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The betterment of the lot of the tobacco workers had long been his determination. When a child, every day when the quitting whistle blew, he would take his post in front of the store and bid "good evening" to the hurrying line of workers till the last straggler had passed. 

The tobacco workers were the most exploited of all the local working people. The Giant Export Leaf Plant employed great numbers of cripples, old folk and mere children. The worked ten and twelve hours a day for as little as a dime an hour in steam-filled, dust-beclouded, dark cavernous sheds. The foreman was invariably some sadistic white-supremacist who delighted in driving and screaming at the workers as though he was some overseer on a slave plantation. Following the long blast on the evening whistle, the workers would pour of of the factory with loud cries and laughter - glorying in the end of another day endured in spite of "Mr. Charley." They were joyful to taste the fresh air and empty their lungs of the foul tobacco dust of the factory, if only for a little while. 

The Whole Community Joins In

Inside the factor there were rules against laughing, and rules against talking, and rules against getting up from one's stool, and rules - and rules - and rules. So once out on the streets the workers would laugh and shout to one another at the top of their lungs. The younger ones would indulge in horseplay in the streets, sometimes stopping traffic. Often the women workers would link their arms and march six abreast down the sidewalk. 

Yes, after the closing whistle blew, for ever so little a while, the street belonged to the workers. The swinging strength of their numbers gave them the power before which all else had to give way. So, down the streets they would come, the strong helping the lame and the sick, bearing great loads of barrel staves and boxwood chips on their heads--firewood for their cold flats. Their shoulders would be draped about with burlap sacks against the chill wind which tore at their thin garments. 

My husband helped organize these workers at the Export Leaf Factory of the British-American Tobacco Company, and led them 

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in a strike struggle which resulted in a union victory and a substantial improvement in all of their wage and working conditions. 

Following on the heels of this victory in 1938, contracts were won and strikes were conducted at several other plants. In one of the strike struggles - at the I.N. Vaughn Plant - my husband was brutally assaulted by the police and arrested. Over a score of workers were also arrested and may were beaten during this long and hard-fought strike. Nevertheless, in the end the workers won recognition for their union. 

All of these union organizing activities were financed by the local efforts of the workers. They had formed a network of committees which made collections on street corners and canvassed house to house; they impressed the ministers into taking special collections at their churches for the strikers; local merchants were waited upon by committees of workers to make contributions of foodstuffs, to extend credit and other services. The whole community was involved in making that fight of the tobacco workers for a decent wage from the giant Wall Street-London Corporation a success. The initiative taken, the success achieved by the tobacco workers gave a new confidence to all sections of the Negro people and inspired a wave of struggles among the white workers as well. (There hadn't been a big strike in Richmond since the Street Car Strike of 1903.)

The Negro teachers rapidly built up their organizations in a determined struggle for equal pay. 

Big movements unfolded in support of the demands for cheap public housing. 

The movement for the right to vote developed with a new burst of energy. 

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