Lewis Cameron (l), President of IAM (International Association of Machinists) Local W 369, and worker at the Moncure plywood plant, and Melvin Monford, Business Agent for IAM-Wood division, speak at a public presentation at CDS on April 29, 2009. Photograph by Nick Pironio.
public presentation
April 29th, 6:30 p.m.
Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University
Undergraduate students in the CDS class, “Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South,” will present the story of the recent strike at the Moncure, North Carolina, plywood factory — as told by the workers themselves. Nearly 120 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local W369 were on strike 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from July 20, 2008, to March 31, 2009, for their what they saw as their basic human rights. New management demanded a 60-hour workweek, increased health insurance premiums, and the elimination of seniority, but a deeper look at the situation reveals that the strikers, most of whom were African Americans, were protesting racial injustice as well. Through the excerpts of Moncure Plywood workers’ personal histories and other research, the “Behind the Veil” class will illuminate the long history and stormy present of the ongoing struggle for racial and economic justice amongst African Americans in the South.