- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with Elizabeth Brooks, October 2, 1974
- Creator:
- Brooks, Elizabeth
- Contributor to Resource:
- Jones, Beverly Washington, 1948-
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1974-10-02
- Subject:
- Strikes and lockouts--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
African American women--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Strikes and lockouts--Food industry and trade--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Food service employees--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Food service employees--Labor unions--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Food industry and trade--Employees--Labor unions--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Black Student Movement - People:
- Brooks, Elizabeth
Scott, Robert Walter, 1929-2009 - Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Orange County, 36.0613, -79.1206
United States, North Carolina, Orange County, Chapel Hill, 35.9132, -79.05584 - Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Elizabeth Brooks discusses her role in the UNC Food Workers Strike of 1969. Originally from Caswell County, North Carolina, Brooks had lived in Hillsborough since 1949. Prior to working for food services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brooks spent her time raising nine children. The job at UNC was her first, and she had only recently started to work in Lenoir Dining Hall when the first stage of the strike began in February of 1969. Although she was a new employee, Brooks was one of the leaders of the strike. Here Brooks focuses on the workers' grievances regarding the unexpected firing of employees, low wages, unrealistic demands on workers' time, and withheld back pay. After failed negotiations with the administration, Brooks and some of the other workers organized the strike with the help of Preston Dobbins and the Black Student Movement at UNC. Within a month, the initial demands of the strikers had been met, but Brooks's interview ends by looking towards the beginning of the second strike that occurred after SAGA took over food services for the university.
The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata. - Metadata URL:
- http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/E-0058/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on March 3, 2008).
Interview participants: Elizabeth Brooks, interviewee; Beverly Jones, interviewer.
Duration: 01:04:43.
This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.
Text encoded by Mike Millner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
