Doggett.) In the general elec- SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 17 tion campaign, from early summer on, Republican candidate Phil Gramm, a congressman who had himself first run as a conservative Democrat before switching parties, picked up Hance's themes that Doggett was soft on homosexuality, labor unions, and military matters. It was an incident from back in May that turned up the heat on gay-baiting in Texas. The Alamo Human Rights Committee, a gay organization in San Antonio, gave Doggett a $604 contribution, $354 of which had been raised at a male strip show. Doggett later returned the contribution when he learned how it had been raised and when it began to surface as a campaign issue. Months later, in August, the Gramm organization ran a saturation radio ad- PHIL GRAMM, LEVI', IN HIS CAMPAIGN FOR SENATE ACCUSED LLOYD DOGGETT vertisement campaign using a tape in OF "UNDERMINING FAMILY VALUES" AND "PANDERING TO HOMOSEXUALS." which a woman announces she is going to talk about "gay rights, male strip Lloyd Doggett was mistaken. Phil Houston, a city with a reputation more shows, traditional family values, and Gramm, along with Ronald Reagan progressive than it deserves, stemmed the Texas Senate race. And gay rights. and a horde of fellow Republicans, from the prevalence of more misinfor- Lloyd Doggett actively sought and won in Texas. Many observers say the mation than could be combatted and received the endorsement of gay and effect of the gay-baiting on the out- reveals the extensiveness of the gay lesbian groups and supports the gay come of the election was, as in Missis- educational, as well as political, rights bill which would give homosex- sippi, hardly decisive. According to agenda. uals special status before the law. It Janna Zumbrun, founding co-chair of The referendum raises questions would also make them eligible for a Lesbian and Gay Democrats of Texas, about the future of progressive as well hiring program previously reserved gay-baiting "was a factor and hurt as gay politics in Houston. Annise only for minorities. Homosexual Doggett, but, considering the Gramm Parker, current chair of the Gay Politi- groups in San Antonio even had the landslide, it was only one of several cal Caucus, reports increasing death poor taste to hold an all-male strip factors accounting for his loss." and bomb threats left on the telephone show to raise money for Doggett." Fol- In the wake of November's conser- answering machines of gay and lesbian lowing up on the radio campaign, vative victory in Texas came a decided actvists. She also reports some dis- Gramm accused Doggett of "under- defeat for gay politics in Houston. In tancing occurring between local mining family values" and "pandering January 1985, conservatives forced a straight politicians and the gay com- to homosexuals." referendum on a city ordinance pro- munity. But she believes that, despite In what one observer described as hibiting discrimination on the basis of the referendum results, the gay com- "an unusually negative campaign, sexual orientation in municipal em- munity still has lots of friends and the even for Texas, where cactus and ployment practices. (Chapel Hill, progressive electorate is still strong. barbed wire are as common in politics North Carolina, whose 1975 personnel Former Gay Political Caucus chair as on the plains," gay-baiting was only ordinance prohibits job discrimination Larry Bagneris anticipates a tight bat- one of several points of the attack on the basis of "affectional prefer- tle between Mayor Kathy Whitmire, a Gramm made on Doggett. But it ence;' is the only Southern jurisdic- leading advocate of gay rights, and her seemed to be the charge that threw tion with such gay rights legislation in conservative opposition in the city Doggett most off balance. The place.) After a strong campaign by elections in November 1985. Annise Democrat's usual response was that he Republicans and business interests and Parker agrees that the campaign will was not for special status for gays, but a low turnout by progressive and even be rough, but notes that Houston didn't plan to engage in a campaign of gay voters, the anti-discrimination or- voters are fairly sophisticated: "Whit- hate against them and supported the dinance was repealed by a vote of 82 mire has been gay-baited in the past, idea of protecting them against job dis- percent to 18 percent. Lee Harrington, both times when she has run. And crimination. "Given the choice be- past president of the Houston Gay Po- both times she has won."0 tween a candidate who opposes job litical Caucus, reports that the discrimination for gays and one who Houston referendum fight lacked the Joe Heaenberg is a gay political activist supports cuts in Social Security, I "real intentional meanness" of the and former town council member in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. think I know where Texans will be Gramm campaign against Doggett. anytime," Doggett argued. Harrington believes that the defeat in 18 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER relationship between homophobic language and homophobic violence? How do gay people work with political party officials and hierarchies and also continue other forms of grassroots organizing? How do heterosexuals realize the importance of dealing with homophobia? What happened in North Carolina in 1984 was a classic example of the man- /Anatomy of ner in which the advances of any movement create a backlash. Homo- sexuals had gained significant political victories in North Carolina that year. The Lesbian and Gay Democrats an Election managed its gay rights plank through BY MAB SEGREST nearly 100 precincts and five county conventions, educating party members and gaining support. On June 2, district conventions convened; the Fourth "The invective used by the right has senator Bill Richardson was so im- District passed the gay resolution and produced a mentality that says that pressed by the calls and letters he elected Joe Herzenberg as a delegate to gays are less than people — and there- received protesting a bill in the state the Democratic National Convention fore one can treat them as less than legislature to ban job discrimination in San Francisco. A gay activist and people. I'm at a loss to understand why against gays and lesbians that he began ex-Chapel Hill town council member, it has gone on for so long, and why so talking about changing from gun acti- Herzenberg also had the backing of the few people have taken issue with it. vism to building a new organization state AFL-CIO, the North Carolina They have not only made us victims in dedicated to attacking gays. He wants Association of Educators, and the state their direct-mail pieces, but they have to organize 600,000 Christian fun- NOW. The state convention saw gotten rich doing it." damentalists in California into a voting another surprising and dramatic victo- — Virginia Apuzzo, director, bloc. ry: the inclusion of a gay rights state- of the National Gay Task Force • The Republican parties of Texas, ment in the North Carolina Demo- Minnesota, Nevada, and North Caro- cratic Party Platform. The 1984 election in the United lina went on record as favoring a ban The victory at the state convention States saw the widespread use of gay- on homosexuality. also illustrated a major question un- baiting by the New Right. On the • Richard Viguerie, the New Right's derlying increased activity for whole it was not a tactic that Demo- direct-mail wizard, said of his plans to homosexuals in party politics. The crats or progressives knew how to send out 50 million letters in 1984 on statement endorsed by the convention counter. We experienced these tactics behalf of conservative groups: "We'll added "sexual orientation" to the sec- in North Carolina most personally, hit two issues. Democrats' courting of tion of the platform advocating "fair with the Congressional Club based the gay vote and liberals being soft on representation for all citizens." It was a here and the Moral Majority based Communism." victory to get any positive language on next door in Virginia. sexual orientation into the platform, Nowhere was gay-baiting more viru- but the Democrats equivocated. When lent than in North Carolina, but the accused of having endorsed gay rights, phenomenon occurred nationwide: "In the current race, homosex- a member of the platform committee • In Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, uals have supplanted com- explained, "If indeed the convention Jane Wells Schooley, a former Nation- munists:' That was the comment had endorsed 'gay rights,' any such al Organization of Women (NOW) of Claude Sitton, editor of the Raleigh amendment would have been included vice-president who was running as a News and Observer about North Caro- in the section 'V. HUMAN Democratic candidate for Congress, lina's 1984 Senate race between RIGHTS.'" Since the Republican plat- came under attack for supporting gays. Republican incumbent Jesse Helms form later expressed "disgust" at the She lost. and then-Governor Jim Hunt. That Democrats' "embrace" of gay rights, • In Iowa, liberal congressman Tom campaign and others in 1984 left me the Democrats might as well have Harkin was protrayed as a puppet of with many specific questions: What is taken the strong stand for which they big labor, NOW, and radical lesbians. the relationship between rabid homo- got the credit/vilification. Harkin ran against New Right incum- phobes and politicians who coordinate As always, fear and violence were at bent Roger Jepsen. Harkin won. their election strategies with the hate- work behind the backlash. In the last • In California, conservative state mongers? What arguments are offered half of 1983, The Front Page, a news- by the New Right and how can we paper serving the gay and lesbian com- copyright CD 1985 by Mab Segrest counter them? How do we show the munities in the Carolinas, carried SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 19 Rage 14 ilte Landmark Awe 7, 1914 be cofounders of the controversial Faggots Dominate Fourth Congressional District Convention pedophile organization although it had

The faggots worked the crowd like no Chapel Hill chapter. The interviews maggots in a manure pile. They had their ducks in a row for the second time and the were obtained under false pretenses: so-called Gay Rights Resolution passed. It was no surprise. It was lead by the Oranger County delegation where fags the interviewer claimed to be writing have been elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council, appointed to the Planning Board and elected precinct officers. The elections for the New York City News, a gay and selection of delegates to the national convention and the passing stall the other paper. Resolutions for the Peaceniks. Feminists, Freezeniks and others passed without fanfare. None of the Republican candidates David Price. Chairman of the Democratic party made a very moving speech. Just as soon as he started two.thirds of the or officials in North Carolina would audience walked out and milled around the hart and outside on the grounds near the match his rantings, but they used him concession stand. Occasionally someone would come in. peep in the auditorium and say. "Is he still at it," The last item on the even as they disowned his activities. agenda was 'reported out by the Reso- lutions Committee without recommendation. None of ihcrn were willing to go on From January to November 1984, the the record in favor of the Gay Rights Resolution. When this resolution was homophobic sewage he pumped from brought up Lightning Brown sashayed up to the mike with his pretty little ear bob on. It is a baby blue colored lightning bolt. I The Landmark was increasingly adopt- heard he wore his diamond car bob to the Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner. He told of some Republican paper in the district that ed by the mainstream of the Republi- had NeAred him by eallina him a faze°, can Party. THE LANDMARK, JUNE 7, 1984

"Compared to Helms's dia- stories reporting three attacks on gay we'll show the Bella Abzugs, and tribes on some other topics, men: we'll show the special interest homosexuality has gotten off groups . . . you see, the Democrats easily," reported Michael Schwartz in can't run an ad against our special July 1983, Brunswick County, North The Front Page early in the spring. But Carolina — After luring a gay man interest groups — pro-prayer, pro- out onto a deserted side road, four life, Moral Majority. You can't throw in June the Republican strategy began men attacked him. One of them rocks at those. 14,P can throw rocks to unfold. Flaherty held a press con- pointed a gun through the wind- at the gays, at the liberals, at the ference on June 7 accusing Hunt of a shield and said, "Faggot, you have labor unions. "gay connection": U.S. Senator Paul taken your last ride." He pulled the Tsongas, chief sponsor of the Senate trigger as the victim floored his car, While the state Republican chair ad- gay rights bill, had sponsored a fund- avoiding the bullet by inches. His vocated "throwing rocks" at gay peo- raising dinner for Hunt in Boston; gay car crashed into an embankment, ple, there were four attacks on North people had reportedly bought 100 of and the men pulled him out and beat Carolina gay men that spring, three of the 700 tickets to a Hunt fundraiser in him until he ran away and hid in a them murders, two of the victims New York; and Hunt had yet to state tree for the rest of the night. black men. his position on reform of the North August 29, Brunswick County, North The chief rock-thrower and notori- Carolina Crimes Against Nature law Carolina — In a similar incident, a ous dynamo behind the Republican which gay and lesbian activists sought 23-year-old gay man was invited to a homophobic crusade was Bob Wind- to have repealed. Apparently, any par- party, then led to a deserted road sor, editor of The Landmark, a gutter ticipation by gay people in the political where he was shot at, struck in the tabloid. Windsor, whose violent oppo- process — lobbying, contributing head, beaten unconscious, and sition to gay rights was known from money, or working in a party — was robbed. the first, began publishing gay-baiting subject to attack. November 4, Norfolk, Virginia — A articles in January 1984, never shying The next day a wealthy, right-wing well-known and well-respected away from the most vulgar language Democrat placed a large ad in the member of the gay community was and ignorant stereotypes regarding News and Observer carrying a replica beaten to death with a blunt instru- homosexuality. of a January story from Windsor's ment, and his body inflicted with As the Hunt-Helms campaign ac- Landmark under a headline asking multiple stab wounds. celerated, Windsor's positions became "Governor Hunt, Did you, or Did you more and more extreme, and his sto- not, accept a $79,000 contribution Perhaps not knowing of this con- ries increasingly often based on lies from Gay Activists?" In fact, although tinuing violence against lesbian and and fantasy. Early, he advocated man- the much-repeated stories of large gay gay people — or not caring — North datory incarceration and mental treat- donations to Hunt were false, Hunt's Carolina's Republican chair David ment of gays as a remedy for AIDS. campaign never denied them. Instead, Flaherty in March 1984 announced his Soon after, he announced a homosex- the campaign took the position that all party's campaign strategy. The Wil- ual plot to murder him. Later, he in- support was welcome and that donors mington Star quoted him on March 12: vented the founding of a chapter of were not pre-screened for sexual North American Man-Boy Love in One of the things we're going to preference. make an issue [of] to get people to Chapel Hill and described its meet- On the other hand, Hunt's aides vote for us this year. . . is to estab- ings. He printed interviews with "reacted sharply," reported the News lish that, hey, who's supporting the Lightning Brown and Joe Herzenberg, and Observer, to press questions that Democrats? We'll show the Jesse two Democratic Party and gay activists his campaign was "tied to homosexual Jacksons, we'll show the gay rights, from Chapel Hill whom he alleged to advocacy groups." His campaign co- 20 SEFTEMBER/OCPOBER director called the tactic "guilt by as- on a back page. terested in his own extremist agenda sociation," never clarifying exactly Flaherty had said that Hunt could than in the people or problems of where the guilt originated. Likewise, not "throw rocks" at his Moral North Carolina. when Windsor later accused Hunt in Majority constituency. But by summer At this crucial point in the election flagrantly homophobic language of be- Hunt's campaign had found a target for campaign, Landmark editor Windsor ing "effeminate," Democratic leaders its own rock-throwing — in Roberto made his most sensational move. He rushed to defend him from the "scur- D'Aubuisson, an alleged leader of the accused Hunt not just of gay support rilous," "derogatory," and "despica- Salvadoran death squads that have but of having had a lover who "was a ble" charges, but never stated that the killed more than 30,000 civilians. The pretty young boy." In typically wild bigotry was the despicable thing, not Albuquerque Journal had reported that language, Windsor attacked Hunt's the possibility that the governor was aides from Helms's office had traveled heterosexual manhood: "Is Jim Hunt not 100 percent macho or heterosexu- to San Salvador in 1981 to help set up homosexual? Is Jim Hunt bisexual? Is al. When the Human Rights Fund held D'Aubuisson's ARENA Party, model- he AC or DC? Has he kept a deep dark a press conference to protest that there ing it on the Republican Party in the secret in his political closet all of his was no guilt in being gay, the News and U.S. Hunt set out to picture Helms as a adult life?. . . He has a preoccupation Observer ran it as a small story buried leader of the Radical Right more in- with dress and appearances. He has

. . . jeopardizing the very survival of other minorities that seek civil rights. the nation." Such fears assume that It is hard to know what makes a without the repression of homosexu- minority "legitimate" if discrimina- MYTHS ABOUT ality, most of the population would tion in jobs, housing, immigration, HOMOSEXUALITY be gay (and no gay people would have and the military — as well as a his- children). It assumes heterosexuality tory of repression and subjection to The homophobia underlying both motivated by will — families out of bigoted violence — do not. "They anti-gay legislation and violence duty — rather than by pleasure and portray themselves as victims simply arises from ignorance and myths love. because the American majority does about homosexuality. According to the Kinsey Report not accept their lifestyle," wrote one MYTH I: Homosexuality is a free and subsequent studies by the Insti- Republican in North Carolina in choice for lesbians and gay men. tute for Sex Research, approximately 1984. But the litmus test of democra- Most scientific studies indicate 10 percent of people have had cy has been its ability to protect that sexual orientation is an innate — predominantly homosexual relation- minorities from the assaults of not chosen — part of an individual's ships over at least a two-year period majority prejudices. personality. Experts such as Dr. John during their adulthood. Fears that if MYTH 4: Homosexuality is un- Money of Johns Hopkins University gay people were not repressed every- Christian. agree that a person's sexual orienta- one would become homosexual seem There is a vigorous dispute among tion is established very early, possi- to be founded not so much in fact as theologians and lay people of all bly as early as age two or three. in Puritan suspicions of sexuality. religions and persuasions concerning Given these assumptions, sexuality As to homosexuals bearing the the morality of homosexuality, as — whether homosexual, bisexual, or responsibility for the breakdown of well as that of divorce, birth control, heterosexual — is more an identity the family, homosexuals are mem- abortion, capital punishment, and so than a choice. The choice for gay bers of families — daughters, sons, forth. Current Biblical/political dis- people becomes whether or not to lie brothers, sisters, parents — and bigo- putes seem to divide along lines of and hide. The idea of choosing one's try against them damages family those who stress justice and love (or sexuality is also behind the units. When Anita Bryant launched the social gospel, or liberation theol- homophobic fear that the gay move- her anti-gay "Save the Children" ogy) and those who stress righteous- ment "recruits" children to expand campaign, the National Gay Task ness as avoiding a whole series of its ranks, rather than that it works for Force responded with its own cam- specific activities various passages of a world in which gay children will paign: "We Are Your Children." The the Bible name as "sin" (fundamen- grow up freer people. Studies show National Gay Task Force indicates talism). Gay people generally come that most child molesting occurs that one-third of the gay people sur- out better in the former camp. The when girls are molested by men — veyed had been verbally abused by Reverend William Sloane Coffin ob- and much of it occurs within the relatives because of their sexual serves, "The New Testament tells me nuclear family. orientation; 7 percent had been phys- to 'love my neighbor,' and the MYTH 2: Homosexuality leads to ically abused. These statistics indi- homosexual is my neighbor." Many the breakdown of the family cate an alarming threat — from gay Christians add that working for Jesse Helms expressed the fear in bigotry — to millions of American gay liberation is an exercise in his 1984 Senate campaign that families. self-love. homosexuality threatens "the ability MYTH 3: Gay people are not a of our population to reproduce itself legitimate minority in a class with

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 21 IN TELEVISION DEBATES DURING THE 1984 SENATE RACE, JESSE HELMS, LEFT, TWICE MENTIONED JIM HUNT'S SUPPORT FROM GAY ACTIVISTS. the prettiest manicured fingernails you sor's paper. Regardless of the fiscal ble anger, saying that Helms had have ever seen." relationship between the Landmark "questioned his patriotism." Helms's Windsor raved on for paragraphs, and the Republicans, Windsor had question echoed some of the same im- asking why Hunt had never served in succeeded in generating suggestions plications that Windsor had played on the military and declaring that the Helms would later use to draw blood in calling Hunt "effeminate." Media governor was not Windsor's "kind of a in his television debates with Hunt. experts and pollsters concluded that man." (Apparently Helms was: the By September, Helms had brought Helms won the third debate, and that page carried a picture of Helms with his anti-gay attacks out of his poor- Hunt had generally lost the momen- his arm around Windsor and the cap- mouthing fundraising appeals and tum from his strong performance in tion, "Jesse Helms is Mighty Good more directly into his campaign. the first contest as Helms went on the Hugging.") When responding to the inquiry of a attack. When Hunt threatened to sue, Wind- Lumberton minister about his stand on Republican chair Flaherty had be- sor said that he had consulted God and homosexuality, Helms responded in gun the strategy of "throwing rocks at decided to retract. He explained that the Landmark, affirming that he gay people"; Windsor had retaliated the story had been his reaction to agreed with the "religious and legal with the gay issue when Hunt threw Hunt's ads about death squads; that he tradition" which viewed it as a "per- rocks at Helms's right-wing connec- had been so upset, lost so much sleep, version and a crime." He described the tions. Even if this was not a coordinat- that he decided to write a story just as homosexual movement as a "threat to ed strategy, the Helms campaign "unfounded." the morals of our young people" and continued to make the connection. By When the Newsand Observer and to "the ability of our population to mid-October Helms's press spokesper- other papers played up the story, reproduce itself. . . jeopardizing the son Claude Allen replied to the Helms repudiated Windsor's "girlish" very survival of the nation." charges of the senator's support for allegations against Hunt as "prepos- In the four televised debates be- fascists by saying, "We could do the terous" and "repugnant and unfair" to tween Hunt and Helms during the fall, same with queers [and the Demo- a family man, and announced that he gay issues lurked beneath the surface. crats]." The Democrats could have was withdrawing advertising from the Twice Helms mentioned Hunt's sup- pointed out that gay people in North Landmark (the issue under considera- port from "Lightning Brown, Joe Her- Carolina were being killed, while tion had carried one-and-a-half zenberg, and Virginia Apuzzo" in death squads in El Salvador were also pages). But Helms did not repudiate response to criticism of Helms's out- killing people. But none of the Windsor's support, while Flaherty of-state fundraising. In the third debate Democrats or straight progressives said he preferred the Landmark to the the sharpest exchange came when knew how or wanted to make that News and Observer. Other Republi- Helms taunted Hunt, "What war did point. cans continued to carry ads in Wind- you fight in?" Hunt reacted with visi- The Democrats at the state level 22 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER never named the anti-gay bigotry for tian and a parent I cannot condone issues ourselves, outside of either what it was, or countered it in any way, homosexuality. party. We considered sponsoring, for apparently hoping to make it through instance, a press conference or a peti- The gay and lesbian community in the election without rocking the boat. tion campaign against bigotry in the North Carolina responded to the back- But the Democrats' boat sank anyway. elections. lash in various ways. In an atmosphere (Helms's use of the abortion issue did charged with big bucks, high political receive more upfront opposition, and Helms's race-baiting was challenged stakes, and the religious fervor of the New Right, we took the brunt of by Hunt, other Democrats, and even On November 7, the morning by some Republicans.) scapegoating and were unprepared for after the election, the its intensity. Different strategies "Where do you stand, Jim?" was Democratic Party in the state emerged in an atmosphere of growing Helms's most telling campaign slogan, and the nation woke to shambles, and and with gay rights as with other is- concern. many looked around to fix blame. A Brown and Herzenberg, with the sues, Hunt gave him plenty of ambiva- Hunt aide decided not enough blacks highest profiles as Democratic Party lent material. Steve Schewel, had come out to vote. Lieutenant activists and as targets for the back- publisher of the North Carolina In- Governor-elect Bob Jordan, the lash, stressed working closely with the dependent, a progressive statewide bi- highest-ranking Democrat left in the Democratic hierarchy. As a member weekly, commented, "When [Hunt] state, blamed the liberalism of the of the 300-person Democratic State does take a stand that might have polit- national ticket for his party's defeats Executive Committee, Brown ical liabilities, he often qualifies it un- and declared that "Southerners should described his strategy as educating til there's barely any position left at have more of a say in future national people by his presence in a party all." Without speaking out clearly for elections." Tim Valentine, Congress- gay rights, Schewel remarked, Hunt process which was more "quilting bee man from North Carolina's Second than debating society." Within this left the voters "empty-handed." The District, decried the "furious fringes" closest Hunt ever actually came to context and presented with a chance to which had taken the Democratic Party support for gay rights were general make a choice for gay rights, party over to such issues as sexual prefer- comments on "kindness" and workers often did so. When Brown ence — a rather remarkable lapse of "fairness." spoke for gay issues at each level of the memory as to which side had been party process he did so as a Democrat In response to questions raised by "furious" in the election. to other Democrats, explaining why Republican Flaherty in his June press How Democrats locally and nation- gay rights was important to the party. conference about Hunt's support for ally treat gay and lesbian efforts at He refused to let the Republicans have equal employment for homosexuals, party politics will indicate a good bit the "family theme." Hunt replied, "Everybody ought to be about the future direction of the There was a price for this "insider- treated fairly." But in September and Democratic Party. While some ness": the lack of response to the most October as the campaign entered its Democratic politicians obviously fear strident gay-baiting. Brown later clari- final, heated phase, the Religious that open gay and lesbian organizing fied what had been an underlying am- Right pushed Hunt — by forcing the within the party will be the "kiss of bivalence throughout the campaign: issue, by a whisper campaign, and by death," the real kiss of death for the "There's the idea by both heterosexu- questioning his manhood — to articu- Democrats — and for hopes for als and gay people that gay support late his opposition to gay issues. In a genuine democracy — comes when will be the 'kiss of death' for candi- letter to the Robesonian, newspaper of bigotry runs rampant as it did in North dates." This kiss-of-death fear put gay rural Robeson County, Hunt "set the activists in a double bind. They could record straight" (so to speak) in organize up to a point, but when the response to a "whisper campaign in local churches": backlash escalated the advice they got even from allies was "don't rock the I do not support, and have never boat." supported, granting minority status Two other strategies, not necessarily to homosexuals. I oppose S. 430 [a incompatible with the insider strategy, bill in the US. Senate to give gay also emerged. The editor of The Front people federally protected civil Page and planners of a statewide Les- rights] and, indeed, any other legis- bian/Gay Conference set about or- lation pending before Congress ganizing gay Republicans. The which would give special status to purpose was to show that gay rights homosexuals. I believe such efforts was not a partisan issue, that the gay to be unwarranted federal intrusions vote was not monolithic, and that, at into matters best left to communities to decide. I do not support any the time this strategy was being planks in the Democratic platform, pushed, neither party had a strong state or national, which might result record on homosexual rights. A third in giving special privileges and group (of which I was a part) argued THIS BUTTON WAS FOUND DISCARDED rights to homosexuals. As a Chris- that gay people needed to define gay IN CHAPEL HILL, NC SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 23 Carolina during the 1984 election. Brown and Herzenberg were subjected to more than a dozen separate incidents of intimidation, vandalism, and harassment — even threats to their lives — for their work within the Democratic Party. Brown was advised by a lawyer that he could not sue for libel because he is gay and thus is a fel- on under the Crimes Against Nature law. When gays, or labor, or women, or black people and other ethnic minorities, can be labeled successfully as "special interest groups" and scapegoated for a failing economy or troubles within the nuclear family, we Veil of Hurt are in trouble indeed. BY EDWARD PEEPLES, JR., WALTER W. TUNSTAL Democrats, progressives, gay men, AND EVERETT EBERHARDT and lesbians were all in many ways too cautious, I believe, in the 1984 election; afraid of rocking the boat, we did not answer homophobic attacks as openly as they were made, thus giving I had completed all of the require- I finally found a job as a clerk in a Republican candidates the field. ments for the Ph.D. at one of Virginia's local department store. It did not take Brown commented perceptively on the state universities, including a first the spying and inquiring store detec- Democrats' silence, "It takes a while draft of a dissertation. The first two tive long to reach the belated conclu- to acquire a vocabulary about gay is- readers of the paper thought that the sion of the professors. He quickly sues without stumbling all over your- second chapter was particularly good, spread his suspicions among other self. It is linguistically loaded because and was probably publishable as an store employees. Young employees the language has been preempted by article in one of the scholarly jour- were told to avoid talking to me. I be- jokes and insults. Many people in the nals; needless to say, I changed that came the subject of vicious and un- Democratic Party had a willingness chapter hardly at all in the next draft. relenting gossip. Insulting stage- but the inability to [respond]. Few Between the time that the professors whispered remarks were made for my people except gay people knew how to read the first and second draft, they benefit. Although the job wouldn't tax answer." came to believe that I was a homo- the intellect of a junior high student, I Gay people and progressive heter- sexual. found that! couldn't cut it. Fearing for osexuals need urgently to find the lan- My whole graduate program col- my sanity, I quit after two months. guage to counter homophobic bigotry lapsed at that point. The chapter I have now been unemployable for and thus to neutralize it as a reaction- previously thought publishable was many months. Leaving aside the issue ary strategy. Too much "don't rock the savaged. The paper was not good of homosexuality, no one wants to hire boat" means that the boat rots beneath enough — could not be revised. an applicant with advanced graduate us. And gay/lesbian activists need to Although the professors did not direct- training for an unskilled position. commit ourselves unambivalently to ly confront me with their prejudices, I have now developed a love-hate our own power — our "kiss of life" — they conveyed their sentiments through feeling for Richmond and the Com- whether within electoral party politics indirect comments and incongruous monwealth. The many virtues of our or beyond it. Ours is a liberation criticisms of the paper itself I was area are all but cancelled out for me movement, and our fate will not be cold-shouldered, blacklisted, and all by the narrow-minded, self-righteous, separate from the fate of other people but thrown off campus. My adviser mean-spirited, intolerance of all to striving for liberation in this strongly resisted writing any kind of many of our people. century.0 reference for me. Finally, he wrote — anonymous letter to the Richmond something (insisting that it be con- City Commission on Human Relations Mab Segrest is coordinator of North fidential): obviously a "He was a stu- Carolinians Against Racist and Religious dent here, but I hardly knew him" kind Violence. She is a frequent contributor to Southern Exposure. of letter that could not possibly be of Earlier versions of this article appeared in any value to me professionally. Having Gay Community News and The Front Page. spent many years preparing for a Like the citizens of most Ameri- professional career, but with no can communities, particularly in faculty support for my aspirations, I the South, most proper Rich- am now all but unemployable. I do not monders pretend that homosexuals have any significant prior work ex- could not possibly be native to their perience. charming and innocent city, and that in 24 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER the unlikely event that such people was the second major item of concern important in this study. Unfortunately, were to find themselves in our com- listed by our respondents (see table 2). the respondents to the survey ex- munity, they would be treated like all Almost one-third — 31 percent — pressed extreme dissatisfaction with visitors, with the most charitable of reported they were not treated as equal their treatment by public officials in Southern civility. among heterosexual co-workers. Richmond (see table 4). Eighty-seven According to a survey of the views Twenty-eight percent said they were percent thought their concerns were of homosexuals in Richmond, Vir- harassed by co-workers and 25 percent never or rarely addressed adequately ginia, which we conducted in 1984, reported being harassed by supervi- by city government. Similarly, 84 per- nothing could be further from the sors. There were seven specific forms cent felt that they are treated unfairly truth. In conjunction with the Rich- of on-the-job discrimination, harass- under existing laws, and 78 percent mond City Commission on Human ment, or intimidation in which 15 per- said they receive less than equal treat- Relations, we sampled opinions from cent or more of the respondents ment from local law enforcement 508 diverse individuals living or reported incidents. officials. working in Richmond who identified Perhaps the most alarming finding The study also shows a disturbing themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexu- in our study was the extent of violence degree of alienation and distrust for al. Our questionnaire asked for a vari- against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals the law, local government, and the het- ety of information about their personal (see table 3). A third of the sample — erosexual community. It should come characteristics; their encounters with 156 people — said that they had been as no surprise that 16 percent of the discrimination, harassment, and physically attacked or intimidated by sample said they were very alienated abuse; their confidence and trust in heterosexuals in some fashion at least from Richmond's heterosexual com- sundry community services and insti- once because of their sexual orien- munity, and 70 percent felt at least tutions; and the extent to which they tation. some alienation. When asked to com- publicly disclose their sexual orienta- Because of the reported prevalence pare the quality of life in Richmond tion. Eighty-two percent of the respon- of discrimination and violence, the at- with that in other cities, just over half dents were white.* titudes of the local government as a of our respondents rated Richmond in The results of our study, like the protector of civil rights are especially some degree unfavorably. words of our anonymous letter writer, suggest that many gays and lesbians see life in Richmond as anything but charitable and civil. Table 1. Percent Reporting Discrimination in One of the key items of the question- Selected Community Spheres naire asked each respondent to sum- marize his or her experience with Total Race mistreatment in various aspects of Richmond life. The answers indicate White Black that discrimination occurs with wo wo wo astonishing frequency (see-table 1).** It is important that the highest num- Private Rental 32 34 25 ber of complaints occurred in basic Renting with Same-Sex Mate 23 24 13 Restaurant Services 23 24 areas of life: public accommodations, 18 Employment Services 21 23 19 employment-seeking services, routine Routine Health Care 18 18 17 health care, educational institutions, Education/Schools 18 18 13 and opportunities for religious coun- Hotel/Motel Accommodations 18 18 15 seling. Finding and keeping housing Buying a Home 15 19 1 proved to be the most substantial Religious Counseling 17 19 4 problem for many homosexuals. Mental Health Services 14 15 12 Thirty-two percent reported discrimi- Public Housing 11 5 11 nation in getting and/or holding rental Transportation housing as individuals, followed by 23 (taxi, plane, bus, train, etc.) 10 10 7 percent who reported discrimination Emergency Health Services 6 5 6 when they tried to rent housing with a Banks/Savings and Loan 6 6 5 roommate of the same sex. In almost Funeral/Burial Arrangements 5 5 4 every instance, white homosexuals Food Stamps 4 * reported more problems attributable to Rape Counseling 3 * their sexual orientation than did black Welfare/Public Assistance 3 * * homosexuals. The small number of Credit Card Companies 4 * Mortgage Companies/ people reporting problems with lend- . ing institutions is due principally to Private Lending Institutions 3 * the fact that few had sought loans from such institutions. *Percent of those reporting discrimination is less than 5% Discrimination in the workplace SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 25 We consider one finding of our study especially disappointing. Among those institutions the respon- Table 2. Percent Reporting Selected Types of dents singled out as culpable are two in Discrimination in the Workplace which anti-discrimination statutes are unlikely to have any measurable effect: Total Race religious institutions and the families White Black of gays and lesbians. How can we ex- % % pect fair and compassionate standards of treatment from government if Not treated as equal among heterosexual justice is withheld by the very foun- co-workers 31 34 17 tainheads of moral law? Harassed by co-workers 28 28 28 The study gave no explanation for Harassed by supervisors or superiors 25 25 25 one surprising finding. Black people Didn't get a job you were qualified for 24 25 23 consistently reported lower percen- Difficulty maintaining job security 22 17 23 tages of mistreatment based on their Didn't get a promotion you deserved 21 21 21 homosexuality. We have three possible Fear for your physical safety 18 17 21 explanations. First, black gays and les- Fired or asked to resign 14 14 14 bians may attribute some discrimina- Lost customers or clients 14 14 12 tion to their race instead of their sexual Received poor work performance orientation. The survey did not ask evaluations 14 14 11 questions which could separate the Received unfavorable job references 13 13 12 two forms of discrimination clearly. Difficulty getting a desired transfer 11 9 12 Second, whites may be more aware of Barred from practicing your trade or discriminatory acts based on their profession 7 6 9 homosexuality because they have higher expectations of democratic pluralism in the community. Third, the white community as a whole may be less tolerant of homosexuality and therefore more prone to engage in or permit discrimination. Faced with discrimination, the vast Table 3. Percent Reporting Being Attacked or Abused majority of the respondents to the survey reported that they find it necessary Total Sex Race to modify their behavior to avoid un- Male Female White Black favorable reaction from the larger % % community (see table 5). Even when dealing with financial institutions, Ever Been Attacked 33 35 28 33 30 three-fifths said they changed the way they behave to try to avoid discrimination. Four-fifths said they had to alter their behavior in their family or workplace. Since 1983, three similar studies have been conducted elsewhere, and all lend credence to our findings. The Table 4. Perception of Treatment by Local Government first, conducted by the Alexandria, Virginia, Human Rights Commission Total Race and the Alexandria Community Gay White Black Association, used a questionnaire % % adapted from the one used in Rich- mond. The results were astonishingly Gay/Lesbian Issues Never or Rarely 87 88 80 similar (see table 6). The other two Adequately Addressed by City Government comparable studies are one under- taken in 1984 by the National Gay Task Receive Less Than Equal Protection 84 87 73 Force, which combined data from Under Current Law 1,420 gays and 654 lesbians in seven cities; and "the Boston Project," a sur- Receive Less Than Equal Treatment 78 78 76 vey of 1,340 gays and lesbians in From City Police Boston. One parallel between the 26 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER the problem for at least two reasons. Table 5. First, only 21 percent of our sample Percent Reporting They Alter said that they reveal their sexual iden- Their Behavior In Order To Avoid tity publicly, and the rest consequently Negative Reactions may escape some malevolence at the hands of heterosexuals. For example, our survey showed that those who are Total openly gay at work have more than twice the risk of being attacked physically or verbally. Second, many vic- "I'm sorry, but I don't rent to Bible-toting Family 79 tims of discrimination repress their fanatics. I don't want my children 79 Workplace memories of insulting or painful influenced by them:' Religious Institutions 76 episodes. Public Accommodations 76 The report to the Richmond City Educational Institutions 75 police and other human-services Commission on Human Rights con- workers so that they may carry out Recreation 73 cludes with recommendations of a 72 their responsibilities in a more equita- Neighborhood number of steps that should be taken to Retail Services 71 ble manner. Also essential is establish- bring unqualified citizenship to sexual Legal Services, Courts 66 ing local working committees of Government Services 65 minorities. The responsibilities en- homosexual leaders with the police, Health Services 63 tailed in meeting these recommenda- housing industry, religious institu- Housing 62 tions fall to government, commerce tions, and so forth. And there is a cry- Financial Institutions 61 and industry, the media, health care ing need to create the means to control providers, educational institutions, violence perpetrated against the labor unions, professional associa- homosexual community. tions, religious institutions, family Finally, we must in more imagina- Richmond study and the surveys of members, and gays and lesbians them- tive ways encourage the families of other cities was the shocking rate of selves. homosexuals to assume responsibility violence reported against gays and les- First and foremost, we must have for finding out more of the facts about bians. In Richmond, 35 percent of federal and state human rights laws homosexuality, renouncing the myths males and 28 percent of females which protect everyone, including and prejudices about gays and les- reported being attacked because of homosexuals. Next, we need to repeal bians, and attempting to offer greater their homosexuality; in Boston, the all present laws which single out understanding and support to their figure was 25 percent overall; in the homosexuals for disadvantageous homosexual family members. study of seven cities, 28 percent of differential treatment and those laws Whatever the flaws of this particular males and 36 percent of females which seek to regulate private sexual inquiry, our fondest hope is that it and reported being the victims of violence. behavior among consenting adults. studies like it elsewhere will serve our Striking as the results of the Rich- Essential too is that we offer realis- communities by stimulating informed mond survey are, it is likely that many tic sex education to children, including dialogue. Our further wish is that of the numbers presented here un- the facts about homosexuality. Simi- this dialogue may lead us closer to derestimate the actual magnitude of larly, we must educate and train our freedom for those who have been excluded, with no diminution of the liberties of others. 0 Table 6. Comparison of Reported Discrimination In Edward Peeples, Jr , teaches preventive Richmond and Alexandria medicine at the Medical College of Virginia Richmond Alexandria and is former chair of the Richmond Com- % mission on Human Relations. Walter Tunstall teaches psychology at St. Leo College. Everett Eberhardt, a civil-rights lawyer, is a Not Treated As Equal Among research specialist for the Commission on Heterosexual Co-workers 31 30 Human Relations. Harassed By Co-Workers 28 29 Harassed By Supervisors * The findings presented here are excerpted or Superiors 25 29 from the original 106-page report presented Discouraged From Renting in April 1985 to the Richmond Commission with Same-Sex Roommate 23 19 on Human Relations. Restaurant Services 23 20 ** Percentages throughout this article are Disclose Their Sexual Orientation based on the numbers of people who gave answers to given questions. Inapplicable or to Everyone at Work 21 16 missing data are excluded. Hotel/Motel Accommodations 18 20 Routine Health Care 18 20

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 27 French-speaking Louisiana is England gained possession of the colo- involved in an exciting cultural and lin- ny and renamed it Nova Scotia, and in guistic renaissance as Cajuns and Cre- 1755 the British Crown deported the oles, once dangerously close to Acadians. After 10 years of wandering, complete acculturation, begin to many Acadians began to arrive in the reclaim their heritage. The Western French colony of Louisiana, deter- world as a whole has found it difficult mined to recreate the cohesive society to avoid the homogenizing influence of they had known in Acadia. Within a American culture, yet America has generation, these exiles had so firmly failed to reduce its own diverse ethnic reestablished themselves as a people and cultural heritages to pabulum, that they became the dominant culture largely because of the resiliency of the in south Louisiana and absorbed the individual cultures. This failure, other ethnic groups around them, with however, must also be credited in part a cross-cultural exchange that pro- to the deliberate, concerted efforts of duced a new community, the Cajuns. visionaries who foresaw that the trend It is doubtful that the Acadian exiles toward a bland, standardized society and earliest French settlers brought would one day break down and pre- musical instruments with them to pared for a time when America would colonial Louisiana. Melodies came recognize the value of its highly sea- with them, but instruments of any kind soned cultural stew. As early as the were rare on the early frontier. 1930s, Louisiana French society was However, even with houses to be built, encouraged to maintain itself as an fields to be planted, and the example of cultural and linguistic monumental task of reestablishing a tenacity. The ideal vehicle for this society, families would gather after a effort, expressing both language and day's work to sing complaintes, the culture, was Cajun music. long, unaccompanied story songs of Most of Louisiana's French popula- their French heritage. They adapted tion descend from the Acadians, the old songs and created new ones to French colonists who began settling in reflect the Louisiana experience. They eastern Canada at Port Royal, Acadia, sang children's songs, drinking songs, in 1604. Very quickly, they came to see and lullabies in the appropriate set- themselves as different from their tings and developed play-party ditties European forebears, and for a century for square and round dancing. These thrived in their new homeland. In 1713 songs expressed the joys and sorrows of life on the frontier. They told of heady affairs and ancient wars, of way- ward husbands and heartless wives; they filled the loneliest nights in the simplest cabins with wisdom and art. By 1780 musical instruments began to appear. The violin was relatively The simple and, played in open tuning with • a double string bowing technique, achieved the conspicuous, self- accompanying drone which character- Music ized much of traditional western French style. Soon fiddlers were playing for bals de maison, traditional dances held in private homes where furniture was cleared to make room for Brought crowds of visiting relatives and neighbors. The most popular musicians were those who could be heard, so fiddlers bore down hard with their bows by Barry Jean Ancelet and singers sang in shrill, strident Us voices to pierce through the din of the dancers. Some fiddlers began playing together and developed a distinct twin fiddling style in which the first played the lead and the other accompanied 28 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER with percussive bass second or a har- Eventually, dance bands were built became a stigma placed upon the less mony below the line. From their around the accordion and fiddle, with socially and economically ambitious Anglo-American neighbors they a triangle, washboard, or spoons Cajuns who had maintained their lan- learned jigs, hoedowns, and Virginia added for percussion. Some groups guage and culture in self-sufficient reels to enrich their growing repertoire added a Spanish box guitar for isolation. The very word "Cajun" and which already included polkas and rhythm. They performed for house its harsh new counterpart "coonass" contredanses, varsoviennes, and dances and later in public dance halls. became ethnic slurs synonymous with valses a deux temps. Transformation By the late 1920s, musicians had deve- poverty and ignorance and amounted in fiddle and dance styles reflected so- loped much of the core repertoire now to an accusation of cultural senility. cial changes simmering in Louisiana's associated with Cajun music. The Cajun music scene in the cultural gumbo. At this point, the unself-conscious mid-1930s reflected the social In the mid- to late-1800s, the diaton- pursuit of cultural and social rebuild- changes. Musicians abandoned the ic accordion, invented in Vienna in ing was jarred off its course by a series traditional style in favor of new sounds 1828, entered south Louisiana by way of events that brought Cajuns and Cre- heavily influenced by hillbilly music of Texas and its German settlers; it oles into closer contact with the rest of and Western swing. The once quickly transformed the music played the world: the discovery of oil in their dominant accordion disappeared by the Cajuns. This loud and durable homeland, World War!, the advent of abruptly, a victim of the newly instrument became immediately popu- mass media, and improved transporta- Americanized French population's lar. Even with half of its 40 metal tion. State and local school board growing distaste for the old ways. reeds broken, it made enough noise policy began imposing compulsory Freed from the limitations imposed by for dancing. When fiddlers and accor- English-language education and the accordion, string bands readily ab- dionists began playing together, the banned French from the elementary sorbed various outside influences. accordion dominated the music by vir- schools. In south Louisiana, French Then the advent of electrical amplifi- tue of its sheer volume, an important culture and language were slag to be cation made it unnecessary for fiddlers feature in the days before electrical discarded in the rush to join the to bear down with the bow in order to amplification. Limited in its number American mainstream. be heard, and they developed a lighter, of available notes and keys, it tended to Class distinctions which had lilting touch, moving away from the restrict and simplify tunes. Musicians appeared early in Louisiana society soulful intensity of earlier styles. adapted old songs and created new were heightened by Americanization By the late 1940s, commercially ones to feature its sound. Black Creole and the Great Depression. The up- recorded Cajun music was unmistaka- musicians played an important role wardly mobile Cajuns offered little or bly sliding toward Americanization. during the formative period at the turn no resistance to what seemed a move Then in 1948 Try Lejeune recorded of this century, contributing a highly in the right direction. Money and edu- "La Valse du Pont d'Amour." He went syncopated accordion style and the cation were hailed as the way up and against the grain to perform in the old, blues to Cajun music. out of the mire. Being "French" traditional style long forced under- photos by Elemore Morgan, Jr. ground. Some said the young singer from rural Acadia Parish didn't know better, but crowds rushed to hear his highly emotional music. His unexpect- ed popular success focused attention on cultural values that Cajuns and Cre- oles had begun to fear losing. Iry Lejeune became a pivotal figure in the revitalization of Cajun music; his untimely death in 1955 only added to his legendary stature. Following his lead, musicians like Joe Falcon, Lawrence Walker, Austin Pitre, and Nathan Abshire dusted off long- abandoned accordions to perform and record traditional-style Cajun music. Local music store owners pioneered a local recording industry that took up the slack left by the national record companies which had abandoned regional and ethnic music in favor of a broader, national base of appeal. The effects of revitalization were immediate but varied. Cajun music was stubbornly making a comeback, but not without changes brought on by outside influences superimposed during the previous decade. To remain a legitimate expression of Louisiana French society, Cajun music would need to revitalize its roots. Yet tradition is not a product but a process. The rugged individualism which character- ized frontier life has been translated into modern terms, yet its underlying spirit persists. The momentum of recent developments will carry traditional Cajun music to the next generation. Meanwhile, a steady stream of new songs shows the culture to be alive BOIS-SEC ARDOIN AT HOME again with creative energy. Fiddler Dewey Balfa is prominent among the current generation of musicians who Band which brought Cajun music to want the culture and music to breathe folk festivals all across America. and grow — but also to stay clearly The Their sense of tradition was based on a within the parameters of tradition. Balfa rich musical heritage which ran in the Balfa and his brothers have been an family. Balfa says, "My father, grand- influential force in the Cajun music father, great-grandfather, they all renaissance. Brotherhood played the fiddle, and you see, through my music, I feel they are still alive." Balfa's father, Charles, was a Every school day, a few dozen chil- sharecropper on Bayou Grand Louis in dren from the countryside around rural Evangeline Parish near Mamou. Basile, Louisiana, pile into a school- He inspired his children with his great bus driven by one of the most respect- love of life and of music. Will, ed folk musicians in America. Since Burkeman, Dewey, Harry, and Rodney the early 1960s, Dewey Balfa has been grew up making music for their own an important figure in the movement to entertainment in the days before tele- preserve the traditional ethnic and vision. Unlike some other traditional regional cultures. He and his brothers musicians, who learned to play in spite formed the core of the Balfa Brothers of their parents, the Balfa brothers did 30 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER not have to sneak to the barn to play club was on the other side of Ville pastime. I've always looked on music the accordion or unravel window Platte from here. He said, "Yes, you all as a universal language. You can com- screen wire for makeshift cigar-box come, you and Dewey" That was municate with one, you can communi- fiddles. The Balfa household swelled before he made his big club. So we cate with a whole audience at one with music after the day's work, and started going, Dewey and land one of time. But then, here I was going to children were encouraged to partici- our friends who played guitar with us. Newport, Rhode Island, for a festival. pate with anything they wanted to try We were three. Two fiddles and a gui- I had played in house dances, family to play. Spoons, triangles, and fiddle- tar. We would go every Saturday night gatherings, maybe a dance hall where sticks were important first steps to to play until midnight for five dollars you might have seen as many as 200 teach rhythm. Fiddles, however, took apiece. Sometimes, when it was time people at once. In fact, I doubt that I time to master. to stop, they would pass the hat and had ever seen 200 people at once. And When I was little, as far back as I pick up more than we had already in Newport, there were 17,000. Seven- can remember, I always loved music. made, so we played on until near teen thousand people who wouldn't let Of course, we didn't always have in- dawn. We played for some time like us get offstage. — Dewey Balfa struments around, but I would take that. We had no amplifiers. We just In 1967, Dewey told Newport field- sticks and rub them together pretend- played acoustic. Dewey was working worker Ralph Rinzler that he felt it ing to play the fiddle and I'd sing. So offshore, and he said, "We're going to important to present his own family's my late father said to my mother, "I get together a real band." He went out musical tradition. That was when the want to buy a fiddle for Will because and bought a set of amplifiers. Then Balfa Brothers Band was first invited he's always pretending to play with we were really set up. — Will Bolfa to perform at the Newport Folk Fes- those sticks." We had an old neighbor In 1964, Dewey Balfa served as a tival. The brothers, who had not who had a fiddle that he didn't play last-minute replacement on guitar to played together for some years, were a much. So one day my father traded accompany Gladius Thibodeaux on little rusty, but they quickly got a great him a pig for the fiddle. And that was accordion and Louis "Vinesse" deal of practice at festivals all over the first fiddle I had. Later, when I had Lejeune to the Newport Folk Festival. America, Canada, and eventually learned well enough to play dances, I An editorial in the local newspaper France. The group — composed of ordered another one from the Spiegel commented condescendingly on the Dewey and Will on fiddles, Rodney on catalog. I paid nine dollars for that notion of festival talent scouts finding guitar, Rodney's son Tony on drums or one. talent among Cajun musicians, and bass, occasionally Harry or Burkeman — Will Bolfa [his preferred spelling] predicted embarrassing consequences on triangle, and accompanied by vari- The Balfa Brothers Band came if indeed Louisiana was so represented ous friends like Nathan Abshire, Marc much later. in Newport. Savoy, Hadley Fontenot, Robert Dewey was younger than me. When I had no idea what a festival was. Jardell, or Ally Young on accordion — he started playing, in fact, he learned They were talking about workshops, became known in folk circles far and on my fiddle. Then, when I got mar- about concerts, and I didn't have the wide as proud representatives of their ried, I took my fiddle with me, so he slightest idea what those were. I've native culture. More important, they bought himself one and continued to always loved to play music as a brought this renewed pride back home play. One day in 1945 or 1946, he came to my house with a fellow named Hicks. He was the one who owned the Wagon Wheel Club, and he lived next to my father, who came with them. They came with a flask of whiskey, and I had given up drinking and music in those days. They had me take a drink with them. I didn't know what they were after. We talked a little. Later, he said, "Get your fiddle." I said, "My fiddle? But I'm out of practice." Hicks said, "Get your fiddle. I want to hear you and Dewey play together." And that was the beginning of the Balfa Brothers Band. If it hadn't been for that, I would have left my fiddle in the closet. I found my fiddle and took another drink to warm up. We played two or three songs and Hicks said, "You're going to come play for me next Satur- day night." I said, "Oh, no, I can't go." DEWEY BALFA AND WILL BOLFA AT THE HOMAGE I just had my old Model A, and the A LA MUSIQUE ACADIENNE, LAFAYETTE, 1977.

OUTHERN EXPOSURE 31 reaction would be out there. You can I've been playing music for over 40 feel the response of the people when years and I've been married for 38 you're playing. But the people who years, and I'm still with the same wom- have the power of decision-making, I an, still play the same music. I've al- could never get them to see what music ways loved music, but! always played means to the people. I could never get my music and came home. There are in front of them to play, so we got them some musicians who like to drink and to stand backstage, and! think that run around, and I like to drink a bit, festival did it. — Dewey Balfa but then I like to come home. I've al- The festival has made cultural ways been like that. I would go out and heroes of its performers and, in the make my music, make my money, and same motion, placed them within easy DEWEY BALFA ADDRESSES THE go home. I love my wife, my children, FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLIFE, reach of the people, offering alterna- my grandchildren. Those are what I WASHINGTON, DC, 1977. tive role models for young musicians. live for. — Will Bolfa The importance of this alternative to In 1978, Dewey's brothers Will and to Louisiana, to their people who had music imported from the outside was Rodney were killed in an automobile carried the stigma of sociolinguistic the basis for Dewey's message. accident in Avoyelles Parish near inferiority for years. I can remember doing workshops Bunkie while on a family visit. In When we first started going to the away from home. People were so 1980, his wife, Hilda, who had always festivals, I can remember people say- amazed by the music, and when I'd tell provided him with a secure home base ing, "They're going out there to get them about the culture, they just from which to work, died of trichi- laughed at." But when the echo came couldn't believe it. And the question nosis. Though these personal tragedies back, I think it brought a message to would always come up: do you think in Dewey's life affected him very deep- the people, that there were great ef- that this music, language, and culture ly, after a period of mourning for each forts being made by people who were will survive? And I had my doubts be- he resumed his work, marked by a cer- interested in preserving the culture on cause there was nobody who would tain feeling of urgency about preserv- the outside. But a lot of people don't work in the fields and come back and ing the ground they had gained realize that they have a good corn- sit on the porch or sit by the fireplace together. In recognition for his musi- bread on the table until somebody tells and play their instruments and tell sto- cianship, as well as his eloquent them. — Dewey Balfa ries from grandmother and grand- spokesmanship in behalf of the tradi- Dewey's timing could not have been father. Instead, kids would come back tional arts and cultural equity over the better. The creation of the Council for from school and do their homework as years, Dewey was awarded the Nation- the Development of French in Loui- fast as they could and then watch tele- al Heritage Award in 1982 by the siana (CODOFIL) in 1968 testified to vision. A lot of artificial things, in- National Endowment for the Arts. He a changed cultural climate. CODOFIL stead of the real, down-to-earth carries the spirit of the Balfa Brothers chair James Domengeaux focused ini- values. And! thought that the only way with Rodney's son Tony and a family tially on political maneuvers and lan- it would survive, could survive, was to of friends who help lighten the load. guage education but soon became bring this music into the schools for Mr. Rinzler asked me at a festival convinced of the importance of the the children. I never thought it would one time, "Do you realize how many culture in preserving the language. happen, but I kept pounding and lives, how many people the Balfa The first Tribute to Cajun Music fes- pounding at the door until finally I got Brothers have affected through the tival, presented March 26, 1974, and a grant [a Folk Artist in the Schools years of music?" I said no. And I really sponsored by CODOFIL in coopera- grant from the National Endowment had no idea. We were promoting the tion with the Smithsonian Institution, for the Arts, sponsored by the group. We were promoting the culture. was deliberately planned to capture the Southern Folk Revival project in Atlan- We never thought that we were bring- local audience in an unconventional ta]. I feel that the program has done a ing the music to different people and setting to call attention to the music lot of good. It has alerted a lot of chil- different places. We always thought that they had come to take for granted dren that this is not just so-called that the music was bringing us. in smoke-filled dance halls. As a par- `chanky-chank' music. It's a music of — Dewey Balfa ticipant, Dewey had other motives. the people, played by the people for It was a festival for the people. It the people. — Dewey Balfa was a lesson for the cultural authori- In spite of their tremendous Barry Jean Ancelet is a folklorist with the ties. At the time, I wantedfor those influence on the national scene during Center for Louisiana Studies of the Univer- people who hold the reins of the cul- the 1970's, the Balfas lived quite ordi- sity of Southwestern Louisiana. Elemore ture to be exposed to the Cajun music Morgan, Jr , teaches art at the University of nary lives back home in Louisiana. Southwestern Louisiana. This article is ex- experience so that they could see what Their popularity had little effect on cerpted from Musiciens cadiens et creoles/ the people felt about their own music their everyday lives. Will operated a The Makers of Cajun Music, text by Barry when presented in such a prestigious bulldozer for Evangeline Parish, Rod- Jean Ancelet, photographs by Elemore Mor- setting. I wasn't worried about the ney and Tony laid bricks, and Dewey gan, Jr. (University of Texas Press, 1984). audience, because I had been in front still drives a schoolbus and has a dis- of audiences before. I knew what the count furniture store. 32 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER TOENANIST he Battle of St. John spilling into the warm Gulf waters. Its cities of Reserve and LaPlace on the rich delta soil and steamy summer heat east bank of the river. made it productive sugar cane terrain These economic changes began to for over a century. For years the lives alter the racial and income contours of of its inhabitants were shaped by the the parish. Twenty-five years ago St. plantation economy, with most people John had a slight majority of blacks. BY LANCE HILL finding themselves tied to the endless By 1980 whites had grown to 62 per- misery of cane production. Black cent of a total population of 32,000. "Power and authority laborers chopped cane in the subtropi- The median income spiraled to more are not the same. Those cal heat until the long wooden handles than $20,000 annually, a figure twice of the cane knives were worn smooth. as high as that of many neighboring who hold the power to During the 1950s several dramatic parishes. This prosperity was shared control people may not changes began to occur in the econom- by a segment of the black population ic and political structure of the parish. which found employment in the higher have the authority to do Petrochemical corporations such as paying chemical industry, although .91 so. . Du Pont began to construct gleaming one out of four black families in the plants along the river's banks, taking parish still has an income below the The quotation was neatly taped to advantage of the proximity to oil and federal poverty level. the cover of the scrapbook Wilhelmina gas sources, cheap labor, and the Armour had just pushed across the river's transportation and dumping RIVER LORDS table to me. The insurgent concept, potentials. This process was hastened AND VASSALS couched in calm, reasonable terms, by a state government eager to over- seemed to fit Armour perfectly. Here look the pollution of the river in ex- For decades the government appara- was a stern black woman who chose change for modern work for their tus was dominated by the Montague her words carefully and diplomati- constituents, as well as an occasional family of St. John, which presided cally, yet had become the center of a bribe. These factors, accompanied by over its plantation and sugar refinery stormy education workers' strike in the the mechanization of agriculture, in customary Southern aristocratic heart of the South. shifted the economic and, ultimately, fashion. At the head of the Montague Armour is the president of the St. the political life of the parish. oligarchy was J. Oswald Montague, John Association of Educators (SJAE), By 1980 the livelihood of St. John superintendent of schools. Some St. an organization which pulled the residents had been radically trans- John residents took to calling him sleepy Louisiana parish of St. John the formed. As early as 1960 over 30 per- "Cape Longue," translated from Cre- Baptist into the twentieth century. In a cent of the parish's workers were ole as "Long Coat," an allusion to his region of America where unions are engaged in farm and food production, alleged practice of filling his coat with scarce and strikes as frequent as Au- mostly in the low-wage sugar industry. silver coins to purchase favors. Over gust snow, the St. John teachers' strike By 1980 this had dwindled to only 8 the years he had managed to turn the generated amazing public support and percent with less than 2 percent of the school system into a powerful changed the political dynamics of the workforce directly employed in patronage machine. Wilhelmina Ar- parish forever. agriculture. mour recalls, "He ruled everything This shift in occupations was . . . and many people owed their jobs PETROL ON matched by the construction during to the Montagues . . they controlled THE BAYOU the 1970s of an imposing elevated in- the power in the parish." Political op- terstate highway through the vast ponents of Montague would on occa- St. John the Baptist Parish is a strip swamp separating New Orleans from sion find that ballot boxes were being of land that hugs the Mississippi as the St. John. The highway contributed to tossed into the river or votes openly river winds its way through Louisiana the migration of many whites to the purchased. Montague's influence SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 33 stretched from the school board to the crease to benefit education, with a parish council; his empire embraced commitment from the board that they all spheres of St. John residents' lives, would receive a 5 percent wage in- creating a tightly ordered political crease, the first in five years. Later structure that resisted grassroots that summer it became clear that the democratic change. superintendent and the board were not As the economy changed, the plan- going to issue a raise, and soon the tation and aristocratic form of rule be- strike was on. gan to erode. Fewer people owed their Wilhelmina Armour's rise to the livelihood to the Montagues and sub- presidency of the SJAE was sudden. sequently the Montague influence be- The previous president had resigned gan to diminish. Yet no single political for personal reasons, and Armour was faction emerged that could exercise the serving as secretary for the group same sweeping power as the old order, when she volunteered to negotiate with and the superintendent's office con- the board prior to the strike. The tinued to wield a powerful influence. membership was sufficiently im- During the last decade some school pressed with her leadership that they board members ran on mild reform elected her president immediately. platforms, but the board remained Although the local and national press more of an appendage to the school referred to the strike as a "teachers'" superintendent than a governing body. strike, in fact less than half of the em- Armour bristles at the suggestion that ployees who struck were actually the appointive superintendent's office teaching. More than 400 "support was subordinate to the school board. workers" —janitors, cafeteria work- "For years it has been sort of a dic- ers, secretaries, and bus drivers — tatorship, a political thing," says Ar- joined the SJAE overnight and went mour. "As far back as I can remember out on strike with the teachers. The the superintendents that I work under support workers were represented on just stayed in office until they died:' the "crisis committee," the principal Board member Martin Bonura argues executive body of the SJAE, and voted that the present superintendent simply on all issues during daily meetings of ignores board decisions. "He has the the whole organization. While only control over the board," says Bonura. one-third of the initial SJAE members In recent years the board has been were black, a majority of the support meaningful negotiations created a split into two factions, referred to by workers were black, giving the strike tremendous amount of bad publicity. insiders as the "big five" and the "lit- strong roots in the black community. Because of the dispute within the tle five." The big five generally served Reflecting on the role of the support board and between factions of the the interests of the present superinten- workers, Armour points out, "The board and the superintendent, board dent, Albert Becnel, who has held the support workers did help the strike in meetings were chaotic and frequently position for 21 years. It was the defec- that, had the bus drivers not gone on deadlocked. On several occasions the tion of one of the "big five" members strike, they would have brought those teachers and parent groups attended to the "little five" side that set the children to school. Had the secretar- board meetings, only to have the board stage for an almost farcical power ies, the cooks, and the janitors not go into executive session in order to struggle within the board during the gone on strike, I imagine they would meet privately. A local ministers' ensuing strike. have had some semblance of learning group, state legislators, and even going on." Governor Edwin Edwards offered to THE STRIKE Community support for the strike negotiate the dispute, only to be astonished everyone in this conserva- rebuffed by the board. The St. John teachers' strike began tive right-to-work state. The decidedly While this kind of behavior has be- during the sweltering heat of late Au- anti-union New Orleans Times- come a hallmark of Louisiana's gust 1984, and continued for eight Picayune ran a front page poll that chicken-coop politics, the new resi- tumultuous weeks. At the center of the indicated the majority of St. John residents were aghast at the open in- battle was the St. John Association of dents favored collective bargaining for competence and corruption of their Educators (SJAE), an affiliate of the the teachers. Support came from a governing bodies. Board member Louisiana Education Association. myriad of parents' groups and labor Bonura claims that the new white ar- The initial dispute with the board unions in the parish, as well as rivals formed the mainstay of teacher was over a promised wage hike, but teachers' organizations around the support, along with the black popula- soon the right of the SJAE to collective state. tion. It became clear that patronage bargaining became paramount. Dur- The depth of the support was owed was harming the quality of education. ing the summer of 1984 the teachers to several factors. First, the unwilling- Armour observed that the board had had joined in a campaign for a tax in- ness of the school board to enter into "created a monster that this commu- 34 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER bility of winning collective bargaining 1." might increase. Apparently the current members consider their positions stable. Since the end of the strike they have embarked on a series of school closings and staff layoffs, which have met with sharp community opposition.

AFTERMATH

Whether or not the St. John teachers' strike was a success depends on the criteria used to evaluate it. There were small accomplishments often overlooked by the media's focus on personalities and issues rather than the organizing process. For instance, the strategy of involving all education workers — not just the teachers — in the action played an enormously important role. Aside from doubling the strikers' numbers, the strategy brought in several hundred black workers and their families, providing a solid base of support in the black community. By the end of the strike nearly one out of 20 workers in the parish was directly involved. This approach had repercus- sions even on a statewide level. For the first time in history the support workers were given full voting rights at the state convention of the Louisiana As- nity has long been disgusted with, but tive we agreed," says Armour, "but sociation of Educators; and a St. John nobody did anything about it." Adding that was not the consensus of all the support worker was promptly elected to the board's image difficulties, it teachers, including myself. At no point vice-president of the state organi- hired two notorious anti-union consul- did I try to influence the teachers, until zation. tants who counseled board members to the night before. I felt that many of Given the strictly segregrated nature refuse to allow collective bargaining. them had gotten despondent, they of parish life in previous years, the im- The SJAE, on the other hand, came to were beginning to feel it financially, portance of racial unity among educa- be recognized as more concerned than even though they had gotten loans. tion workers cannot be overesti- the board with education and the wel- Many of these people were the sole mated. For years two education as- fare of the students. Their demands support of their homes and they were sociations existed side by side in the appeared to be a vehicle for changing beginning to feel it." school system, for the most part racial- an education system anchored in a Unfortunately for the SJAE, the ly segregated. The strike overcame hopelessly antiquated mode of state supreme court later ruled that the those differences and undermined government. referendum was illegal, and the issue prejudices to the point that a On October 17 the school board is- of collective bargaining and unioniza- predominantly white teachers' group sued an ultimatum: return to work by tion went back to the board. But dur- elected a black woman (Armour) as its Friday or face termination. "Of course ing the strike the SJAE devised a leader. This new-found unity is al- this frightened a number of them strategy to respond to this contingency. ready being tested by the board [strikers] and they began to trickle in," They initiated a campaign to recall through a series of personnel transfers says Armour. "What we were afraid of selected board members, including which resulted in white teachers and was that as they trickled in this would former SJAE president Martin administrators being replaced by break the strike." Bonura. blacks, exacerbating racial tensions. The board agreed to hold a referen- A sufficient number of signatures In addition, Armour claims that a dum on collective bargaining for was gathered to secure recall elections new generation of leaders emerged teachers in January, and although the for six board members; however, a through the daily mass meetings of legality of such a referendum was court ruling threw out three of the peti- the SJAE where all decisions were de- questionable under Louisiana law, the tions. Armour believes that if new bated and voted upon. This experience strikers took the offer. 'As an alterna- board members are elected the possi- with direct democracy was the first for SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 35 WILHELMINA ARMOUR, SECOND FROM RIGHT.

many who had endured decades of School students staged a walkout, pro- sparked in part by the St. John ex- powerlessness. testing the transfer of school adminis- perience. There is evidence that the strike trators. Similarly, the recent St. Finally, Armour insists that the generated a more confrontational atti- Bernard Parish and Mississippi strike was not focused exclusively on tude in other segments of the commu- teachers' actions appear to be part of a collective bargaining. Initially the nity. Recently a group of St. John High wave of Southern organizing efforts teachers asked only for their raise and

36 SEFTEMBER/Ot IOBER Association representatives ap- Rights Movement was not as bloody proached Oswald Montague, the in St. John as in other areas, Armour "Don't you dare school superindendent and planta- remembers some troubling events, give up." tion aristocrat, and argued for a such as the night that sheriff's black high school to serve not only deputies broke up an NAACP fund- Wilhelmina Armour's experience St. John, but neighboring St. Charles raising dance. "There were other in- in the St. John education system is and St. James parishes which also cidents that I think sometimes I'd just one thread in the fabric of racism that lacked facilities. Montague required as soon forget." enveloped the parish. At the age of 14 that a census be taken to determine Armour recalls her father strug- Armour finished seventh grade only the number of black students pre- gling during an 18-month sugar to find that no high schools existed pared to attend such a school. Once refinery strike in 1955, a strike that for blacks in that community. Her the census was completed, Montague resulted in his being jailed. At 80 father, a militant sugar union worker, acquiesced. "So it was then that years of age he's as alert and attentive joined with other members of 'Dear Uncle Montague, lather,' as ever, and Armour points out that "beneficient" associations to petition 'The Great White Father' . . . opened he was a great source of encourage- for a black high school. Functioning the high school for us," recalls Ar- ment during the teachers' strike. She as survival networks, the beneficient mour with a note of resentment. says that he was impressed with her associations were created by blacks Since Montague was unwilling to as a black person playing a leader- as independent, collective organiza- fund a new school building, the black ship role for white folks. She smiles tions that provided medical care and children were forced to start school as she recounts his telling her, "I social ties for members. The associa- in an empty dance hall. never thought the day would come tions mirrored the Creole traditions In 1946 Armour became one of the when I would see leadership in my of St. John blacks by bearing names first blacks to register to vote, and own. . . . Don't you dare give up." such as "Bienfaisance Benevolent during the '50s she became an Society" and "Bon Secour." NAACP member. Although the Civil the reinstatement of some threatened vacuum occurred as the social class of process, and this demand was at the benefits. They were not interested in small merchants competed with or bat- heart of the strike. unionization. The teachers were seek- tled against the continuing power of If the gauge for a successful strike is ing representation in the decision- the education patronage machine. the ability to secure a favorable con- making process, says Armour, and While the manipulators of this tract, then the St. John effort was a their experience with the board con- machine assumed it retained its ability failure. But if success is gauged by the vinced them that they needed an agree- to coerce and control the public's be- achievement of the organization in up- ment in the form of a binding contract. havior as the Montagues had done, in setting the old political order, securing "I often equate this to the American fact it had lost a great deal of power changes in government policy, over- Revolution," says Armour, "like the and outgrown its function. It lacked coming racial divisions, and uniting colonists that had the position of no the economic coercive powers the diverse groups of workers in prepara- taxation without representation. The Montagues had wielded through con- tion for future conflicts, then the strike teachers were doing the same thing. . . trolling their plantation, refinery, and was a sterling victory. El we had no say, no input at all." government hirelings. Just as the in- Despite the failure to gain collective vading petrochemical industry had Lance Hill is an activist/journalist living in New Orleans. bargaining, all sides agree that the torn asunder the economy of the par- education workers are a new force in ish, the resultant development of new parish politics. Even Bonura, one of social groups and democratic expecta- the teachers' recall targets, admits the tions began to tear asunder the politi- strike served a progressive role. "In a cal life of the parish. sense the strike was a good thing," says At this juncture, a crisis was waiting Bonura. "It woke up people." to happen. The precarious power of Understanding the outcome of the the school board was challenged by the strike requires acknowledging that it growing number of residents impatient became substantially more than what with the politicization of education, appeared on the surface. The transfor- and by the education workers' increas- mation of the St. John strike from a ing desire for control over the work modest wage request to a major politi- process. In the ensuing factional dis- cal upheaval was the result of several pute between board members and the factors. Initially, the extensive altera- superintendent, the strikers managed tion of the economy eroded the power to surface as the most competent lead- base of the old autocratic ruling struc- ing body. A new economic structure ture, the plantation aristocracy. A demanded a new decision-making SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 37 TEACHERSThe ON STRIKE Final Card has been the allocation of funds from up in the general fund and never got to state appropriations to public educa- teachers' paychecks. tion. State officials argue that several Under Governor William Winter's attempts have been made to raise administration, the Education Reform revenues for teacher salaries over the Act of 1982 declared that the "commit- years, but teachers argue that they ment of the people of Mississippi to never get the money. this program has been underlined by BY TRELLA LAUGHLIN A case in point is the hot debate the investment of a very substantial ad- which raged in 1966 on whether to ditional amount of their taxes. It is our In a dramatic demon- legalize liquor in the state or to con- responsibility to ensure that we get stration of militancy, tinue the hypocrisy of being a dry our money's worth." This sweeping at- state. The legislature legalized liquor, tempt at reform involved implement- courage, and frustration, the state became the official bootleg- ing a statewide kindergarten program, Mississippi school ger, and the money from this "sin tax" a compulsory education law, revised was to go to teachers. The liquor high school graduation requirements, teachers went on strike profits went into a general fund. and new teacher certification require- early in 1985 for the first Reportedly, the teachers never saw a ments. It also suggested timidly that penny. "the teachers, to the extent possible, time in that state system's Similarly, when the sales tax was in- should receive salaries that are at least history. The February creased in 1968, income taxes were equal to the average of the salaries raised, and a state withholding system received by teachers in the southeast- walkout spread to involve was started for the first time. Teachers ern United States." more than 9,000 strikers were to get a $1,300 raise. Again, This meant that a new teacher enter- — over a third of all Mis- strikers argued, these monies ended ing the system with a bachelor's degree sissippi teachers — and 466,000 schoolchildren. Mississippi's history of entrenched segregation and alleged misuse of school fund tax appropriations — in the face of little allowed response by teachers — left many surprised by the depth and frustration of the strike. "Yep. The strike was our final card, after years of political abuse, lies, broken promises, threats, low wages, no health insurance, little or poor equipment, and fear," said one striker. "Jones County started it and then we all voted with our feet. I saw a new breed of teacher in Mississippi. People who said they would never do such a thing as strike went out on the picket line." A sore point in the ongoing struggle 38 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER would make $11,475 a year. If a teacher ture of public education is at stake. If serve.' They said, 'Accept things as pursued a doctorate and continued to something doesn't happen now, there they have always been.' We have an- teach for 17 years, she or he would be will not be enough teachers to open swered them with strength, unity and eligible for a top salary of $19,825. school in August. If you were offered determination to change the system This salary could be supplemented by $11,000 here and $20,000 coming from forever." the local school district; this supple- a surrounding state, which would you Was the system changed fundamen- ment ranges from $4,803 in Claiborne take? Dedication does not put meat tally? No, even though legislators were County to nothing in Tunica County. and potatoes on your table." forced by the strike and public pres- The average county supplement is Peggy Dutton: "Yes, and I want my sure to vote a $77.6 million teacher pay about $600. profession to be valued. Whether it's a and tax plan which amounted to an in- During the next gubernatorial ad- dollar and cents value, an impact on crease of $4,400 in teachers' salaries ministration, Governor Bill Allain the system, or the fact that I am over a three-year period. found a loophole in the reform act's producing the most important product The impasse continued as Governor suggestion that the raise be "to the ex- Mississippi has. I want a dollar and Allain vetoed the pay increase bill. At tent possible." Allain, who was put cents value put on my profession. Say, first the MAE called for upholding the into office with the support of look, you are worth something to me." governor's veto because the bill con- teachers, nevertheless claimed that Judy Barrett: "We all need more tained a harsh, outrageous, and Mississippi was too poor to raise money to get by. But more important, I presumably illegal anti-strike provi- teachers' salaries. Allain contended see this as a move among Mississippi sion that would apply not only to that continued tax increases would teachers for self-respect. For power." teachers but any civil servant. But result in an erosion of public support Peggy Dutton: "We have been a when MAE organizers finally pushed for education and further economic powerless bunch all along. We have the strike forward, Hinds County decline in the state. As a result, salary been described as docile. This is the (Jackson) chancellor Paul G. Alex- increases were again denied, instigat- first time teachers have moved to gain ander found the MAE and its officers ing a stand-off between the governor that kind of power and I think that it is in contempt and threatened them with and the legislature on the one hand, a tremendous advantage to the children fines and jail sentences for encourag- and a majority of the teachers, some we teach. I don't think it's good that ing teacher walkouts. parent-supporters, and the Mississippi kids are being taught by people who On March 19, the MAE decided to Association of Educators (MAE) on feel powerless. The kids see us that call off the strike and back the legisla- the other. The teachers and their sup- way. I think the kids will gain when we ture's attempt to override the gover- porters were especially angry that in go back into the classrooms as a group nor's veto, contending that any pay the first legislative session of 1985 the of people who stood up for what was increase was a victory. The anti-strike lawmakers had voted themselves a right and made people do what they language of the law could and would $6,000 pay increase. should have done a long time ago. We be tested in court, they said. Since the beginning of integration, won the day we walked out of the What, then, did change during this wealthy whites have established pri- classroom." struggle? The teachers themselves. vate schools or "academies" with stu- On March 12, in the middle of the Never again will they be passive or dent bodies increasing to 20 percent of strike, Alice Harden, a young black support a governor like Allain who the school-age population. Legislators woman — a product of Jackson turns his back on them. They have ex- are the ruling class, as it were, of the schools, a teacher, and president of the perienced a unity, and an understand- entire state. A majority of their kids MAE — addressed her colleagues: ing of how racism has hurt everybody, are sent to private academies — bla- "Ours is a struggle we cannot and and they built a new degree of self- tantly racist, all-white, right-wing fun- must not lose, and in this struggle we respect. damentalist schools; 60 percent of have one advantage, one strength so What changed was the mindset of private academies in the state are not great and powerful that it means we the public and definitely of its even accredited. Yet these Mississippi cannot lose our struggle. We have one teachers. No longer will they allow the "public servants" refuse to fund edu- another." ruling class legislators to go un- cation for black and poor children. In her "Letter to Mississippi challenged. As Alice Harden remind- Judy Barrett, veteran teacher, presi- Teachers," Harden wrote, "The 20th ed MAE members: "United and dent of the Bay St. Louis Teachers As- Century finally caught up with the strong we will return home to fight the sociation, and first-time striker, calls state of Mississippi and we, the Mis- current battle and begin to win the the legislative action the "Mint Julep sissippi Association of Educators, long-term struggle in which we are Law." In an interview at the Bay St. brought it here. . . . The times of pas- engaged." 111 Louis Pizza Hut (one of many local sive acquiescence are over. Those businesses that supported the teachers' times are gone forever — and we will Trella Laughlin is a native of Jackson , Mis- strike), Barrett and Peggy Dutton not allow them to come back. We sissippi, and graduated from Central High School its last year as an all-white school. (communications person for the stood up to the Governor and the She has been a college professor and is a teachers' group) talked about the Legislature, and we said, 'We will journalist and activist. strike: have justice. We will not participate in Judy Barrett: "It's more than just a the demeaning of our profession or of raise in my paycheck. The whole fu- the children and communities we SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 39 A

Her greatest pleasure, bless her heart, is watching me eat. Just last week she dropped by the house with some homemade pickles. I opened a jar, sat down in the kitchen, and proceeded to make her happy. My mother-in-law makes great pickles. "Yum, yum," I said. She looked at me adoringly and began puttering about the kitchen, closing cabinet doors I had left open. For some reason open cabinet doors make both her and my wife nervous. It's not the only thing they have in common. I love my mother-in-law. It's un- American I know but I just can't help it. She is such a charming Southern lady and so is my wife, Dixie. They are very much alike. Two black-eyed peas in a pod who have managed to convert me, a yankee, to the Southern way of life. If only they wouldn't talk. The English have a saying, a bit of homespun advice given traditionally to young men contemplating marriage: "Take a bloody good look at her mother, lad." Good advice, but I would add: "And take a bloody good listen to her, too." My mother-in-law is a slow talker. A Southern slow talker and that is the a breath, "I — was — just — wonder- my toes curling inside my shoes. worst kind. If the 1988 Olympics have ing — about — these — flowers." ". . . if — they — were — closer — a slow talking competition, you will "Whaddabout 'em?" I asked. to — the — window.. ." see her on TV. She will be the lady "Well," she cocked her head and I leaped to my feet and began mov- with the gold medal around her neck made a sucking sound through her ing the plants to the big window sill. singing the national anthem. They will teeth, "they — just — don't — look — "That — way — they — would. . ." have to slow the music way, way down like — they — are — doing — very — "Getmorelight," I said, making my for her. Otherwise, by the time the well." third trip. 4 4 music ends she will be somewhere I bit my tongue, trying desperately • • • take — advantage — of. . ." around "the dawn's early light" not to interrupt. "Morelight," I said, putting down pronouncing every syllable clearly, "So — I — was — thinking," she the last plant. distinctly, and s-l-o-w-l-y. continued, "that — maybe — they — ". . . the — morning — sunshine." "Good pickles, Mom," I said. would — do — better. . ." My pulse was pounding, my fore- "Thank you, honey," she drawled. "Ifwegavethemsomewater," I blurt- head beaded with perspiration. These She was examining some of the plants ed out rudely. confrontations take a lot out of me. As and flowers Dixie had everywhere in "No," she said. "They — seem — to the years go by she is either talking the kitchen. It's another thing they — be — moist — enough. (Pause) more slowly or I am becoming less pa- have in common — plants. They buy What — I — was — thinking — about tient. Maybe both. them, trade them, transplant them, — was — that — maybe — they — Unlike her mother, my wife is not a talk about them, and, as they say in the would — do — a — little — better. . ." slow talker, but she does have that South, "Smell of them." It was agony. I could feel the mus- negative Southern way of asking ques- "You know," she began, pausing for cles tensing up across my shoulders, tions. "Are you not tired?" she will

40 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER A V

Our guests were deliberately not paying attention to us. I suppose they thought they were witnessing a major marital crisis. If it had ended there, everything would have been all right. Dixie and! had survived numerous tumbles down "Communications Gap" in the past. 'AGE We always landed on our feet laughing about it. Not this time. I sat back down and began a conversation with the guest on my left when! noticed Dixie was still standing behind me. "Do you not want coffee, or what?" she asked. Something snapped inside me. "No, I do not want coffee," I bellowed. "Or maybe I should say, 'Yes, it is coffee I do not want.' No coffee for me. Yes, on the no coffee question." I was on my feet again pointing to the coffee cup she held in a trembling hand. "I have a negative desire for that." The evening went downhill after that. People began yawning and looking at their watches. "Would you look at the time." "Where has the evening gone?" "I'll bet the babysitter is won- dering about us." After our guests left, Dixie and I ask. I never know what to say. A sim- "I'm sure you did," she stated. cleaned up in a strained silence. I ple "yes" or "no" seems to leave the "She's right," one of our female hummed a few bars of "Yes, We Have question still in doubt. To prevent con- guests said. "I heard you." No Bananas" but she paid no attention fusion I usually answer with a declara- "You heard wrong, my dear," I said, to me. tive sentence. "I feel rested and well," forcing a smile. "Dixie asked, 'Do you We went to bed and lay quietly, back I respond a bit self-consciously. not want coffee; to which! answered to back, for several minutes before I We had some friends over for dinner 'yes.' " ventured a hand over to her side a while back. They used to be friends. "So why did you change your beneath the sheets. She responded Now, I'm not so sure. While Dixie was mind?" she asked. with a squeeze. Good woman. "Would clearing the dessert dishes she asked, "I did not change my mind," I said a you not like to fool around?" I asked. "Who would like coffee?" little too loudly. The conversation She laughed, turned on her side and Several of our guests said they across the table stopped suddenly. I nuzzled my neck. "Are you not too would. But not me. I had had my quota forced another grin. "If Dixie would tired?" she asked. for the day. As Dixie picked up my have asked, 'Do you want coffee?' I dish she asked, "Do you not want would have said 'No.' However, what Chap Reaver, Jr , is a 50-year-old not chiropractor who lives in Marietta, Georgia. coffee?" Dixie did in fact ask was, 'Do you When he sent us this story he wrote that he "Yes," I answered. want coffee' to which I answered and Dixie have been married for 25 years A few moments later Dixie put 'Yes.'" To my surprise I found myself and are perfectly compatible except for the down a cup of coffee at my place. "I on my feet, gesticulating wildly. language barrier. He said, "I don't think I don't care for any, Dixie," I said. "Calm down," Dixie whispered. can last much longer unless we get this "You said you did." "I am calm," I sputtered. "Just try- worked out. Please buy and publish this "No! didn't," I insisted. ing to make a point." story. You will be saving a good marriage."

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 41 Honoring the ancestors

Kongo-American Graves in the American South

By Elizabeth A. Fenn

In recent years Southern religion has increasingly been stereotyped through proliferating images of conservative, white, Bible-thumping ministers of the Jerry Falwell variety. Yet such images, to which the media seem particularly attached, obscure the great diversity of religious traditions that have contributed to Southern culture. Not all of these traditions are Judeo-Christian in origin. Native Americans adhered to their own distinctive and widely differing religious beliefs long before the first Europeans set foot in the South. And the black slaves forced to accompany these Europeans contributed the classical religions of West Africa to the Southern cultural blend. Through struggle and creativity Afro- Americans have kept important aspects of these religions alive for cen- turies.' Today, one of the most visible manifestations of West African religious thought in the New World can be found in the black cemeteries of the WHEEL AND WRENCHES ON A GRAVE IN CUMBERLAND COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA South, where many meaningful and seemingly unusual objects adorn individual graves. Ranging from bed frames and bathroom tiles to car parts and Christmas tinsel, these decorations reveal artistic and philosophical roots in the ancient Kongo civilization of central Africa. That Kongo tradi- 42 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER tions remain particularly visible is not In the Afro-American cemeteries of a good fewnul an put duh tings what surprising. Of the 500,000 West Afri- the South, often associated with Chris- belong tuh em on top uh duh grave." cans shipped to North America in the tian churches, Kongo decorative tradi- According to Ben Washington from course of the slave trade, more came tions remain strong. And although Pine Barrens, Georgia, people placed from Kongo and Angolan ports than these traditions have in some cases last-used objects and personal effects from any other single area of the West taken on new meanings in the Chris- on graves because "duh spirits need African coast. Captives from these tian context, revealing the enormous deze same as duh man. Den duh spirit ports were especially prominent creativity that has long been a res an dohn wanduh bout." Folklorist among the slaves entering the United hallmark of Afro-American culture, Elsie Parsons noted similar traditions States during the trade's final peak the accounts of early folklorists con- in the South Carolina Sea Islands early period around 1800.2 firm their West African origins. in the twentieth century. "To keep the The Bakongo people constitute the Among the objects most frequently deceased 'from frettin' — goin' demographic heart of Kongo civiliza- placed on Kongo graves are the per- back,'" she explained, "the cup and tion. Like many West African peoples, sonal effects of the deceased — things saucer used in the last sickness should the Bakongo and related cultural that might continue to be of use in the be placed on the grave." 6 groups believe in the continuing in- Graves with just such decorations

fluence of the dead in this world. But dma can be found throughout the black

unlike West Africans such as the Yoru- nod South today. At an A.M.E. Zion ba of Nigeria, the Bakongo do not am church in Bladen County, North Caro- Xs worship a great pantheon of gods. In- i lina, an inverted coffee cup marks the stead they recognize one almighty god site of one woman's grave. Next to it is who has given them medicinal powers ropp a grave decorated with a candy jar and

through the ancestral spirits who con- smaN an inverted plastic bowl. A black Bap- 0'144Gabon stitute the primary spiritual actors in Congo W Zaire 4 tist church in the same county contains the Kongo cosmos. graves marked by jugs, pitchers, cer- The Bakongo believe that we live in Angola amic figurines, and an upside-down a divided world. The world with bowl. Far to the west in Cass County, which most of us are familiar is of Texas, empty snuff bottles denote the course that of the living. But beneath 6 outlines of another black grave, us, according to Kongo tradition, there *1 recreating the luumbu, or protective lies another world — that of the dead. KONGO-INLFUENCED CULTURES CAN BE enclosure, that commonly surrounds The land of the dead is a world upside FOUND IN GABON, CONGO-BRAZZA- Kongo graves and royal compounds! down, a world that is in some ways a VILLE (CONGO), ZAIRE, AND ANGOLA. The fact that the items on Afro- mirror image of this world. (Hence for American graves are often inverted is the Bakongo death is the inversion of spirit world. A late nineteenth-century also consistent with Kongo tradition. life.) The two worlds are connected by observer noted that the Bakongo The Bakongo often invert grave goods water, and the Bakongo believe that "mark the fmal resting-places of their in symbolic recognition of a spirit gleaming ancestral spirits can be seen friends by ornamenting their graves world which is itself "upside-down" in the flash of the sun's rays off of with crockery, empty bottles, old — the mirror image of the world of the oceans, lakes, and streams.' cooking-pots, etc." By placing such living! The Bakongo communicate with the objects on a grave, the Bakongo in- Grave decorations are frequently dead through charms called minkisi. sured that the spirit would not return to broken as well. In 1891 E. J. Glave ob- In fact, Kongo minkisi are an impor- this world in search of favorite or served that the glass and ceramicware tant source for Afro-American tradi- much needed items. in Kongo cemeteries was "all cracked tions of conjure and charm-making. Many Afro-American graves are or perforated with holes." Some three Among the Bakongo, graves are the ul- decorated in a similar fashion. decades later another European noted timate charm, providing a particularly Although her testimony was unfor- the same phenomenon. The objects on effective medium for communicating tunately recorded in racist dialect, a Kongo graves, according to John H. with the dead. Hence the Bakongo Georgia woman interviewed in the Weeks, "are generally broken, i.e. often cover graves with an array of ob- 1930s makes this quite clear. "I dohn killed, that their spirits may go to their jects intended to admonish, appease, guess yuh be bodduh much by duh former owner in the spirit town." and instruct ancestral spirits.4 spirits," she explained, "ef yuh gib em Other West African cultures adhere to SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 43 related beliefs? In her recent autobiography singer Republic of Benin. Although the Yoru- Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Is- SANTERIA: Afro-Cuban ba and Dahomean religions are closely lands recalled similar traditions in the Religion in Miami related, it was the Yoruba who had the Afro-American context. Before Sea Is- greatest influence on the structure of land blacks put objects on graves, she Santeria. explained, "they'd punch holes in the The 1980 Mariel exodus, in which Followers of the religion worship the bottom of the glasses and such." One some 125,000 Cuban "boat people" Yoruba gods, or orisha, many of explanation for this practice comes emigrated to the United States, has whom have fused with the Catholic from Rosa Sallins of Harris Neck, brought a new infusion of African saints. For example Ochun, the god- Georgia: "Yuh break duh dishes so dat religion into the South. Many Cubans, dess of sweet water and love, has for duh chain will be broke. Yuh see, duh both black and white, participate in a obvious reasons become affiliated one pusson is dead an ef yuh dohn religion known as Santeria. In places with St. Valentine. Chango, the fiery break duh tings, den, duh udduhs in like Miami, where Cubans have had god who mistakenly killed his family duh fambly will die too." An explana- an enormous cultural impact in recent while playing with a lightning bolt, tion closer to that of the Bakongo years, Santeria is growing at a very merges with St. Barbara, whose father comes from Texas folklorist Dorothy rapid pace. was struck by lightning after he Jean Michael. Grave goods, she In its basics, Santeria consists of a jealously imprisoned his own daugh- writes, "must be cracked: only in that blend of Catholicism with Yoruba and ter. The Yoruba god of smallpox and way can the spirit be released from its Dahomean religions from the coun- pestilence, called Babaluaiye by the porcelain prison to go to the next tries we know today as Nigeria and the Cubans, is associated with the crip- world and serve the dead owner."") Ceramics and glassware are not the only items of personal significance decorating the graves of Afro- Weeks beds were among the items Beds and bed frames mark the sites Americans. Two North Carolina commonly needed by spirits in the of graves throughout the black Atlantic cemeteries, one in Chatham County Kongo world of the dead. When a man world. A photograph from the Belgian and the other in Robeson County, con- or woman's spouse died the surviving Congo in 1944 shows a wooden bed tain burial sites decorated with images partner sometimes carried the bed of frame marking a burial site. In Texas of guitars. One guitar was painstaking- the deceased into a stream and broke it an immense tomb "shaped like a king- ly fashioned out of plywood. The apart, letting the pieces float away sized bed, complete with an imposing other, probably made by a florist, con- with the current. Thus the bed was headboard and two-poster footboard" sists of styrofoam and artificial flow- symbolically "killed" in order that its sits on top of a grave of unknown eth- ers. spirit might be free to travel, via water, nic origins. Metal bed frames have Elsewhere, a beautiful car wheel to its owner in the other world. In been observed in a black cemetery on with two wrenches welded to it other cases the bed remained intact as the island of St. Thomas and in two

decorates the grave of a Fort Bragg a grave marker.' 2 separate black graveyards in Hale mechanic. Made and placed on his grave by his fellow workers, this marker is but one example of a whole genre of decorations associated with cars and the mechanical arts. Automobile drive shafts seem to be particularly common on black grave sites. Although automobiles are clearly icons of the modern world, in a Kongo cemetery the concrete form of a car marks the grave of "a man who was a noted driver." On the Caribbean island of St. Thomas there are black graves decorated with car mufflers and batteries. And in Haiti, where the Bakon- go made important contributions to the religion usually known as "voodoo" but correctly called vodun, it is still common practice to bury people with the tools of their trade." The writings of the early twentieth- century explorer John H. Weeks give us clues to other Kongo-American funerary traditions. According to 44 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER connected to our own by the very sea pled St. Lazarus, whose body is co- At the heart of each shrine are the which casts shells upon our shores." vered with oozing sores. stones, always hidden from view, It is no accident therefore that shells The ongoing worship of these Afri- which embody the personal power and are among the objects most commonly can gods is most visible today in the life force of each of the orisha. Be- found upon graves in the coastal many botanicas (herbal pharmacies) cause of their great importance the South. Georgia Sea Island singer Bes- scattered throughout the Cuban sec- stones receive special care and feeding sie Jones explained in an interview, tions of Miami. In these Afro-Cuban through animal sacrifices. "The shells upon our graves stand for religious supply stores one might pur- In the rituals of Santeria, which are water, the means of glory and the land chase cigars to use as offerings to performed for a variety of purposes, of demise." One scholar surveyed Ellegua, the trickster god who guards the "children" of the various orisha some 687 Afro-American gravesites in the crossroads and controls communi- dance and sing to African drumming, the South Carolina Sea Islands and cation. Or one could buy strands of and in some cases become possessed found that 100 of them bore seashell blue and white beads for Yemaya, the by one of the gods. decorations. In Texas and the Caroli- goddess of the sea. Some botanicas As Cuban influence continues to nas shells can be found in inland areas also offer consultations for people spread throughout the South, we can as well. "Nearly every [black] grave," seeking advice regarding particular expect Santeria to become increasing- noted an 1892 observer in Columbia, problems or quests. ly visible in urban areas, as it already South Carolina, "has bordering or Shrines to the various gods can be is in Miami, New York, and New thrown upon it a few bleached found in botanicas, in private homes, Jersey. seashells of a dozen different kinds, and in the templos devoted to Santeria. — Elizabeth Fenn such as are found along the south At- lantic coast." 5 Pipes used for drainage and household plumbing, laden with watery as- County, Alabama. One of the Hale was unfamiliar with Plat-eye, the spirit sociations, also serve decorative County burying grounds once con- who, according to Afro-American purposes in the cemeteries of Afro- tained two bed frames, side by side, folklore, spells the doom of people America. A black graveyard in Vir- where a married couple rests for eter- who steal from graves." ginia contains a marker made of two nity. Only one of the bed frames sur- Other cemetery decorations recall bent metal pipes united at the top by a vives today. The other disappeared not different Kongo traditions. Scholar faucet. Black cemeteries in North and long after an antique dealer passed Robert Farris Thompson pointed out South Carolina, Texas, Missouri, and through the area and inquired about that shells from the sea are emblems of New York boast large ceramic drain purchasing one of the beds. Local resi- the cosmos and the spiraling cycle of pipes and narrower metal and plastic dents informed him that neither of the life and death in Kongo religious pipes as grave decorations.' 6 beds was for sale. Several nights later thought. Their white color recalls the Like shells and pipes, bathroom one of the two gravemarkers disap- chalky hue of the spirit world, a world tiles are commonly associated with peared. Apparently the antique dealer that according to Kongo thought is water. In many of our homes such tiles cover shower floors and the walls behind kitchen sinks. But outside our homes bathroom tiles find different uses. In three widely separated but heavily Kongo-influenced lands, West African aesthetic values have developed independently along strikingly similar lines. In Haiti many black cemeteries now contain tombs covered with gleaming bathroom tiles. Similar gravemarkers can be found in the Afro-American cemeteries of North Carolina and, remarkably, in the Kon- go cemeteries of West Africa."

Pane OPPOSITE PAGE: ENGRAVING OF A KON-

De GO GRAVE FROM E.J. GLAVE'S 1891 ARTI- son CLE, "FETISHISM IN CONGO LAND," IN

Ja THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. by THIS PAGE: BASKETBALL HOOP, KETTLE, to

ho AND METAL GRILL-WORK IN A NEW p ORLEANS BLACK CEMETERY. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 45 Water may be important in explain- world.' "20 water, he must first hold the mirror ing other Afro-American grave deco- Similar items are used in Afro- ceremony to fetch the victim from rations as well, and the significance of American charms. Blacks in the U. S. across the water." 22 water in Kongo thought may have been South interviewed by Newbell Niles In some instances the animated, reinforced by its use in Christian bap- Puckett in the 1920s included objects flashy aesthetic so apparent in black tism. The notable predominance of such as silver coins, a "glistening graveyards is rendered in more sym- pitchers in black cemeteries (usually mineral like polished lead," or "tinfoil bolic forms. One scholar in the 1920s with their bottoms broken out) may (representing the brightness of the lit- found more than 20 lamps in a small have to do with their symbolic associa- tle spirit who was going to be in the Alabama burying ground. Another tions with water. When the Georgia ball)" in their charms. Likewise, counted lamps on 71 graves on the Writers Project interviewed Margaret many blacks and whites throughout South Carolina coast, "while six other Snead of Pin Point in the 1930s, the the South understood that a shining graves had articles for lighting, [such] black woman recalled that among the piece of glass or a mirror could cap- as lamp-wick, burner, chimney, many items set upon her friend ture the spirit of the newly deceased. broken shade, candlestand, and [the] Catherine De Lancy's grave was "duh Hence many folklorists have noted that bottom of [a] glass candle-holder, pitchuh she made ice water in ." 18 as soon as someone died, all mirrors, while five graves had lamp shades. The great black folklorist Zora clocks, and pictures in the room with Three graves had electric light bulbs Neale Hurston sheds further light on the deceased were either covered or and two had dry cell batteries." Lamp- the importance of water to the spirit turned to the wall. If this precaution shades, brass lamps, and candlestick world in an account of her initiation as was not taken, Puckett explained, the holders can still be found in the Afro- a conjure doctor in New Orleans. For "reflection of the corpse might perma- American graveyards of North Caroli- three days she lay "silent and fasting nently hold in either the pictures or the na and Georgia, and they no doubt ex- while my spirit went wherever spirits mirrors."21 ist in other locations as well. The light must go that seek answers never given Langston Hughes and Arna Bon- from such objects, according to North to men as men." During that time, temps elaborate on the mystical pow- Carolina folklorists, "will lead the de- Hurston says, "I could have no food, ers of glass and mirrors in their ceased to glory." 23 but a pitcher of water was placed on a collection of black folklore. To see a To argue that the rich funerary arts small table at the head of the couch, spirit, they say, take a mirror into a of Afro-America have roots in classi- that my spirit might not waste time in graveyard and follow the prescribed cal Kongo religion and aesthetics is search of water which would be spent ritual procedure. "You will see his not to say that present-day practition- in search of the Power-Giver. The reflection in the mirror and ask him ers still see the world in Kongo terms. spirit must have water, and if none had what you please." Zora Neale Hurston Traditions such as these can take on been provided it would wander in recounts a similar ritual that is filled new (often Christian) meanings, or search of it." This account comes im- with Kongo imagery. "Ghosts cannot they may survive as aesthetic values mediately to mind when one sees a cross water," she says, "so that if a alone. But as the accounts of turn-of- black grave in eastern Georgia with a hoodoo doctor wishes to sic a dead the-century folklorists make clear, sealed plastic jug of water placed spirit upon a man who lives across Kongo concepts and their material squarely in the middle of the mound.' 9 One of the most striking characteristics of Afro-American graves is that they sparkle in the sun. Cracked and broken glassware, Christmas tinsel, silver paint, bathroom tiles, mirrors, marbles, "mailbox" letters, and reflective red driveway markers all contribute to the glittery appearance of certain black cemeteries. Like other funerary traditions, this too can be traced to Kongo traditions and aesthetics. Just as the Bakongo see the spirits of ancestors in the brilliant reflection of the sun in water, they see the same spirits in other shining objects. In fact, such objects once formed an essential part of Kongo charms. "Bakongo ritual experts," writes Robert F. Thomp- son, "used to embed the glittering, iridescent wing-case of a particular kind of beetle into their charms as 'something full of light, like water, that you can see through, to the other 46 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER manifestations continue to influence African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy the American artistic landscape. In the (New York, 1983), chap. 2. Honoring the Ancestors, a video- 4. Thompson, Four Moments, pp. 34-39, 141-147, realm of graveyards, there may be no 181-186; and Thompson, Flash, pp. 132-145. tape based in part on Elizabeth better evidence for this than the sur- 5. E. J. Glave, "Fetishism in Congo Land," The Fenn's research, will soon be avail- prisingly African appearance of a few Century Magazine 41 (1891), 835. able from North State Public Video. white cemeteries scattered across the 6. Dialect appears in this article only for the sake of The tape is the third in a series enti- accuracy when I am quoting from published South. While there are numerous Eu- sources. In all other cases it has been (and should tled, Perspectives on Blacks in Art ropean and Native American tradi- be) avoided due to its clearly racist application. and Culture, which will be released tions that could explain the presence of Folklorists have tended to use dialect to indicate in January 1986. For more informa- race and class rather than to record actual speech a great variety of decorations on these patterns. There is, after all, no difference in the tion, call or write: graves, the likelihood of Kongo in- pronunciation of "was" and "wuz" or "when" and North State Public Video fluence across racial boundaries can- "wen." Yet "wuz" and "wen" are used repeatedly P.O. Box 3398 not be ignored. Just as most black in written renditions of black speech. Georgia Durham, NC 27702 Writers Project (GWP), Drums and Shadows: Sur- cemeteries contain European-style en- vival Studies Among Georgia Coastal Negroes (919) 682-715 3 graved headstones, some white (Athens, Ga., 1940), p. 136; Elsie Clews Parsons, Folk-lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina (Cam- cemeteries contain Kongo-style shells, deserves credit for both the photograph and the in- ceramicware, and household objects. bridge, Mass., 1923), p. 214. 7. Terry G. Jordan, Texas Graveyards: A Cultural formation about the Hale County cemetery from Indeed, this is but one indication of Legacy (Austin, 1982), p. 22. which a bed was stolen. Documentation for the how Afro-American we have all 8. Thompson, Flash, 142. other Hale County grave can be found in William Christenberry, become.D 9. Glave, "Fetishism," 835; John H. Weeks, Southern Photographs (New York, Among the Primitive Balcongo (London, 1914), p. 1983), p. 37. On the Texas grave see Jordan, Texas 272; Thompson, Four Moments, Graveyards, 10. Elizabeth Fenn is a graduate student in his- 184-185. 10.Bessie Jones, For the Ancestors: Autobi- 14. Thompson, Flash, 135; and Thompson, Four tory. She lives in Hillsborough, North ographical Memories, ed. John Stewart (Urbana, Moments, 197-198. Carolina. 1983), p. 76; GWP, Drums, 87; Dorothy Jean 15.I am grateful to David Wilcox of Harvard for Michael, "Grave Decoration," Publications of the sharing his research on black graves with shell Texas Folklore Society 18 (1943), 131. decorations in Denison, Texas. Thompson, Flash, NOTES 11.I would like to thank Tom Harley for giving me 135; Samuel Miller Lawton, "The Religious Life 1. Except where otherwise noted, the observations directions to the Fort Bragg mechanic's grave. of South Carolina and Sea Island Negroes," (un- in this article are based on the author's fieldwork. Thompson, Four Moments, 202; Alfred Metraux, published PhD. dissertation, George Peabody Col- 2. Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Voodoo in Haiti (1959; rpt. New York, 1972), p. lege for Teachers, June 1939), pp. 197-218; Jordan, Census (Madison, 1969), pp. 129, 144, 150, 157. 247. David Brown of Yale University has kindly Texas Graveyards, 23; Ernest Ingersoll, "Decora- 3. Discussions of Kongo religious thought can be shared with me his observations on black grave- tion of Negro Graves," Journal of American Folk- found in the following sources: John M. Janzen yards in St. Thomas. lore 5 (1892), 68. and Wyatt MacGaffey, eds., An Anthology of Kon- 12. Weeks, Balcongo, 273. 16.Thompson, Four Moments, 193-195. David go Religion (Lawrence, Kansas, 1974); Wyatt Mac- 13.Many friends and colleagues have generously Wilcox of Harvard has kindly provided me with a Gaffey, "The West in Congolese Experience," in provided me with information from their own copy of his photograph of a black grave in Denison, Philip D. Curtin, ed., Africa and the West (Madi- research on beds in black cemeteries. The informa- Texas, marked by a drain pipe. son, 1972), pp. 49-74; Robert Farris Thompson and tion leading me to the Kongo photograph came 17.Thompson, Flash, 84. Joseph Cornet, The Four Moments of the Sun: Kon- from Robert Farris Thompson of Yale University. 18. GWP, Drums, 87. go Art in Two Worlds (Washington, D. C., 1981); David Brown of Yale told me about the St. Thomas 19. Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (Philadel- and Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: grave. Sydney Nathans of Duke University phia, 1935), p. 281. 20. I am grateful to David Sullivan of Yale Univer- sity for showing me his photograph of driveway reflectors marking a grave on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Thompson, Four Moments, 198. 21. Newbell Niles Puckett, The Magic and Folk Be- lieft of the Southern Negro (1926; rpt. New York, 1969), pp. 81, 228, 233. 22. Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, eds., The Book of Negro Folklore (New York, 1958), p. 163; Hurston, Mules, 282. 23. Puckett, Folk Beliefs, 106; Lawton, "Religious Life," 203; Paul G. Brewster, ed., The Frank C Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore (Durham, 1964), 1:260.

OPPOSITE PAGE: BED FRAMES IN A HALE COUNTY, ALABAMA CEMETERY. THIS PAGE: BED FRAME ON A KONGO GRAVE. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 47 A little-known strike by Texas Sick poultry workers in the 1950s resulted in major benefits for American consumers. by George Norris Green and Jim McClellan

lara Holder, an east Texas poultry worker, wrote a letter C on June 26, 1953, to Patrick Gorman, the secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of America. "I was told to contact your office to secure help in organizing a much needed plant," she wrote. "The majority of the workers are eager to organize, if only they had some advice from a bonafide labor union. Would you kindly inform me if your organization can help us." Clara Holder's brief letter sparked a A CHICKEN PROCESSING PLANT IN THE MID 1970S tortuous organizing campaign in Center, Texas, that stirred racial and other towns. During the wartime boom County, deep in the piney woods, had class tensions, triggered a national of the 1940s, when poultry was not been noted primarily for its lumber- boycott, and persuaded the union to subject to meat rationing, the industry ing. During the 1940s business leaders launch a successful drive to reform the entered a new phase with the in the county seat of Center organized entire U.S. poultry industry. widespread commercial production of the Center Development Foundation to Poultry was introduced into Texas by broilers and young fryers. The first attract industry. They offered the usual both the Spanish and Anglo-American noteworthy production was around inducements of land, buildings, and/or colonists. But it was a nondescript in- Gonzales in south Texas. In the Lone low taxes, accompanied by a typical dustry producing primarily for home Star State by the mid-1950s, the indus- pool of unskilled, native, black, and consumption and local markets until try had spread to Shelby and nearby white laborers who were abandoning the mid-1920s, when outlets for com- east Texas counties. their marginal cotton farms. The mercial marketing opened up with the Aside from the bloody battles be- county and the school district also establishment of poultry packing tween the so-called Regulators and granted tax concessions to several plants in Fort Worth, Taylor, and a few Moderators in the 1840s, Shelby firms. By 1954 Shelby ranked a close

48 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER Chickens Shelby County consistently support- vised Holder to "please keep it [the ed east Texas's long-time congress- proposed meeting] confidential as we man, Martin Dies (1932-44 and would not want the employers to know 1952-58), the labor-baiting chair of anything about it until after we had the the House Un-American Activities people organized." Committee. In 1941 Dies observed that The first meeting was held after the CIO was infested with 50,000 working hours in the K.B. Cafe in Communists who were fanatical devo- Center on July 8, 1953. In the weeks tees of Hitler and Stalin, and that 90 that followed, the organizers easily ob- percent of all strikes could be stopped tained the number of names needed to if the CIO were forced to expel these call a union election. The National alien traitors. Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sched- Workers in Center's poultry uled the union representation election processing plants were paid the mini- for September 15 at the Denison mum wage of 75 cents an hour in 1953. Poultry and Egg Company. Another Many apparently labored under highly election was set for the employees of unsanitary conditions, 10 or 11 hours a Eastex Company, a second poultry day on their feet, with no overtime pay concern in Center, for November 5. — in between times of no work at all. The local business community, a The work was unimaginably grueling. tightly knit group that ran the town, One of the town's jewelers, Bernard was stunned at the announcement of a Hooks, was appalled by the condition union election in the city's two major of the laborers' hands. They were so plants. They launched a drive to dis- bruised and swollen, with fingernails courage pro-union votes by the poultry often turned inside out, that Hooks workers, relying on social pressure frequently had difficulty fitting them and argumentation. A petition oppos- with rings. Several workers attested ing the union was circulated among the that they had to become accustomed to city's business leaders which most painful fingers, swollen hands, and owners signed. At least a half dozen lost fingernails; no one was allowed to businessmen — notably the jeweler switch to a different plant job in order Bernard Hooks, grocery store owner second to Gonzales County in chick- to rest his or her hands. The plants had Laurie Hegler, and Weldon Sanders, a ens sold in Texas with 8,227,247. no grievance procedures, seniority Texaco service station operator — re- Like most small Southern towns, plans, or paid holidays. fused to countenance the anti-union those in east Texas had long regarded The first few weeks of the organiz- drive. For his dissent, Sanders was ac- unions as radical threats to God, ing effort were conducted under the cused by his peers of "working for the home, and country. Lumber baron cloak of secrecy. After receiving Clara Union and all the things that go with John Henry Kirby probably summa- Holder's letter, Patrick Gorman for- it" and suffered a loss in his trade. rized the region's feelings in 1911 when warded the matter to the union's south- Five days before the Denison elec- he referred to conservative, AFL-type western district vice-president Sam tion, the 182-person Center Develop- unionism as "a greater menace to Twedell in Dallas. Twedell rapidly ment Foundation (CDF) purchased a Christian civilization than the anar- contacted Holder, asking her to ar- full-page ad in the local newspaper, chists, Black Hand, Molly Maguires, range an opportunity for him to dis- the Center Champion. Signed by the Mafia, Ku Klux Klan, and Night cuss unionization with about 10 of her six directors of the CDF, the open let- Riders." fellow poultry workers. Twedell ad- ter declared, "We believe that Center's SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 49 unusual industrial growth is partially due to the fact the Center was known as a non-union town where there has Seventy-five cents been no labor violence or strife." The an hour is enough ad reminded workers of the allegedly for ANY tremendous monetary sacrifices of Center Worker: foundation members in bringing in- E) )) dustry to Shelby County. The foundation praised the "harmonious" relationship between management and worker and confided that "the employ- TO ALL CENTER POULTRY WORKERS ers tell us that you employees have made them the best and most loyal Greetings: workers they have ever had." The at- I have reliabb evidence that the Management of the tack on unionism concluded with a Dennison Poultry and Egg Company has entered into a plea: "Let's all work together to make conspiracy with a certain Center a better place in which to live group of Business and Civic leaders of Center to deny the Dennison and Eastex Poultry Workers the and work rather than a town divided right to form a Union. and torn by Strife." The right to form, join and belong to a Union is yore' right under the Law of the United States of America. If any Banker, Lawyer, Implement While business leaders worked to Dealer, Feed Salesman, Newspaper Publisher or anyone else, unlawfully sway the opinion of county residents interferes in these rights, they will be called into Court of Law and be made to answer fm' their misdeeds. against unionism, the plant manage- Did you ever stop to think why all at once a banker ard these other ment sought to convince the poultry civic loaders should suddenly become interested in the welfare of the poultry workers? Have they ever been interested in you before? workers that they neither wanted nor Have you over borrowed money from a banker, and if you have, did he let you have it out of the kindness of his heart, or was he interested needed the Meat Cutters. Prior to the in his five or six percent? NLRB election, the Denison Poultry Every poultry worker knows that the reason those men are trying to Company presented each employee break up the Union is because they want to keep the wages of all the working people in and around Center down to seventy five cents an with a two-page letter. The owners ar- hour. I have afeeling that if there were not a Law that compelled gued that they paid all they could af- them to pay seventy five cents, they would wont you to work for 50i. ford in wages and that they already I don't believe that many will be fooled or frightened by all the attention they are now getting from these businessmen. I have a firm (and voluntarily) financed an insur- conviction that when the Dennison Poultry Workers vote on Tuesday, September 15, that 90% will vote "for the Union". A voto for the ance program and Christmas bonuses Union means a vote for higher wages and bottGr working conditions. for the workers. The company claimed All Dennison and Eastex Workers are invited to attend the Union meet- it was competing with poultry proces- ing on Monday night at the V.F.W. Hall. Everyone please attend and hear what we have to say about the conspiracy that has been hatched sors all over the nation and that unioni- to keep your wages down to seventy five cents an hour. zation would cost them customers. Sam Twodell, Intl. Vice President The letter asserted that the union had A.M.C. & B.W. of N.A., AFL oEIU #45 2909 Maple Avenue, Dalas, Texas to accept whatever the company offered or go on strike, and it attacked Sam Twedell retaliated in kind. One 55 in favor of the union. The election the "union method of violence, of his handbills pointed out that the six held later at the Eastex Plant ap- strikes, lost time and turmoil." directors of the Center Development proached landslide proportions. "You must decide," said the letter, Foundation were bankers, car agency Eastex workers, 75 or 80 percent of "whether the union is making false owners, and one lumberman. "They whom were black, cast 118 votes for promises to get you to pay dues." The don't do your kind of work or live in the union and nine against. workers also received a mimeo- your kind of homes or take your kind During the seven months following graphed statement cautioning them not of vacations," the circular claimed. the election the organizers and officers to be influenced by threats that they "Would these men and their wives of the Meat Cutters met repeatedly would lose their jobs if they refused to work in the plant for a lousy 75- per with the company owners. The labor join the union. In condemning the al- hour? THEY ARE AFRAID THAT IF representatives asked for union recog- leged union threats, however, the com- YOU GET HIGHER WAGES THEY nition, higher wages, and working pany issued its own prediction of WILL HAVE TO PAY HIGHER conditions on a par with those in future reprisals. "When the election is WAGES TO THE PEOPLE WHO union-organized poultry plants in over," the statement read, "we [the SLAVE FOR THEM." other regions of the country. The un- company] shall retain in our payrolls Despite social pressures, company ion even enlisted the aid of big busi- all who have rendered faithful and effi- hostility, and the pleadings of "loyal" ness. One of Armour's industrial cient service." The Denison Poultry employees, both Denison and Eastex relations directors wrote Ray Clymer, employees also received a letter from a Poultry Company workers selected the owner of Denison Poultry, that Ar- group calling itself the "Loyal Em- Amalgamated Meat Cutters to be their mour enjoyed "extremely harmonious ployees Committee," closely echoing collective bargaining representative. relations with unions" and that the the arguments of the company's two At the Denison plant, where all the Meat Cutters were familiar with the letters. workers were white, the vote was 81 to limitations of the poultry business. But 50 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER the Texas companies never firmly the unfair firm. Cutters union feared they would, by committed themselves to any of the The Lucky Stores, Inc., a large San tapping the area's unskilled labor union proposals. In an April 1954 let- Francisco food chain, provide a typi- supply. ter to Patrick Gorman, Twedell cal example of compliance with the After Twedell observed firsthand summed up the negotiations thus far: boycott directive. Upon receiving ad- the conditions that had touched off the "We have been meeting with the em- vanced word of the pending unfair strike, he persuaded the union to sup- ployers continuously since that time, decree, the company contacted Deni- port it. He wrote Gorman that "these and they would make concessions and son Poultry owner Ray Clymer to re- people are 'the salt of the earth' and we then withdraw them at the very next quest that he immediately come to must do everything within our limits to conference. They would schedule terms with the union or Lucky Stores see that they get a square deal." Soon meetings with us [and] then at the last would be forced to stop buying from the threat of violence hung over the minute cancel them." his firm. Clymer replied that he had town, as picketers tangled with reck- Union organizer Jim Gilker drew been bargaining in "absolute good less drivers, county deputies, state the conclusion that the owners were faith" and recommended that Lucky highway patrolmen, and perhaps Texas not bargaining in good faith, which Stores consult legal advice before par- Rangers. federal law required. He felt that the ticipating in the proposed boycott. companies were determined to con- Lucky Stores announced early in April n addition, a wave of racism en- duct a long fight against union recog- of 1954 that they would no longer pur- gulfed the strike. As in most east nition and wage increases. Gilker chase the products of Denison Poultry ITexas towns, the white citizens of reported to Gorman that Ray Clymer Company. Center were angered by the May 1, "does not take the position that he The boycott also was carried out by 1954, school desegregation decision of can't pay more money, but states very the local Meat Cutters unions. On the U.S. Supreme Court. Thus, while bluntly that he won't." March 29, 1954, president Jimerson white strikers seem to have been By March 1954, the Amalgamated sent letters to all locals in areas where regarded as curiosities, black picketers Meat Cutters had become weary and Denison products were sold. The lo- were deeply resented. Just after the skeptical of the negotiations with the cals were told to wire Clymer to in- Eastex strike began, Twedell claimed companies. They were convinced that form him that they could not handle a that he was summoned to the county a strike would be not only costly but product on the union's unfair list. The district attorney's office. There, in the also futile in an area that would quick- locals were further directed to dis- presence of the sheriff, Twedell said ly supply strike-breakers for the un- suade outlets in their areas from sell- he was ordered to "Get those goddamn skilled jobs in the poultry plants. ing Denison's products. In California, Niggers off the picket line or some of Secretary-Treasurer Gorman and vice- a state that sold a great deal of Denison them are gonna get killed." Twedell president Twedell leaned toward eco- goods, the Western Federation of refused. nomic action. As early as January Butcher Workmen and the Meat Cut- KDET radio, a strongly anti-union Twedell had written Gorman, "We ters conducted an extensive and suc- station, exploited the town's racist atti- [will] put the 'squeeze' on this poultry cessful campaign to ban the products tudes as an angle of attack on the un- processor in every way that we possi- of the unfair company. ion. On May 20 Twedell sent bly can and that can be done, not by Ray Clymer evidently anticipated telegrams to the FBI and the Federal striking, but by taking away some of problems in marketing his merchan- Communications Commission con- their large customers." Negotiations dise and decided to speed up his cerning a KDET broadcast which were thus subordinated to the national production in order to get as far ahead "openly advocated violence, as a boycott as the means of forcing a set- as possible should the boycott become result of Supreme Court decision. . . tlement. completely effective. The normal and other racial problems, if Negro According to the contracts which ex- chain speed on the production line in pickets were not removed from the isted between Meat Cutter locals and the plant was between 37 and 42 chick- picket lines." Station manager Tom their retail employers across the na- ens per minute. By April 5 the rate had Foster explained that his announcer tion, the latter could not legally sell been increased to 66 chickens per had merely stated that "Twedell him- products which had been placed on the minute. According to Twedell, it was self was advocating trouble by order- unfair list of the union. After provid- not unusual for women to pass out ing Negro and white pickets to walk ing the required notice to the Center from sheer exhaustion during the the picket line together. Hancock [the poultry companies, union president course of the day's work. announcer] said that may be common Earl Jimerson issued a proclamation Without consulting any national un- practice in Chicago [home of the un- declaring that "Denison Poultry Com- ion official or organizer, every union ion's international headquarters], but pany of Center, Texas is UNFAIR to member at the Denison plant bolted we are not ready for that here." Amalgamated Meat Cutters of North off the job on the evening of April 5. Twedell began walking the line with America, AFL." Once this formality Union members at Eastex initiated a the black picketers. was out of the way, letters were sent to walkout and were followed by all other On May 9 organizer Allen Williams companies distributing Denison employees of the company. Both plants had prophetically reported to Twedell products requesting that they comply were temporarily shut down by the that "we are sitting on a keg of dyna- with the terms of their contracts and wildcat strikes, but the companies mite here. . . . I honestly think our desist from handling the products of soon resumed operations, as the Meat lives are in danger. . . . These bastards

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 51 will stop with nothing, including murder, if they think there is half a chance to get away with it." On the night of July 23 a time bomb explosion destroyed Williams's Ford. A fire which resulted as an after-effect of the detonation completely leveled two cabins of the tourist court where Wil- liams was living and did extensive damage to two other buildings. For- tunately, Williams had stayed out later than usual on the night of the bombing and thus escaped injury. The would-be assassins were never apprehended and, according to his reports in the next few weeks, Williams held some doubts that law enforcement officers seriously sought to find them. Remarking on the openly anti-union sentiments of a majority of the members of a grand jury investigating the bombing, Williams jokingly explained that he felt some fear of being indicted for the crime himself. A second bomb- CHECK ing occurred near Center's black neighborhood on August 12. Neither of the two banks, whose presidents were directors of the Center THAT Development Foundation, extended credit to their fellow townfolk on strike. But the Meat Cutters paid regular benefits through the duration of the CHICK conflict and also conducted a highly successful nationwide clothing drive for the strikers. So much clothing was received from the locals that it actually became necessary for president Jimer- Protect Your Health! son to ask members to halt the donations. The union revealed that the Eastex the expose "caused quite a furor and I Though the union neither expected Poultry Plant, which had been public- don't believe there has been as much nor won the support of Center's busi- ly valued by its owner at $500,000, was excitement in Shelby County since the ness and political leadership, it did a listed on county and state tax books as Civil War." surprisingly good job of securing the worth only $5,000. Its combined confidence of the area's citizenry. Al- county and state tax bill for 1953 had he strike in Shelby County and len Williams believed that the union been $76. The Denison building, ac- even the Denison and Eastex had 85 percent of the population on its cording to the labor broadcast, was T boycotts were soon over- side, though this hardly seems likely valued on tax rolls at $1,160 and was shadowed by another major thrust in considering the historical image of un- taxed only $25 in 1953. the union's campaign against the ions in the area or the fervid racism These disclosures embarrassed the Center poultry firms. As early as aroused by the strike. business community and aroused the February 1954, organizer Jim Gilker Both Williams and Twedell attribut- populace. Twedell repeated his reported to Patrick Gorman: ed a great portion of the popular sup- charges, with 500 people looking on, port to the union's own radio program. before a dramatic evening session of Our ace with Denison is that they Each Saturday afternoon the Meat the city council. Mayor O.H. Polley don't have Federal Poultry inspec- Cutters purchased time on a local ra- defended the low taxes as necessary in- tion. . . . This means that there is no dio station, during which a union ducements for industry. Union leaders doctor on the line checking the birds. . . . At the present time the in- representative would explain various then held a pep rally, and the an- spectors are condemning a large facets of the union's side of the con- tagonistic local newspaper, the Cham- number of birds because of "'Air troversy. One of these programs early pion, admitted that they "were Sac disease" in the inspected plants. in May 1954 included an explanation soundly cheered by a large portion of At the Denison plants these birds are of the tax structure in Shelby County. the audience." Twedell recorded that packed and shipped out. 52 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER Since the passage of the Pure Food chicken egg on their bodies. These the leading black executive in the Meat and Drug Act in 1906, it has been ille- swellings were filled with a yellow- Cutters union, was responsible for gal to ship beef, veal, pork, lamb, or ish pus, and the odor was very most of the research and pamphleteer- other red meat products in interstate strong. Others would have red spots ing. He listed 34 key supporters in commerce unless they have been all over their bodies that looked like Congress; none were from Texas and smallpox. slaughtered under sanitary conditions only three were from the South. As the and inspected by government An affidavit from another worker campaign picked up public support, veterinarians. Many states also adopt- declared: the Southwestern Association of ed compulsory meat-inspection laws. Poultry, Egg, and Allied Industries When these laws were being passed, When I was killing chickens I have suddenly endorsed state legislation for however, the poultry business was still cut the throats of many chickens that poultry inspection but continued to small and was not included in the pro- were already dead and stiff. . . The oppose "federal interference." Texas visions. By the mid-1950s poultry was first time! saw these kind of chick- Agriculture Commissioner John a major item in the food market, but ens come along, !did not cut their White took the same position, but the the U.S. government inspection serv- throats, but [my] supervisors came state legislature could not be roused. ice that was available until 1958 was and told me to cut their throats and The most graphic union pamphlet, let them go through with the good voluntary and had to be paid for by the ones. . . . When on the killing job, I "Check That Chick," caused an Ari- poultry processors. Only conscien- would also kill chickens that would zona state senator, known for his anti- tious companies had government in- be sick and have long, thick and labor stance, to lose his breakfast and spectors on duty, and the companies stringy pus coming from their introduce a poultry inspection bill. could transfer the inspectors if they did mouths and nostrils. When clipping Gorman and Twedell believed that fed- not like their work. In some compa- gizzards! would see large growths eral law was best, however, and that nies there was a tradition of "close re- on the entrails that looked like a state laws would only conflict with lations" between inspector and plant. mass of jelly. These chicken entrails each other and allow the processors, Marginal plants as well as the un- would smell awfully bad, and at through their political connections, to scrupulous and unsanitary companies, times would make me sick at my control the various inspection systems. stomach. the ones most in need of inspection, Five hearings on poultry conditions shipped the poultry uninspected. Less Sam Twedell dramatically reviewed were held before three different con- than one-fourth of the poultry market- the loathsome conditions in the Texas gressional committees in the ed in the U.S. in the mid-1950s had poultry industry before the Amalga- mid-1950s. Union spokespeople been subjected to federal inspection. mated's executive board in the spring presented some of the Center af- Neither Denison nor Eastex hired in- of 1954. Reports by others of some- fidavits along with statistics from the spectors, though Eastex claimed it what similar conditions elsewhere lent U.S. Public Health Service and hired a "resident sanitarian" in the strength to the arguments. Upon Pat Bureau of Labor Statistics. Expert spring of 1953. Gorman's recommendation, the board supporting testimony was offered by Eastex owner Joe Fechtel told a ra- approved the launching of a campaign veterinarians, doctors, sanitarians, and dio audience that the union offered for an effective poultry inspection pro- scientists. During the course of the him a contract in lieu of exposing the gram. The union enlisted the complete hearings it was revealed that a third of diseased poultry he was processing support of its 500 locals, as well as the all listed cases of food poisoning by (which he denied was happening). Pat endorsement of the AFL-CIO and the mid-1950s were traced to poultry. Gorman, after receiving the first af- most of the nation's labor press. Active Several of the chicken diseases fidavits on the diseased chickens, support came from public health reported during these hearings consti- wrote Sam Twedell that the Amalga- officers, conservationist spokespeo- tute a considerable risk for the workers mated would "blast the hell out of the ple, and church groups — from the na- who slaughter, process, and handle poultry industry if the Denison and tional to the local level. The drive was poultry. Psittacosis (parrot fever) is the Eastex strike isn't settled." assisted by at least z... dozen national or- most common ailment. The first out- In April 1954 Sam Twedell began ganizations — for example, the As- break in Texas occurred in Giddings in forwarding affidavits depicting gory sociation of State and Territorial 1948, and two other epidemics struck and unsanitary conditions in the Health Officers, the American Nurses the turkey processing workers in that poultry plants to secretary-treasurer Association, the General Federation of town before 1954. Seven died. In May Gorman. One Center poultry worker Women's Clubs, the American Associ- 1954, 48 workers in a Corsicana testified: ation of University Women, and the poultry dressing plant were stricken. National Farmers Union. The cam- In 1956 three psittacosis epidemics My job was to pull feathers. . . . paign did not receive notable coverage broke out in Texas, Oregon, and Vir- When the chickens reached me, from the mass media, though several ginia; 136 men and women were most of the feathers were off the journal articles appeared as well as struck and three died. bodies and! could see the skin of the The union's "ace" worked at Eastex. birds very clearly. It is quite often syndicated columns by Victor Riesel that thousands of chickens would and Drew Pearson. In the midst of the boycott and national pass on the line with sores on their The Amalgamated also approached publicity, after an 11-month strike, the bodies. Thousands of them would the legislative branches of the state and Eastex Poultry Company yielded and have large swellings as large as a federal governments. Hilton Hanna, agreed to a contract with the Meat SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 53 Cutters. The terms of the March 1955 dest thing I was ever confronted with," even thinking about unionism. They agreement called for wage increases of he wrote Gorman. Hilton Hanna wrote were particularly appalled that the five cents an hour for women, seven- earlier that the striking Texans were chicken processing plants were "at- and-a-half cents an hour for men, the shock troops in the cleanup cam- tacked," since it was poultry that saved time-and-a-half for overtime, three paign, that they must be supported to the town when the bottom fell out of paid holidays each year, the establish- the hilt, and that they "have demon- the cotton market in the late 1940s. ment of a vacation system and strated a spirit that has been rare in the The spectacle of blacks and whites grievance machinery, and the rein- labor movement for many years." walking the picket lines together at the statement of all strikers. If called to the Their steadfastness and zeal persuaded time of the 1954 desegregation deci- plant, the workers had to be given at the Amalgamated to pay strike benefits sion was deeply resented by the bigot- least three hours' work that day. The for four years, which not many inter- ed element; "we'd never had any race re-employment was with full seniority, nationals would do. trouble," the anonymous city leader which meant that the 20 or 25 "scabs" Ray Clymer's unyielding position believed. left in the plant had lowest seniority. seems to have been the crucial factor Change occurs even in Shelby The Eastex Company also agreed to in the union's defeat at Denison. The County. The union has been en- submit voluntarily to U.S. Department company lost most of its markets as a trenthed for three decades and can of Agriculture poultry inspection. result of the boycott and eventually hardly be considered alien. The wor- As the expose began to arouse atten- went bankrupt. According to Twedell, kers, who were making $4.80 an hour tion, the manager of the Denison plant Clymer had an independent income (with no discrepancy between the sex- informed the supervisor, Florence which he refused to plow back into the es) in 1984, have never been involved Smith, that she had been named chick- business and preferred bankruptcy to in another strike. Nowadays, compa- en inspector and would thereafter dealing with a union. Certainly his nies seeking new sites are inclined to receive her paycheck from the city of only offer to settle the dispute reflected inquire about local services and Center. The city government obedient- contempt for collective bargaining. In schools and do not seem to be search- ly notified Agriculture Commissioner June 1955 Clymer offered to recognize ing just for low taxes for themselves. John White that Smith would inspect the union as bargaining agent for six Several companies have brought un- all poultry for wholesomeness. (Like months and allow the strikers to return ions with them. Moreover, the all of White's "inspectors," Smith — with no changes in wages, hours, or processing plants are not nearly as vi- lacked the guidance of any published working conditions — if the pickets tal to the town's economy as in 1954. tests or standards; Texas had no and boycott were called off. A new And the racial situation is quieter; the poultry inspection law.) After several election would be held in six months school system is integrated. days as inspector, Florence Smith dis- and if the union won, Clymer Of course, Shelby County did sur- covered that the chickens she had con- promised to negotiate in good faith. vive and, in fact, prosper. Champion demned and removed from the It is also possible that the workers at editor Pinlcston pointed out in 1972 that production chain had been put back on Eastex, 93 percent of whom voted for the county was growing, the banks further down the line by another su- the union in the election, were more were "filled with money," and the old pervisor. She testified, moreover, that: determined than the Denison strikers, hatreds had "faded away." Former 60 percent of whom originally voted to strikers confirmed that bitter feelings It has been a regular practice to unionize. Black workers recalled that a had disappeared. place Texas Department of Agricul- determined black union-conscious- The outlook for the union in ture tags of approval on chickens ness arose. They also recollected that Southern poultry has brightened in the processed in the Denison Poultry plant. These tags of approval were they were more willing to walk the past 20 years, as the structure of the placed in chickens that had never picket lines than the whites. industry has changed. During the been inspected. In fact, it has been a 1960s and the early 1970s the indepen- regular practice to place these tags n evaluating the impact of the dent poultry operators were largely on non-inspected chickens ever strike on the town and its establish- supplanted by the integrators, a few since I have been working for the Iment leaders, a Chamber of Com- big vertical oligopolies that own hatch- company [over three years]. merce spokesperson who requested eries, feed companies, processing anonymity declared that it was "just plants, and even distribution facilities. The struggle to unionize the Deni- about the first event from the outside The trend toward major corporate son plant ended in abject failure — world to reach Center." There had ownership may have leveled off in the three years after the Eastex victory. In never been a union in Shelby County. late 1970s and early 1980s, but February 1958 the Meat Cutters decid- Companies seeking new locations at agribusinesses dominate the industry. ed to call off the strike. Both union and that time were notorious in demanding Dick Twedell, successor to his father company were exhausted by four years a depressed laboring group, and most as regional director of the Amalgamat- of apparently inconclusive boycotting of the townspeople and even many of ed Meat Cutters, asserts that the and striking. Ralph Sanders, an or- the local establishment were former Southern integrators are more amena- ganizer for the union, was assigned the cotton farmers who had been driven ble (or vulnerable) to unionization unenviable task of telling the picket off the land by national economic than the independents. Though less walkers that the strike at Center had forces. They were so fiercely indepen- than a third of the 30 or so poultry been canceled. "It was about the sad- dent that they seemed innately to resist plants in Texas, for instance, are un- 54 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER ionized, the one in Center, now part of the Holly Farms empire, produces more birds than half the non-union plants put together. The roles of the union and the federal government in the nationwide drive for compulsory poultry inspection were duly noted by Senator James D. Murray of Montana. In his report that followed one of the congressional hearings in 1956, Murray spoke for the Committee on Labor and Public Wel- fare in praising the "definitive and thoroughly documented expose of conditions in the poultry processing industry under the Department of sanitary facilities and practices at residues of organic arsenic in their Agriculture's voluntary inspection slaughter and processing plants, and livers. In 1979 the General Accounting program. . . ." The report deemed the correct and informative labeling. Office charged that the Agriculture department "seriously remiss" in Unfortunately, there is considerable Department's inspection program never having called the poultry condi- doubt that the 1957 law (as well as the checks for only 46 of the 143 potential- tions to the attention of the public and 1967 Wholesome Meat Act) is being ly harmful drugs and pesticides that in never having taken the initiative in enforced. For one thing, the tradition could be present in meat and poultry recommending corrective measures to of "close relations" between some in- and estimated that 14 percent of meat the president or Congress. The com- spectors and plants continued. The and poultry reaching the public con- mittee was shocked that the Agricul- poultry industry vigorously opposed tained illegal residues. ture Department opposed compulsory the consolidation of meat and poultry Under the Reagan administration, inspection even though it was in com- inspection in 1969, which placed them inspection standards appear to be demand of more facts than the union in under the leadership of officials teriorating even further. In the winter regard to diseased poultry. The com- trained in the red meat inspection tra- of 1981-82 the Program Review Branch mittee report added: ditions. Also, the definition of of the Agriculture Department inves- "wholesomeness" is constantly in tigated the sanitary conditions in 272 While we are grateful to the union flux. Standards are powerfully in- poultry and meat plants. Adulterated and believe the American people products were discovered in a fifth of will share that gratitude, we think it fluenced by the Advisory Committee a shame that an organization of on Criteria for Poultry Inspection, es- them, and in a third of the plants workers whose earnings are very tablished in 1963, comprised of reviewers considered it likely that ran- modest should have to spend its veterinarians and consultants from the cid products were escaping to the mar- funds to alert the Nation to a situa- industry; neither its meetings nor its ket. Shortly after the evaluation the tion which is already known to a di- minutes are open to the public. There Reagan administration crippled the vision of a governmental department is also a distinct shortage of staff to en- Program Review Branch. Indeed, the which has apparently put processor force the laws. In 1971 the Dallas dis- administration not only is loosening relationships ahead of its responsi- trict office the Food and Drug enforcement standards and reducing bilities to the people of the United Administration, for instance, had the frequency of inspections, but also States. 6,000 food firms to supervise with 35 is speeding up the time pressure on a So it was that on the national level inspectors. diminishing number of inspectors and the organizing drive in Center and the Even if enforced, the laws do not re- attempting to prevent inspectors' subsequent boycott and cleanup cru- quire the monitoring or control of reports from reaching the public. sade scored a success for the Ameri- microbiological contaminants in fresh Meanwhile, the Amalgamated Meat can consumer. After a three-year, meat or poultry. In the spring of 1971 a Cutters (now merged with the Retail uphill fight the union overcame the op- government spot check of 68 poultry Clerks to form the Food Workers Un- position of the poultry industry and slaughtering plants found sanitary ion), joined by such consumer advo- the Agriculture Department (which conditions "unacceptable." One in- cates as Ralph Nader and Kathleen changed its position in 1956). On Au- spector for the General Accounting Hughes and such periodicals as the gust 28, 1957, President Dwight Office discovered that in one plant Food Chemical News, Nutrition Ac- Eisenhower signed the Poultry "the ceiling areas gave the appearance tion, and Southern Exposure, continue Products Inspection Act, establishing of a cheap horror movie scene with to plead with Americans to ask more compulsory federal inspection of all numerous cobwebs and heavy dust ac- searching questions about the meat poultry moving across state lines and cumulations." In December 1972 the and poultry that they eat. El in foreign commerce. The law is sup- Agriculture Department admitted that George Norris Green teaches history at the posed to assure the wholesomeness of about 465 million broilers and fryers, University of Texas at Arlington. Jim McClel- poultry and poultry products placed nearly one out of every six grown that lan teaches history at Northern Virginia on the market, the maintenance of year, went to market with illegal Community College at Alexandria. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 55 POSTCARD POEM UNDER THE KNIFE

by Judith Ortiz Cofer by Judith Ortiz Cofer

It should be brief She wipes blood from her knife and written in across a kitchen towel. indelible ink, so the postman's The thick contents of a just decapitated hands, sweaty with the strain hen spill into the sink. of so many words on his shoulders, I feel slightly nauseated but must will not smudge your message. forbear for my aunt's sake. Childless It should contain the expected "wish family martyr; renowned for her patience you were here," but no return address; with human frailty, and her cooking. it should bear an exotic stamp Her man drinks; she has failed three times with the likeness at childbearing. She squeezes the last of the martyred leader of an of the blood from the neck and a blue button underdeveloped nation, or a plea falls into her hand. Rinsing it, she drops it to save a nearly extinct species into her apron pocket. As she places the pale carcass and of sea mammal. Through panoramic the knife before me she explains views dominated by impossibly blue how to cut the pieces with even, forceful skies, it should imply strokes: no hacking. She is under that where you are no obligation to be kind. is the only place to be. The mothers and the daughters have given her a lifetime license to mourn. Like a queen in exile she acknowledges Judith Ortiz Cofer's first book of peoms, nothing as a privilege. The pale fingers Reaching for the Mainland, is forthcoming of my aunt work with precision over from Bilingual Review/Press. A native of Puerto Rico, she currently teaches English at the pink flesh, showing me just how the University of Georgia. to separate the tough from the tender.

56 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER REVIEWS

Covington Hall: his clothes with the Southern elite and with all but the most radical wing of the the Wobbly poet New Orleans labor movement. During that year, he helped to organize those — by David R. Roediger he called the "white and black dock A growing and influential body slaves of New Orleans" as well as work- of literature describes the South ers in Louisiana's piney woods region. as historically existing in a colonial American Federation of Labor organiz- relationship to the North or, at the least, ers and reform socialists stayed away having a separate national existence of from Hall, both because he acted so its own. Such an analysis may take the strongly on the principles of interracial form of the pointed reference to the unity and because he invited the revolu- Civil War as the "War for Southern In- tionary socialist Daniel DeLeon to dependence," a formulation common GREATESTE THING speak in New Orleans. in the work of Eugene Genovese and After 1907, Hall combined writing, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. In other cases ON EARTH editing, and organizing in radical activi- the post-bellum relationship of eco- ties which stretched until his death in nomic dependency on Northern capital 1871, Hall descended from the Southern 1951. Through most of that career, he receives emphasis. Usually critical of elite on both sides. His father, a Pres- was a leading member of the IWW, industrial capitalism, such an histor- byterian minister, did not stay long with although he periodically differed with ical stance has been compatible Hall's mother, to whom the poet would the policies of that organization by op- with sympathies for populism and for later dedicate a haunting poem. With posing even minimal centralization of socialism. his parents' separation, Hall went to live authority and by advocating organiza- Whatever the merits and deficiencies with a half-uncle, Dr. A.V. Woods, tion of independent small farmers as of studies seeing a Southern nation or whom he called Uncle Ami (that is, Un- well as tenant cultivators and industrial colony inside the United States, it is cle Friend). From that nickname, Hall workers. Active in the "timber wars" striking that very few Southerners in- derived his own favorite pen names, of lumber organizing in Louisiana and volved in labor and socialist struggles Covington Ami and Covami. Texas during the years before World War over the century following the Civil War The Woods family raised Hall in I, Hall edited The Lumberjack, the or- attempted to ground a case for Southern Bayou Terrebonne, Louisiana, a sugar- gan of the National Industrial Union of socialism within a characterization of growing district where the family's Forest and Lumber Workers. His own their region as an oppressed nation. heavily mortgaged plantation was finally literary/political journal, Rebellion, This article is about one who did: lost to a sheriffs auction in 1891. Hall's bore the subtitle, "Made Up of Dreams Covington Hall. It briefly treats his later reflections lay this financial failure and Dynamite." eventful life — a full biography is bad- to merchants' and bankers' attempts to During the 1920s Hall worked as a ly needed — and explores the contradic- fix sugar prices and, perhaps, to a publicist for the Non-Partisan League, tory impact on his writing and politics generous paternalism on the part of his a radical agrarian mass movement based of a brand of Southern nationalism, crit- family. Declassed, Hall settled in New mainly in the Dakotas and other North- ically embraced. Orleans and, prior to the century's turn, ern farm states but also having a Hall, a prolific poet, essayist, hu- participated in politics as a Populist and Southern following. Despite advancing morist, historian, and writer for farm a supporter of William Jennings Bryan. age, he remained active during the and socialist periodicals and for the In- He remained enough of an aristocrat to Depression years, writing many of the dustrial Workers of the World (IWW), be chosen adjutant general of the Unit- IWW's most forceful attacks on New enjoyed a career in radical causes span- ed Sons of Confederate Veterans in Deal liberalism and teaching for a time ning more than four decades. The most 1904. Oscar Ameringer, the "Mark at Work People's College in Duluth, complete collection of his verse, a 1946 Twain of American Socialism" and a Minnesota. A surviving IWW associ- volume titled Battle Hymns of Toil, Hall associate during these years, ate, Fred Thompson, recalls that in gathers but a smattering of his poems, remembered his friend and romantic Duluth, Hall consistently displayed a which suffer from unevenness by vir- rival as "the best-dressed, handsomest Southerner's distaste for Great Plains tue of their very volume, but which, at man" in New Orleans at the start of the winters. their best, stand in the first rank of twentieth century. Throughout this long tenure as an or- American left-wing poetry. By 1907, the swashbuckling Hall may ganizer and poet, Hall was practically Born in Woodville, Mississippi, in still have dressed well, but he had torn alone on the American left in arguing

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 57 for Southern nationalism. He repeatedly Americans in liberating themselves, and Whatever its impact in converting referred to the South as an internal colo- the possibilities of Reconstruction. In others, such a rooted vision apparent- ny of the United States, as the "First both politics and poetry, a continuing ly sustained Hall's own racial egalitari- Conquered Province of the American identification with the Rebel South anism. During years in which many Plutocratic Empire." In 1919, for exam- sometimes served Hall poorly. His ob- Southern radicals and ex-radicals ple, Hall prefaced a letter to the IWW's jections to centralization of power in the descended to the trading of race baits One Big Union Monthly by observing, IWW, hardly an authoritarian organi- with white-supremacist Democrats, "I note that The Monthly wants news zation, often amounted to little more Hall consistently pursued interracial from all foreign countries, so I thought than a reflexive rebel yell, quite mis- labor organizing, often at great personal the editor might be interested in a few placed, in favor of local self-rule against risk. He signed his letters, "Yours for items from the strange Land of Dixie." national power. the liberty of man, woman and child, In his fullest development of this posi- Similarly, Hall's founding just before regardless of creed, race or color." tion, a charming "Factful Fable" writ- World War I of the Clan of Toil as a Because Hall cast American history ten in 1938 and titled "All About secret terrorist organization among in terms of a struggle between the blacklisted timber workers betrayed a "Coming Class" (both culturally and monumental racial insensitivity in its economically bourgeois) of the North choice of names. Nor did his 1938 and the "uncivilized" South, he culti- poem, "For Instance," with the refrain vated in his poetry an uncommon ap- "Our granddads were not Liberals; they preciation for the wisdom and artistry called a spade a spade," suggest much of "primitive" peoples. This awareness, awareness of racism in language. And along with the proclivity to juxtapose the contention of Hall and Texas So- the values of primitives against those of cialist Thomas Hickey that the "rebel the dominant classes in Western civili- farmers" of the South might "rise zation was, of course, common to much again" in solidarity with the Mexican of the early nineteenth-century roman- Revolution was nothing short of romantic writing which Hall loved and to the tic nonsense. Finally, the racial pater- work of some later American writers, nalism which Hall saw as part of his Old especially Melville and Twain. But South heritage often lent a cloying sen- Hall's poetry seems as akin to the timentality to his lyrics when race was modern writings of W.E.B. DuBois, a theme or when he tried to write in Paul Robeson, Aime Cesaire, Andre Afro-American dialect. The largely for- Breton, and other politically charged gettable "My Negro Mammy's Son," authors, especially those from black for instance, begins "I don't want to see America and from the Third World and him crushed, my dear old Mammy's those influenced by surrealism or the son,/ The boy I played with long ago, Negritude movement. whose marbles oft I won." Much of Hall's poetry exploring Civilizing the Uncivilized," Hall re- Nonetheless, far more remarkable primitivism, particularly that written in counted the Civil War as an invasion by than such political romanticism and dialect, walks a very thin line between the "Coming Class" in "Samsland" literary mawkishness were the ways in simplicity and affectation. But it often against the "Dixieans." The invaders which Hall recast, criticized, and used succeeds through humor and the effec- sought "the best Undeveloped Market the Southern heritage in politics and in tive evocation of Southern rural images: in sight" and objected to the Dixieans art. The race issue is an important ex- I'd like to be a savage fer a little while as being "Too Lazy and Unprogres- ample. Even if the paternalism he im- agen, sive." As a result of the war, "The puted to slave masters was largely En go out in the forests where there Slaves were freed. They were thereafter legendary, Hall effectively utilized the ain't no business men; no longer attached to their jobs nor their "moonlight and magnolias" myth of hu- Where I'd never hear the clatter of their jobs to them." "Churches and factories mane race relations under slavery to call factories and things, and slums," Hall continued, "blos- for solidarity between the races. The But just the low, soft buzzin' uv the somed side by side everywhere." closing lines of "My Negro Mammy's hummin's crimson wings. Such an analysis, although not wild- Son," for example, accuse Northern This explosion of the distinction be- ly different from that offered in modern capitalists of "rottening the structure tween the developed and the undevel- histories of the slave South by Eugene that the fathers built of old" and trans- oped, the "civilized" and the Genovese and of the New South by C. form the woman in the title into "uncivilized," doubtless contributed to Vann Woodward, is obviously partial "Mother Labor" before praying to her his further musings on the line between and misleading in that it minimizes the "That all your sons in Dixie, be their sanity and insanity (a theme common anti-slavery motivations of Northern color what they may,/ Will rise in one in IWW literature and best addressed participants in the war, the role of black great union and drive the wolves away." by Hall in "The Madman's Boast") and 58 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER the distinctions between fantasy and An if dis here is dey Promised Lan: well the Lord": reality (probed effectively in Hall's es- den, den well, "This land shall not be sold forever," I don't want to go to Heaben, — I'd say "In Defense of Dreaming") and be- Saith the Lord; ruther go to Hell. tween heaven and hell. "Of this I have repented never," Hall's writing on the last of these Hall's religious imagery is the most Saith the Lord. paired themes, writings clearly reminis- vital aspect of his poetry and is intimate- "Not a letter, word or line, cent of John Milton and William Blake, ly connected to his appreciation of op- Can the landlords show of mine, are best exemplified in one of his few posites and to his critical adoption of Ming Earth from thee and thine," successful Afro-American dialect the Southern heritage. Many of his Saith the Lord. poems, "Uncle Liga's Heartbreak Ser- verses delightedly observe that Christ However, set alongside this powerful mon." The narrator of this anti-war was a hunted radical, "Caesar's enemy," Christian imagery, often jarringly, are work is a wise but "uncivilized" ob- and exhort "Christian workers" to live paeans to Lucifer. Indeed, a single server of life who describes himself as up to the demands of the social gospel poem, like "Rebellion," might praise "nothin' but a nigger, a ig'nunt cropper- and to their God's courage and vision. both Lucifer and Christ (not to mention man." He recounts a European mas- Hall enlisted theological sanctions, for Moses, Mohammed, Lincoln, Jeffer- sacre of children occurring on Christ- example, in arguing for land redistri- son, and Zoroaster). In other works, the mas Day before concluding: bution, especially in the haunting "Saith identification is solely with Lucifer, as

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SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 59 REVIEWS it is in "Boast of the Foot-Loose Reb- rights" philosophy which could under- antebellum racial harmony, its not-too- els," in which Hall counts himself and gird theories of "industrial democrary" specific history and its contradictions, his comrades as "the hope of liberty. and even of "industrial Communism." contributed to Hall's poetic and politi- Earth's Lucifers today." But in no sense was the identification cal vision and to his staying power in The common thread throughout all with Jefferson the slave-holder or even radical politics in a final and vital way. Hall's Miltonesque and devilish tributes with Jefferson the paternalist in race re- While most Americans considered the is an emphasis on rebellion. In his lations. And Hall found no legitimate South — and the nation as a whole — fullest poem on the subject, "Prayer to heirs to the Jeffersonian tradition in the as static and conservative, Hall saw Lucifer," Hall identifies the object of his Civil War South. volatility and change. His own transfor- prayer as "God of the Rebels" and as Thus it was far less the specific con- mation from Bourbon gentleman to "the God of my fathers." This portray- tent of the Southern nationalist heritage Wobbly revolutionary must have helped al of a rebel Lucifer as the patron of the to which Hall was attracted than the to shape this perception, but so too did South's Civil War generation suggests generalized Luciferian spirit of rebel- Hall's musings on Southern history. "I the manner in which Hall ultimately lion, and of defiance in defeat, which was born," he wrote, "in the midst of reconciled his Southern nationalism he saw as central to that heritage. In "Us tumults and riots. I have seen the col- with the knowledge that much of the Hoboes and Dreamers," probably lapse of two great social systems, Southern history had been pathological. his bitterest and best poem, Hall clearly Southern Feudalism and . . . Capital- It is as close as he could ever come to cast his lot with that tradition of rebel- ism." Amidst such tremendous flux, it praising the flesh-and-blood rebels who lion, rather than with Southern tradi- was, according to Hall, not too optimis- fought the "Coming Class." tion as a whole. He closed with a tic to hope for still another transition That is, none of Hall's hundreds of warning to Dixie's rulers that they could — one rooted in the best of Southern surviving poems name an actual Con- be the victims of such rebelliousness: traditions — to a "cooperative federate hero in the eulogies of rebels, We shall laugh to scorn your power that Democracy, a confederation of the though they repeatedly praise anti- now holds the South in awe. world based on the Jeffersonian prin- slavery Yankees like William Lloyd Gar- We shall trample on your customs, we ciple of 'Equal Rights and opportuni- rison, Wendell Phillips, Benjamin shall ties to ALL and special privileges to Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. Except spit upon your law. NONE.' "El for a passing nod toward Patrick Hen- We shall outrage all your temples, we David R. Roediger is on the history faculty ry and Andrew Jackson, only Thomas shall of the University of Missouri. He is editor of Jefferson occupied a place in the blaspheme all your gods. Dreams and Dynamite: The Selected Poems We shall turn your slavepen over of Covington Hall, forthcoming in October Southern wing of Hall's pantheon of from Charles H. Kerr Publishers in Chicago. rebel heroes. It is true that that place as the plowman turns the clods. was a crucial one because Hall regard- Such a critical embrace of Southern The Klan kind ed the Sage of Monticello as the major tradition, a concern with his region's American proponent of an "equal distinctiveness, its mythic heritage of of people The Klan, by Patsy Sims. Stein and Day, 1985. 355 pp. $3.95.

— by Linda Rocawich Stein and Day has finally issued a mass-market paperback edition of Patsy Sims's book on the Ku Klux Klan, which they first published in 1978. Her approach was a personal one, prompted by questions long on her mind: "Who are these men? What makes them tick? Do they ever fall in love and get spring fever? Do they laugh at jokes and, sometimes, at themselves? Do they cry at funerals and sad movies? Or do they only hate? Is there good in them or only evil? What are they really like?" She does, in fact, get inside the men to whom she devotes chapters — the likes of David Duke, Robert Shelton, and Bob Jones, as well as less well- known characters. But the re-issue also 60 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER issue. Unsolicited reviews ofpublications of general Southern interest are welcome, recent works being preferred. Copies of the dissertations are available from: University Microfilms International, Dissertation Copies, PO. Box 1764, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; (800) 521-3042.

HISTORY, POLITICS, AND ECONOMICS — BEFORE 1865

Boy Colonel of the Confederacy: The Life and Times of Henry King Burgwyn, Jr., by Archie K. Davis. UNC Press. $29.95. Champ Ferguson, Confederate Guerrilla, by Thurman Sensing. Vanderbilt Univ. Press. $14.95. The Economics of U.S. Slave and Southern White Fertility, by Richard H. Steckel. Garland Publishing. $35.00. A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, by Craig M. Simpson. UNC Press. $29.95. "'An Honest Fanatic': The Images of the Aboli- tionist in the Antebellum and Historical Minds," by KLAN RALLY, SEABROOK, TEXAS, 1982 Books on the South Allen Roy Vogt. Univ. of Houston. "Juan Baptista de Segura and the Failure of the suffers from age. The publishers didn't Florida Jesuit Mission (1566-1572)," by Frank bother to ask Sims to update anything, This list consists of books published through Marotti, Jr. Univ. of Miami. and much has happened since 1978. I Winter 1985. All books were published in 1985 un- The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's less otherwise noted. Dissertations appeared in Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Cam- can't imagine, for example, publishing Dissertation Abstracts in February and March, paigns, by Joseph T. Glatthaar. New York Univ. in 1985 a chapter on Ed Dawson that 1985. All dissertations are dated 1984. Press. $27.95. does not mention his key role as par- The entries are grouped under several broad "Outside Agitators in Southern History: The So- categories for your convenience. Mention of a book ciety of Friends, 1656-1800," by Howard Beeth. ticipant and police informant at the here does not preclude its being reviewed in a future Univ. of Houston. November 3, 1979, Greensboro murders of anti-Klan demonstrators. But that's MM. AP what Stein and Day has done. Nonetheless, the understanding Sims affords of how Klanspeople think and feel and talk, and its value as an oral history of the mid- '70s resurgence of the Klan, continue to make this book worth reading and keeping. And then there's the eerie feeling of reading now what Virgil Griffin said then of his Klan-inspired determination: A Newspaper "We can do it peacefully if we can git the people organized, an' if not, For Lesbians and Gay Men we can do it violent." "To what length would you go?" in North Carolina, South Any length." "Would you kill?" Carolina, southern Virginia "If that is necessary. I'd rather kill them than have them kill me!" and eastern Tennessee. "But would you initiate it?" "No comment." Sample copy: $1.00 "But you would be violent if you had to?" One-year subscription (22 issues): $10.00 (bulk rate), His voice was low but positive. $18.50 (first class) "Sure, the niggers are violent. Why Write: P.O. Box 25642, Raleigh, N.C. 27611 not?" Virgil Griffin was the ringleader in Greensboro.111 Since 1979. Linda Rocawich is an editor of Southern Exposure. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 61 Virginia and the English Commercial System, ysis," by Rekha Mehra. Univ. of Florida. LITERATURE 1689-1773, by John M. Hemphill. Garland Publish- The Labor History Reader, ed. by Daniel J. ing. $40.00. Leab. Univ. of Illinois Press. $27.50/$12 .95. "Children's Literature in Texas: A History and Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans, by Evaluation," by Norma Hayes Bagnall. Texas A&M HISTORY, POLITICS, AND T.R. Fehrenbach. Macmillan. $100.00. Univ. ECONOMICS — 1865-1985 Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in "Christology in the Works of Flannery O'Con- North Carolina, 1850-1900, by Paul D. Escott. nor," by Rose Bowen. Florida State Univ. As Rare as Rain: Federal Relief in the Great UNC Press. $29.00. "The Development of a Dialectic: Private and Southern Drought of 1930-31, by Nan Elizabeth "Measuring the Benefits from Air Pollution Public Patterns in the Work of Margaret Walker and Woodruff. Univ. of Illinois Press. $21.95. Abatement on Human Health and Welfare: A Case Gwendolyn Brooks," by Marcia V. Keizs. Columbia "Afro-American Wealth Accumulation, Virginia, Study of Jacksonville, Florida," by Goshtasb Univ. 1900-1914," by William E. Spriggs. Univ. of Erfani-Ezati. Florida State Univ. "Fables of Creativity: Faulkner's Non- Wisconsin-Madison. "Minority Status to Serious Political Alternative? Yoknapatawpha Novels," by Gary M. Harrington. "Aldermanic Redistricting in El Paso, Texas: A The Case of the Louisiana Republican Party, Univ. of Toronto. Case Study of Democratic Representation," by Eu- 1948-1983," by Stella Z. Theodoulou. Tulane Univ. Ghost Stories from the American South, by gene I. Finke. New Mexico State Univ. North Carolina }Imes the Freedmen: Race Re- W.K. McNeil. August House. $19.95. The American South: A Historical Bibliogra- lations during Presidential Reconstruction, "Myths and Manners in the Southern Novel," by phy, by ABC-Clio. $64.00. 1865-67, by Roberta S. Alexander. Duke Univ. Suzanne Whitmore Jones. Univ. of Virginia. Caldwell and Company: A Southern Financial Press. $29.75. "Sara Estela Ramirez: The Early Twentieth Cen- Empire, by John Berry McFerrin. Vanderbilt Univ. Rhetoric and American Protest: Black Protest tury Texas-Mexican Poet," by Ines Hernandez Ro- Press. $17.50. through Vietnam Dissent, by Randall M. Fisher. var. Univ. of Houston. City by the Sea: A History of Corpus Christi, Univ. Press of America. $26.50/$14.25. "The Stony Path: Eros, Land, and History in Texas, 1519-1875, by Eugenia R. Briscoe. Vantage "South Carolina and Black Migration, Caroline Gordon," by Virginia Lombardo Arbery. Press. $15.95. 1865-1940: In Search of the Promised Land," by Univ. of Dallas. The Great State of Texas, by Griffin Smith. George A. Devlin. Univ. of South Carolina. "Symbolic Space: Myth and the Pursuit of Order Graphic Arts Center. $37.50. Southeast Coast, by George Reiger. Graphic in the Novels of Toni Morrison," by Mai-Nsangli A History of South Carolina, by Anne R. Os- Arts Center. $37.50. Jua. SUNY-Buffalo. borne. Sandlapper Pub. Co. Price not set. Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Hoover, Blacks, and Lily-Whites: A Study of Race, 1920-1944, by John T. Kneebone. UNC CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES Southern Strategies, by Donald J. Lisio. UNC Press. $26.00. Press. $29.95. Where Texas Meets the Sea: A Coastal Por- Bluegrass: A History, by Neil V. Rosenberg. "International Labor Migration and Florida trait, by Bryan Woolley and Skeeter Hagler. Press- Univ. of Illinois Press. Price not set. Sugarcane Production: A Political-Economic Anal- works. $19.95. The Enclosed Garden: Women and Communi- ty in the Evangelical South, 1830-1900, by Jean E. Friedman. UNC Press. $19.95. "A Gentle Reconstruction: Depression Post Office Murals and Southern Culture," by Sue Bridewell Beckham. Univ. of Minnesota. It's Easy! "The Gospel of Preservation in Virginia and New England: Historic Preservation and the Regenera- tion of Traditionalism," by James M. Lindgren. College of William and Mary. In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: SUBSCRIBE Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina, by Orville Vernon Burton. UNC Press. $29.95. "The Renewal of American Fundamentalism, 1930-1945," by Joel Allan Carpenter. Johns Hopkins Sautlaern. Mxpos-ure Univ. "The United Holy Church of America: A Study in Black Holiness-Pentacostalism," by William C. Turner. Duke Univ.

Datatel 800 EDUCATION

"The Educational Philosophy of Leslie Pinckney 1-800-341-1522 Hill: A Profile in Black Educational Leadership, 1904-1951," by Sulayman Clark. Harvard Univ. "Higher Education in the American South, 3 years (18 issues). . . $42 Save 42% 1660-1984: Class and Race in Institutional Develop- ment," by Richard S. Glotzer. Univ. of Wisconsin- 2 years (12 issues). . . $30 Save 38% Madison. 1 year ( 6 issues). . $16 Save 33% "A History of the University of Louisville," by Dwayne Davis Cox. Univ. of Kentucky. "Nathan B. Young and the Development of Black Higher Education," by Antonio E Holland. Univ. of Our 800 number order is for subscription orders only! Missouri. "The Press and University Autonomy: How For other business: Southern Exposure North Carolina's Major Newspapers Covered Their State University's Desegregation Controversy," by P.O. Box 531 • Durham, NC 27702 • (919) 688-8167 Russell B. Barclay. Duke Univ. "School Desegregation in Raleigh, North Caroli- na, 1954-1964," by Wilma C. Peebles. UNC-Chapel Hill. 62 SEFTEMBER/OCTOBER BULLETIN BOARD OF THE SOUTH

Organizer 'Raining Magazine for Homesteaders! Announcements The Center for Third World Or- Events Covering: gardening, small stock Call for Papers ganizing is offering a program for Free Southern Theater health, bees and much, much Seventh Berkshire Conference on the training of minority organizers. The Role of the Arts in the more. Free information! 1 year: the History of Women will be held It will consist of classroom training, Process of Social Change: a Con- $12; 2 years: $22; 3 years: $30. June 19-21, 1987 Wellesley Col- field experience, and an opportu- ference, Performance, Festival, Money back guarantee! Farming lege, Wellesley, Massachusetts. nity to work on issues affecting Grand Reunion, and Funeral" will Uncle, P.O. Box 91, E96, Liberty, NY Theme will be "Beyond the Pub- people of color. Stipends will be be held November 20-24, 1985, in 12754. lic/Private Dichotomy: Reassess- available. Deadline for applications New Orleans. For information, Free ing Women's Place in History." is September 30, 1985. Contact: Southern Theater Project, P.O. Box Music, Lore, History Deadline for submission of CTWO, 3861 Martin Luther King, 30498, New Orleans, LA 70130; Talkin' Union salutes the music and proposals (three copies of ab- Jr., Way, Oakland, CA 94609; (504)523-1216. folklore of today's labor movement. stracts and vitae): February 1, 198& (415)654-9601 Published 3 times a year. For more information, contact $6.50/$12.00. Box 5349, Takoma Dorothy 0. HeIly, Women's Studies Stop Paying for Executions! Publications Park, MD 20912. Program, Hunter College, 695 Park Send stamped envelope to: Penny Avenue, New York, NY 10021 or Resistance, 8319 Fulham Court, Resources Available "In Whose Interest: A Middle East Susan Reverby, Women's Studies Richmond, VA 23227. Merchandise Program, Wellesley College, Discussion Packet" is a multi- Wellesley, MA 02181. session study guide for local peace Note Cards groups on U.S. policy on the Mid- Southern Exposure announces a Jobs dle East ($5 each, $3.50 each for new series of greeting cards. Join Our Community Financial Coordinator Wanted 10 or more, plus 20% postage). Handsomely designed for us by Virginia Commune — now 13 years Full-charge bookkeeping, financial "From the West Bank to Armaged- renowned artist Peg Rigg, each old — seeking members for statements and reports, etc. don" is a slide-tape show designed 12-card set costs $4.50 and fea- extended-family-type group. Stable Knowledge of computerized ac- to initiate discussion about U.S. tures quotes from the pages of folk for frugal, hard-working, but counting and/or FEC reporting policy in the Middle East and its Southern Exposure accompanied full, rich country life. Write (with preferred. For more info, League of relationship to the Israeli- by detailed graphic illustration. SASE) Tom, Springtree, Rt. 2, Box Conservation Voters, 320 4th Palestinian conflict. Write for Write to us to place your order 89, Scottsville, VA 24590, or phone Street, NE, Washington, DC brochure and rental info. Mobiliza- from among three designs at (804)286-3466. 20002; (202)547-7200. tion for Survival, 853 Broadway, PO. Box 531, Durham, NC 27701; 418S, New York, NY 10003. (919)688-8167

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SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 63 VOICES FROM THE PAST

When time came for my first beginners' class, I tore the This great profession big sheet from the Lawson Hardware calendar. I took the scissors from my drawer and sat in a semicircle with the — Jesse Stuart class. Every eye was upon me. I cut the numbers apart, told Jesse Stuart (1907-84), Kentucky poet, novelist, essayist, or asked what they were, and handed them to the children. and sheep rancher, was first ofall a teacher — a profession Then I cut the stiff backs of tablets into squares of approxi- he enteredjust shy of his seventeenth birthday. Many years mate size. Taking ajar of paste, I pasted one number to one later he published The Thread That Runs So True, a cardboard. Then I told the class to sit four to a seat (I had memoir dedicated "To the School Teachers of America." eight) and paste all the numbers and cardboard squares This excerpt begins in Lonesome Valley during his first together. month as a teacher. While I went on with my other classes these children were busy. When recess came they wanted more to do — had from the beginners to the eighth grade, all in one rather than go out to play. Some numbers were pasted side- room. Their ages ran from five to twenty. . . . The be- ways, but what did that matter? . . . / ginners were the most difficult of all to teach. I would I drew objects on the board with which they were bring my beginners up and teach them ABC's on the old familiar — apples, cups, balls, and stick-figures of boys dilapidated chart, used years and years before I came to and girls — in groups of one, two, three, and four. When Lonesome Valley. After I had gone over their ABC's with time came for the next beginners' class, I asked the chil- them, they went back to their seats and had nothing to do. dren to identify the objects, first by name, which I wrote They needed more attention than I could give them. Many above the object, then by number, which I wrote beneath of them fell asleep in the hot schoolroom. . . . it. They were so excited they sat on the edge of the recita- I knew how beginners had been taught in the Greenwood tion bench, their bare feet tapping nervously on the floor. County Rural Schools in the past. I knew because I had Then I reached for the stack of number cards and held them been a beginner in this same type of school. I had been up asking the class to name the number. I was surprised taught to read on this kind of chart, and I still knew every- they recognized so many. thing on it from memory. . . . The room was so quiet you could hear a pin fall. This When one of those little fellows I was trying to teach was something they had never done — had never seen done went to sleep, I let him sleep. What else was there to do? — but they recognized it as an interesting way to learn. What else could I do when I was trying to hear fifty-four This was play. classes recite in six hours, give them new assignments, Five years passed, during which Stuart finished high grade their papers? What else could I do when I had to do school and earned a college degree. Soon he was back in janitorial work, paint my [school] house, keep the toilets Greenwood County, the only teacher at Winston High sanitary, the yard cleaned of splintered glass and rubbish, School, a Tiber Valley school with 14 students. and try to make our school home more beautiful and more Often I walked alone beside the Tiber in autumn. For attractive than the homes the pupils lived in? . . . there was a somberness that put me in a mood that was akin [In the] morning when I got up, I was still trying to think to poetry . . . Then a great idea occurred to me. It wasn't of something to do with my beginners. I wanted to start to- about poetry. It was about schools. day. . . . I went early and walked slowly along by myself I thought if every teacher in every school in America and tried to think of a way. . . . could inspire his pupils with all the power he had, if he Then I started whistling. I walked along beneath the wil- could teach them as they had never been taught before to lows in the morning sun, whistling "The Needle's Eye...." live, to work, to play, and to share, if he could put ambition "The needle's eye that does supply, into their brains and hearts, that would be a great way to The thread that runs so true. . ." make a generation of the greatest citizenry America had What was the needle's eye'? What was the thread that ran ever had. All of this had to begin with the little unit. Each so true? The needle's eye, I finally came to the conclusion, teacher had to do his share. Each teacher was responsible was the schoolteacher. And the thread that ran so true for the destiny of America, because the pupils came under could only be play. Play. The needle's eye that does supply his influence. The teacher held the destiny of a great coun- the thread that runs so true. The teacher that supplied the try in his hand as no member of any other profession could play that ran so true? . . . Play. Play. Play that ran so true hold it. All other professions stemmed from the products among little children, little foxes, little lambs! My begin- of his profession . . . It was the gateway to inspire the na- ners should play. Their work should be play. I should make tion's succeeding generations to greater and more beauti- them think they were playing while they learned to read, ful living with each other; to happiness, to health, to while they learned to count! That was it! I had it. Play. brotherhood, to everything!D 64 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER Speaking For Ourselves WOMEN OF THE SOUTH

"The Southern woman's antheon Books and Southern Exposure present an exciting legacy of folktales, pcollection of essays, interviews, wisdom, and work poetry and fiction that recover the legacy of voices too long ignored. As experiences. • • • richly varied as patches in a quilt, these Frank and 40 pieces form a vibrant tapestry of revealing." Southern women's lives over the last half- century. Mothers and daughters, debu- — Kirkus Reviews tantes and sharecroppers, poets and steelworkers offer a fresh perspective on the classic themes of life in the South, and else- SAVE $2 by ordering where: work, family, race, sex roles, direct from Southern Exposure. Send $8.95 to identity, love, struggle. Buy a copy for P.O. Box 531, Durham, yourself and another as the perfect gift for your NC 27702. Or order mother, lover, co-worker or best friend. from your local book- store for $10.95.

SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES: Contents LEGACY: MOTHER RICH VVendy Watriss It's Something Inside You Mandy Benz Celebrate Emma Phaye Poliakoff Prostitution: Trying to Make a Living Dee Gilbert Memories of Our Foremothers Sarah Wilkerson Prostitution: Not No Easy Business Constance Garcia-Barrio Pipsissewa, Calamus, and Vivian M. Loken Tessa Pennyroyal Carmine Prioli Miss Elsie Riddick Ruthann Robson Genealogy Rayna Green The Bawdy Lore of Southern Women KEEPING MIND, BODY, AND SOUL TOGETHER Mattie Mae Nelson Tribute to My Husband Marilyn Sewell Dear Mary Catherine Lee Smith Paralyzed (fiction) LEGACY: GOOD TIMES AND GROWING PAINS Glenda Neel Pander My Grandmother's Gift Mesa Clay High Corn Shuckings, Fiddle Contests, Jennifer Miller Quilting Women Square Dances: Oral History with Lily May Ledford Joycelyn K. Moody Two Poems for Minnie's Boy Marie Stokes Jemison Growing Up Southern & Sexy Barbara Neely Spilled Salt (fiction) Mary Mebane Three Maxims in the Life of Mary Amelia Diaz Ettinger My Aunt Isadora (fiction) WHERE THE HEART IS Lee Howard The Rape of Dona Beverly Burch The Prodigal Child's Homecoming battle gossett swing through the south journal A WOMAN'S WORK: SHOULDER TO SHOULDER Ramina Y. Mays Delta (fiction) Clara D. Ford Mill Village Gloria Anzaldua A Letter to Third World Women Writers Margaret Jones Boisterli It Seems to Help Me Bear It Sara Evans Women's Consciousness and the Southern Luisah Teish Ole Black Emelda (fiction) Black Movement Melissa Hield Women in the Texas ILGWU, 1933-50 Anne Braden Shoulder to Shoulder FOR THE CHILDREN'S SAKE Victoria Morris Byerly Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls Christina Davis The Challenge Regina M.K. Mandrel! Are You Looking, Cousin Dell? Susan Bright Mock Trial Birthalene Miller The Lonesomes Ain't No Spring Picnic A WOMAN'S WORK: NEVER DONE (fiction) Sue Massek What She Aims to Be Liz Wheaton Queen of the Road Marat Moore Coal-Mining Women Maxine Alexander Listen!! Alma Blount If You Got Time to Lean, You Got Time to Mab Segrest Confessions of a Closet Baptist Clean Rebecca McCarthy There's Not a Child That Can't Learn