- Collection:
- Working Lives Oral History Project
- Title:
- Interview with James Nar Williams, 1983 March 2
- Creator:
- Williams, James
- Contributor to Resource:
- McCallum, Steve
- Publisher:
- Archive of American Minority Cultures
- Date of Original:
- 1983-03-02
- Subject:
- African American iron and steel workers--Alabama--Birmingham
Discrimination in employment--Alabama--Birmingham
Labor unions--Alabama--Birmingham
Strikes and lockouts--Steel industry--Alabama--Birmingham
Discrimination in restaurants--Alabama--Birmingham
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
Birmingham (Ala.)--Race relations - People:
- Williams, James--Interviews
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
Wallace, George C. (George Corley), 1919-1998
Black, Hugo LaFayette, 1886-1971 - Location:
- United States, Alabama, Jefferson County, Birmingham, 33.52066, -86.80249
- Medium:
- oral histories (literary works)
transcripts
sound recordings - Type:
- Sound
Text - Format:
- image/jpeg
- Description:
- In this interview, James "Nar" Williams talks about the various jobs he's held, especially working at the TCI steel mill, as well as discusses his views on segregation and the Civil Rights movement. Williams worked jobs in construction, as a brick mason, and for a railroad. For a period of years, he was a barber, even after they changed the law so that people couldn't get a licenses if they were working out of their homes. He did what he calls "bootleg barbering" and was arrested for it once. Williams spent most of his working life at TCI, first on a labor gang, then as a millwright's helper and finally a millwright. He describes the way blacks were kept from advancing. He also recalls how he dealt with racism on the job. He says whites "like you if you're a fool, and they hate you if you've got any sense." He didn't have any problem telling white men he worked with the truth instead of telling them what they wanted to hear. This attitude sometimes got him in trouble. His coworkers didn't like him because he wasn't "Uncle-Toming" like they were, but the big bosses respected his opinions. Williams describes the hiring process, and he also talks about a worker's retirement. On his last day, he would come to work dressed up and spend all day talking and not working, but still getting paid. He also recounts several accidents he saw. He talks about violence to "scabs" during union strikes and explains that in later years, the company ran a "closed shop," which meant that you had to join the union to be hired for a job. Williams ends by talking about segregation, especially with regards to eating. He talks about his opinions of Martin Luther King, Jr., George Wallace, and Justice Hugo Black, the latter of whom he says had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan but who was a fair judge who supported blacks.
Interviewed by Steve McCallum on March 2, 1983. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.libraries.ua.edu/cdm/ref/collection/u0008_0000003/id/50
- Language:
- eng
- Contributing Institution:
- William Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library
- Rights:
-
