Cannon Mills and Kannapolis: Persistent Paternalism in a Textile Town

14. The Civil Rights Movement, Federal Interference and the Weakening of Paternalism

Chapter 14 The Civil Rights Movement, Federal Interference, and the Weakening of Paternalism The civil rights movement eventually had a major impact on Cannon Mills. President Kennedy demonstrated his support for civil rights in the workplace in 1961 by signing Executive Order 10925, which forbad discrimination in hiring and promotion for firms that worked on government contracts. This order became more important as the United States became more involved in the Vietnam War.1 It was estimated that the war resulted in forty-one thousand textile jobs and therefore the order gave the government leverage on black employment in the textile industry.2 The textile industry was hesitant to hire blacks for production jobs. Textile management had many reasons to be leery of changing the racial status quo in the mills. The industry believed that blacks were happy in their current jobs, blacks were not qualified for production jobs, and that some form of quota system would emerge from any change, resulting in reverse discrimination. Furthermore, management was concerned about the reaction of white workers to opening production jobs to black workers. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Montgomery bus boycott, support for segregation had increased in mill villages , including segregated Kannapolis.3 The percentage of blacks working in the textile industry had only increased to 3.3 percent, up from 2.1 percent in 1940. In 1962, a J. P. Stevens executive complained that the firm could not find qualified blacks for job openings in production. Other southern textile firms made the same claims. 176 @ The Civil Rights Movement, Federal Interference, and the Weakening of Paternalism Nevertheless, the lure of government contracts pushed textile firms to begin hiring blacks for production jobs.4 Cannon Mills began to hire black women for production jobs in token numbers. Corine Lythe Cannon was one of the first black women hired for production in 1962. She remembered the day she and another black woman reported to the supervisor’s office: “Good morning, come right on in.” He had us to sit down. Then he said, “This is something new and I have to admit I feel like it should have been done earlier, but this is the way it is.” He said, “I’ll tell you, you’ll be an example. Everbody [sic] is going to look at you.” . . . And he said, “You were chosen, Cannon Mills have seen so many black people and you were chosen .” And all this time he was standing with his back to us. He got up from the desk and turned his back to us and said, “This is new and try to make the best of it. You have been chosen and you are going to be an example.” And he stood like this with his back to us, looking out the window. I think he thought his face was going to be red because you could tell from his ears and neck were turning red.5 The hiring of the first black women for production jobs in the mill caused a problem for the company: Those few black women would not be allowed to use indoor restrooms (black men had a bathroom facility outside the mill called the “outhouse” by the black workers). Eventually, the textile firm built a new facility for black women workers. Corine Cannon described it as “a little house out there and on one side was ‘Colored Men’ and the other side ‘Colored Women.’”6 A greater problem for Cannon Mills was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which went into effect on July 2, 1965.7 The act mandated fair hiring practices regardless of race. Title VII of the act, SEC. 2000e-2 Section 703 b, states: It shall be unlawful employment practice for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, or to classify or refer for employment any individual on the basis of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.8 The segregated textile industry was now threatened. Twenty southern senators under the leadership of Richard Russell (D-Ga.), including North Carolina senator Sam Irvin Jr., had fought the legislation but to no avail.9 The Civil Rights Movement, Federal Interference, and the Weakening of Paternalism ^ 177 The NAACP focused on expanding the opportunities for black employment...