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Oral History Interview with Mareda Sigmon Cobb and Carrie Sigmon Yelton, June 16 and 18, 1979. Interview H-0115. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

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The Gastonia Strike of 1929

Though Cobb was not in Gastonia during the 1929 strike, she did know key figures such as Police Chief Orville F. Aderholt, and she asserts that the strikers did not kill Aderholt—the other police did. Following Aderholt's murder, all the strike leaders in Gastonia were arrested, greatly reducing the organization and power behind the movement.

About this Excerpt • Citing this Excerpt • Full Text of the Excerpt

About this Excerpt

Interviewers	Jacquelyn Hall
	Patty Dilley
Interviewees	Mareda Sigmon Cobb
	Carrie Sigmon Yelton
Excerpt Length	0:01:12
Start Time	02:13:56
Stop Time	02:15:08
Subjects	Southern Politics > LEGAL SYSTEM > Law Enforcement: State and Local Piedmont Industrialization > UNIONS AND WORKPLACE ADVOCACY > Employer Harassment and Violence Piedmont Industrialization > UNIONS AND WORKPLACE ADVOCACY > Organized Labor General > MEMORY > Assessments of Social Movements
Excerpt People	Aderholt, Orville F. Lowdermilk, Glenn Armstrong, Earl
Excerpt Places	Gastonia, Gaston, NC

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Mareda Sigmon Cobb and Carrie Sigmon Yelton, June 16 and 18, 1979. Interview H-0115. 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

JACQUELYN HALL:: Were you in Gastonia during that 1929 strike, the Gastonia Strike?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: No, I was living in Hickory at that time.
JACQUELYN HALL:: Did you know any of the people involved in it?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: Oh, yes, I knowed Addie Holt and all of them that got killed. Addie Holt didn't get killed by the strikers; he got killed by the cops.
JACQUELYN HALL:: Is that right?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: Yes. That's what everybody in Gastonia... Greedy. Somebody wanting a job. It was almost proved one time.
JACQUELYN HALL:: Do you know anybody that's still around that was involved in that strike that we might could talk to?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: No, I don't.
ALVIN YELTON:: Oh, you do. You know Glenn Lowdermilk.
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: Lowdermilk.
CARRIE SIGMON YELTON:: They're talking about Gastonia.
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: I'm talking about Gastonia. Addie Holt got killed.
JACQUELYN HALL:: How did you know him?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: I knowed he was chief of police of Gastonia.
JACQUELYN HALL:: You just knew him as the chief of police?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: Yes, I knew him. I knowed Earl Armstrong, the evangelist preacher down there. I knowed almost everybody down there.
JACQUELYN HALL:: How was Earl Armstrong involved in it?
MAREDA SIGMON COBB:: He wasn't involved in the strike.