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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Roger Gant, July 17, 1987. Interview C-0127. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Everett Jordan protected his mill with machine guns on the roof in the 1930s

Roger Gant remembers seeing machine guns atop Everett Jordan's mill in the 1930s. Jordan wanted to protect the mill from flying squadron attacks.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Roger Gant, July 17, 1987. Interview C-0127. 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

ROGER GANT:
My first exposure to Everett Jordan was back in the depression years when the flying squadrons were coming to the textile mills in the south and trying to vandalize them. The situation was so severe and dangerous that my father put all five of us children in the car one day and drove us to Saxapahaw to see machine guns sitting on the corners of the roof of that mill behind sandbags to protect that mill from the vandalism from the flying squadrons. It was a very dramatic situation which my father recognized, and of course Everett did too. But that mill had been threatened and he had called for help from the National Guard to protect his property. That was an indication that the man believed in individual rights and believed in protecting them. He wasn't going to let somebody run over him. I didn't know him at that time but in my minds eye I can still see that machine gun emplacement on the end of the mill closest to the bridge.
BEN BULLA:
Was that in 1930 or 31?
ROGER GANT:
I don't remember; I was a little boy.
BEN BULLA:
When were you born?
ROGER GANT:
1924.