Awful tough to organize, and they did call on me … They did not call on
the community for support, they did enlist the white citizens council in
their campaign, they did call on this jack legged preacher, … here this
guy, what's his name, George Heaton, calls himself an industrial
psychologist. He is a former Baptist preacher who would go into a place
where you were organizing and after the company had pitched a party and
got the workers about half drunk, he'd come in a preach a sermon, you
know. You had those kind of things, and you had them in all industries.
You had it over in the Vickers campaign in Jackson, Mississippi, You had
the company, with the aid of the people in the community, putting out a
picture of Jim Carey dancing with a beautiful black woman, who was, I
believe, the wife of some Ambassador from an African country, They used
all that stuff, and they used
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fundamentalists, anti-union publications. There is not a lot of
difference in the industry down here. You can't pick out one and say it
didn't use a racial thing and the other one did. They all used it. They
all use the same tactics, the same lawyers, the same tricks to try to
beat the union, and you learn from all of them. That is why it was not
difficult to switch gears five times in a day … talking about a Stevens
campaign, you are talking about a steel mill campaign, a furniture
campaign, a packing house or an assembly plant, or an electrical
plant—not that much difference. People that work in these plants all
have the same hopes and dreams whether they are black or white or female
or male or young or old.