The Black Student Movement and conditions paving the way for the food workers' strike
Davis discusses the nature of the Black Student Movement (BSM) and conditions for the cafeteria workers when he arrived at University of North Carolina in 1968. Davis explains how Preston Dobbins, a leader of the newly forming BSM, had worked to hire Otis Light to work with service workers on campus. By 1968, poor working conditions and lack of opportunity for moving into management had begun to take there toll on the cafeteria workers. These things combined, according to Davis, generated conditions conducive for a strike.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974. Interview E-0062. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
But
let me just say this, I came to Carolina in the fall of 1968, and
already you could tell that we were going to get into a lot of things
that were coming up, you know, with BSM activity. And I think that at
that time, Black student movements thrived a little more on controversy.
That seemed to be a binding place for black
kids, for controversy. It's a lot different than I say it is
now, because it didn't have all the programs that it has now,
that can keep people busy anyway. There was no choir, no nothing, no
this and that. At that time, just an organization. And at that time, the
political atmosphere was very high. Well, right after I had been here
awhile, too, if I remember what happened correctly, what happened was
there had been some funds… and like I say, this is what I
know, and there might be something else…that some people in
the Sociology Department had gotten together and people with BSM,
Preston Dobbins, I believe, had gotten together some funds and hired a
guy by the name of Light here in Chapel Hill, Otis Light…I
think it was Otis that did it…who worked with the cafeteria
workers. Now, the cafeteria workers and the janitorial workers and other
workers here had considered a strike. They were disastisfied. The
situation was that in the cafeteria at that time, the University was
running it, it was highly inefficient. It was obvious to everybody that
it was inefficient. I mean, you come up for a soda, you'd
have one black lady to dip the ice, hand it to one black lady to put the
soda in and then give to one black lady at the counter and
she'd give it to you. This kind of thing. I mean that it was
really just prone to problems. But this was due to mismanagement by the
University, from my understanding by talking to workers prior to the
strike and all, they had had prisoners, for a few
guys that had just gotten out of prison and stuff, hired as managers in
the cafeteria system and all. And these guys would call the ladies
names, just treat them generally like dogs.
- RUSSELL RYMER:
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When did Otis start…
- ASHLEY DAVIS:
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Start working? Now, my problem here is that I get so confused
with my years. I think that the first strike was in the spring
of…
- RUSSELL RYMER:
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The first one here was in the spring of '69.
- ASHLEY DAVIS:
-
Right. I think that was in the spring of '69. Because this is
what I'm saying, Otis had started working in the fall of
'68.
- RUSSELL RYMER:
-
And when he started working, he was hired specifically to work
with…
- ASHLEY DAVIS:
-
…to work with the people. This is what I understand. Now, only
on one or two conversations did I run into this, this is what Otis was
hired to do. Just to work with them, helping them to get themselves
together and talking. O.K. Now, in this talk, I must emphasize that
there were two particular groups of workers who had high potential. The
Monogram Club, which was on campus over there where the Admissions
Office is now, groups of ladies that worked down there, very active and
outspoken. And then you had a group of ladies who worked in the Pine
Room, and I think that this was the major center of the strike right
there. It started with these ladies in the Pine Room.
- RUSSELL RYMER:
-
Why were they more susceptible than others?
- ASHLEY DAVIS:
-
Well, because I tend to think that they had two or three combinations of
people down there who were…a Mrs. Smith, you'll
probably interview her…
- RUSSELL RYMER:
-
Well, I haven't, but…
- ASHLEY DAVIS:
-
Well, someone probably will…Mrs. Smith and some other ladies
down there, really seemed to be out with the system. They were actually
running the Pine Room and all. Mrs. Smith, I think, was ordering stuff,
she was generally doing the managing. What was happening was that these
ladies were managing the cafeteria system, but none of them were made
managers, you see. So, they had no black managers as such. They had four
managers, but the managers that they did have were kind of mean to the
ladies, talking mean and they were making people do all kinds of stuff,
like they would make you come to work and work four hours in the
morning, say from six to ten, split your day and then you would go back
to work from two to six. Now, that's an eight hour day, sure,
but what do you do from ten until two? You see, and what they
would do is just sit around from ten o'clock until two
o'clock, if they weren't working, because you had
to go back to work at two o'clock. Well, a lot of these
people lived in Durham. And I mean, these people, from my understanding,
wrote letters to people in the University and you get the same old bull
jive from people who would say, "Oh, yes, we
understand." But I think that the real situation was that the
people up in South Building, the Chancellor at that time, Chancellor
Sitterson, I don't think really had a hold on what was going
on with fiscal policy. With a school this size, a tremendous campus,
it's hard to keep a hold on what money is
being spent for. And the cafeteria was constantly losing money and so it
really got to where the workers were being oppressed, because the
cafeteria was losing money and so when Otis worked with the people
awhile, and so the people, Preston, and Preston told Jack and everybody
that the ladies were thinking about a strike. And they talked with
people who were in housekeeping early in the spring, late in the fall
and early in the spring, about going on a strike with them.