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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Ivey C. Jones, January 18, 1994. Interview K-0101. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Black workers have more opportunities after a buyout

Jones recalls one positive result of the buyout: black workers had more opportunity. White's former owners did not hire blacks for positions of importance.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Ivey C. Jones, January 18, 1994. Interview K-0101. 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

One thing I can say when White's was bought out was that there were more blacks put into positions than when White's own it. When White's Furniture Company owned it there were not that many blacks in supervisory positions at all. There were no blacks in management. There were no blacks in secretarial, to my knowledge, during the time I was at the plant. None whatsoever. When Hickory bought White's out I don't think they looked at things as a black and white issue. I think they looked at things like, if this guy can do the job, let's get him to do the job because we want production. We don't care about color or the way things have been run a hundred years ago. We want to make the green because that's what counts. If this guy can get it done, I don't care what color he is; as long as he can make us the green, that's the one we want on the job. I don't feel like it was that way at White's. I think they just basically had the ‘good ole boy’ attitude. That's the way they ran the company and that's the way it was. I think during the time I was there was only one black supervisor and he was in the stock room. He was a stock clerk. Later on they had one black supervisor that was in shipping. When Hickory bought out then they started having some black supervisors, but before then that wasn't even thought about.