Ella May Wiggins’ Lament
By Fay Mitchell
Ella May Wiggins stood beside the road one fine spring morning, she pondered just what to do with her life. The azaleas lining the road danced in the sun and presented a cheerfulness that belied the drudgery of her existence. She had tallied the pluses and minuses of her life and found more losses than gains. That’s why she stood by the road waiting for a ride to go learn about and maybe join a union. That was a dangerous thought in North Carolina in 1929. She had no idea she would become a martyr.
She was 28 years old and tired of working six days a week, 12-hour days, for nine dollars weekly. She identified herself as Ella May after her husband, Johnny Wiggins, abandoned her after the birth of the last child. She was tired of the two-room shack where she lived in Stumptown, the black part of Bessemer City. She was tired of feeding her four remaining children biscuits and fatback, and not being able to give them proper medicine when they were sick, or even to get time off from working nights to take care of them. She had already lost two children to whooping cough and infection. She worried that the others, and the child yet in her womb, would fare no better. She was seeking a light for her life and theirs, and the only glimmer seemed to come from the union. As she left home that morning, the father of her unborn child warned her that union activity could cost her life. He was right.
Gaston County, North Carolina, was the textile manufacturing capitol of the South in the 1920s, and Loray Mill was the county’s largest employer. After hours were increased and wages were cut, 1,800 of Loray’s 2,000 workers staged a strike. The National Textile Workers Union(NTWU) part of the American Communist Party, set its sights on organizing at Loray to start a movement in the South. The American Mill where Ella worked in nearby Bessemer City staged a spontaneous walkout and joined the union. She emerged as a strong leader of the American Mill unionists. Union leaders noted her “unusual intelligence” while the locals could relate to her plain spokenness compared to the Northern and foreign accents of union organizers.
Ella May was a leader for the Loray workers as well. She spoke the workers’ language and sang their songs. Her ballads made her stand out, at a time when people shared information and stories through ballads. The conditions and the people were the subjects of her songs. Her best-known tune, “The Mill Mother’s Lament” was later sung by Woody Guthrie and recorded by Pete Seeger. She sang it while meeting with senators in the hallways of Congress.
The union advocated equal treatment for all workers, black and white, a stand that Ella May endorsed. She saw her life in the lives of the black mill workers; some were her dear friends. Many Southerners found the ideals of union leaders, outsiders and communists, to be repugnant and un-American.
It was a volatile time. A mob tore down the NTWU headquarters in Gastonia, and nine union workers were arrested. A textile company evicted more than 60 families from mill houses. Ella May’s drinking well was poisoned. Deputies disrupted a rally and broke up a picket line. Later that same night there was a shooting at a tent city of the homeless workers where unionists and policemen were shot. The police chief was killed. Ultimately 16 workers were indicted, but when a mistrial was declared a mob terrorized and threatened to kill union members, then destroyed the Charlotte headquarters of the NTWU defense team.
The NTWU called for a rally of union people in Gastonia on September 14, but a crowd of 2,000 showed up to counter protest so the rally was called off. May and about 20 supporters loaded a truck and were on their way to Gastonia. They didn’t know of the cancellation and their truck, met by a small armed mob, was ordered to turn around and did. A car driven by one of the mob cut off the truck on its way back, causing a wreck that threw several union members into the street, but not Ella, who was standing in the truck bed when the rest of the mob arrived. The mob members got out of the vehicle and opened fire. She was hit by a single bullet.
“Lordy, they have shot me,” she reportedly said, then collapsed. It was no accident. Everyone knew Ella. She was 28, pregnant, and shot dead. She was fighting for her children but her children were sent immediately to an orphanage. Five Loray employees were indicted for her murder but no one was convicted. Along with Ella May, ITWU organizing efforts died in Gaston County. It would be 10 years before Federal laws gave life to some of what the textile workers wanted.
