In the lead-up to International Working Women’s Day, the Working People’s Press intends to feature the stories of two significant women from the early history of the American labor movement. The following is a brief introduction to the life and work of Ella May and is far from extensive.
At Loray Mills in Gastonia, at what is currently a luxury apartment complex, sits the site of one of the most militant strikes in American history. The Loray Mills strike of 1929, which saw close to two thousand workers at the largest textile mill in the world, persevered against severe repression from both the company that owned the mill and the police. Ella May, motivated to fight for a better life for herself, her family, and her coworkers, quickly became one of the leading figures in the strike. May fought not just for better wages and working conditions, but also against the oppression of women and Black people. For her fight for a better world, she was murdered by agents of the state looking to put an end to the strike of thousands of workers.
Ella May was born into a poor logging family in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee in 1900. Logging was dangerous work, and her father, along with several of her siblings, died from work-related incidents. At that time, textile mills were moving from the Northeast to the South to exploit the cheaper wages and child labor that existed in the South. Gaston County, North Carolina, was home to many of these new textile mills, including the now infamous Loray Mill, which was the largest in the entire world. In 1920, Ella May and her husband moved to North Carolina in search of the supposed security and better pay that the mills claimed to offer. She worked at several different mills in hopes of finding improved working conditions and wages, but was only met with the same at each long, grueling shift for little pay. Eventually, she began working permanently at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City.
Ella May had nine children, and despite being able to afford medicine for whooping cough, she lost four of her children from it. During the Loray Mills strike, she would speak about having to choose between a job and caring for her sick children.
“I’m the mother of nine. Four of them died with whooping cough, all at once. I asked the super to put me on the day shift, so I could tend ’em, but he wouldn’t… So I had to quit my job and then there wasn’t any money for medicine… I never could do anything for my children, not even keep ’em alive… That’s why I’m for the union, so I can do better for them.”
Ella May’s husband was an alcoholic and would frequently disappear for days, often taking the little money she made with him. In 1926, he left and did not return. Ella May was a single mother working the overnight shift at the mill six nights a week, sixty hours a week, for only a couple of dollars each week. Each night she’d have to put her children to bed, work a ten-hour shift under terrible working conditions, then return home and tend to her family.
In 1929, the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU), a Communist union that was part of the newly formed Trade Union Unity League, began working to organize mill workers in Gastonia. Union leaders Ellen Dawson and Fred Erwin Beal began meeting with workers. On March 31st, workers at Loray Mill organized a general meeting led by the NTWU, where union organizers asked the mill workers if they wanted to go on strike. Every hand shot up. The next day, 1,800 workers at the largest textile mill in the world went on strike. They demanded a weekly wage of $20, equal pay for women, a 40-hour work week, and union recognition. The news of the strike at Loray Mill spread rapidly amongst mill workers in the region, and on the same day, workers at several other mills walked out, including American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City where Black and white workers, typically separated, walked out in unity. Ella May was one of the first workers to walk out in American Mill No. 2 and joined the National Textile Workers Union that same day.
Ella May became a leader among the strikers and the union, frequently seen walking the picket line with her children. She spoke at rallies and also used her skills as a singer-songwriter to uplift spirits and maintain morale during the strike. One of her songs, Mill Mother’s Lament, opens with the lines, “we leave our home in the morning, we kiss our children good-bye, while we slave for the bosses, our children scream and cry.” Ella May understood the need for the workers’ struggle to be intertwined with the struggle for Black liberation. She would work to organize Black workers into the union along with combating racism within it. During one union meeting in 1929, Black workers were asked to sit in a segregated section, and in protest, May sat with them.
Loray Mill strikers were met with intense repression and attempts to break the strike by police and the mill owners. Union leaders, including Ella May, were frequently arrested on bogus charges. Manville-Jenckes, the Rhode Island company that owned the Loray Mill, evicted over 200 families from their company-owned homes. In response, NTWU established a tent city, which anti-strike vigilantes destroyed with support from the local police. A second camp was soon built and guarded by armed strikers. On June 7th, police attempted to force their way into the encampment. This led to a shootout in which Gastonia police chief Orville Aderholt was killed. The death of Aderholt led to increased violence against strikers, often led by supervisors at the mill.
Despite there being no evidence, eight strikers and eight NTWU leaders were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder over the death of Aderholt. On September 9th, a mistrial was called. In response to this, angry mobs of businessmen and mill supervisors attacked union organizers and offices in Charlotte, Gastonia, and Bessemer City. Several days later, on September 14th, Ella May alongside other NTWU members were driving to a rally in support of the charged union leaders when dozens of anti-strike vigilantes began following their car. One vehicle full of vigilantes was able to force the truck May was in to stop. They vigilantes surrounded the truck, and one of them pulled out a gun and shot and killed Ella May.
May’s funeral was attended by hundreds of union organizers and mill workers. Five men were charged with Ella May’s murder and there were over fifty eyewitnesses who testified against them; but the jury gave them a not guilty verdict. The Gaston Gazette painted May’s murder as justified, framing it as insignificant “when compared with the lawlessness of the communists at Loray.” Ella May became a symbol for the labor movement of the 1930s, celebrated in books, newspapers, and rallies. Today, she remains a shining reminder to us of the courageousness, strength, and sacrifice required of those fighting to build a better world.
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