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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Vesta and Sam Finley, July 22, 1975. Interview H-0267. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Distribution of food for the strikers

During the strike, Sam oversaw the distribution of food. In this excerpt, he and Vesta describe how they raised the necessary food and money and then dispersed it among the strikers.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Vesta and Sam Finley, July 22, 1975. Interview H-0267. 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

SAM FINLEY:
People with farms out in the country, they'd donate a lot of vegetables. And we even tried to have a beef once every two weeks, a whole beef. They were routing money and clothing sent in from, oh, all over.
MARY FREDERICKSON:
How many people were you feeding, usually?
SAM FINLEY:
I don't recall. There were way up close to a hundred. And some was pretty large families. We didn't live too high on the hog [laughter, Vesta Finley] , but we had food.
VESTA FINLEY:
Had plenty of vegetables, not too much beef-I mean meat-except, well I had plenty of what you call fatback, pork you know. But I guess the people had as much or more than they was used to eating anyway.
MARY FREDERICKSON:
Were you successful in raising money? Did people respond very. . . .
VESTA FINLEY:
Oh yes. Yes; I did have a list here of the locals that we visited. But we always had money, got money. They were very generous to help. Then we told the story, you know, of what was happening down here and how people'd been thrown out of work because they joined the union. And of course people in the North was already organized and knew the benefits of having the right of collective bargaining between management and labor, you know. So, we really . I mean, we made money; they was very generous in helping.