between the magnolias

Flannery eccentrics vs. Welty eccentrics.

I like to classify Southern eccentrics into two groups: Eudora Welty eccentric or Flannery O’Connor eccentric. If you are a Welty eccentric, your sister is called something like Cattie Paw because her name is Katherine and she walks quietly. If you are O’Connor eccentric, your sister is called Trampasaurus Oceanus because she gets around during Fleet Week. Welty eccentrics may leave a family dinner to go sit in the woods and sketch lichen. O’Connor eccentrics leave a family dinner after announcing they’ve ended the affair with the Methodists’ choir director to move to Hilton Head with the Piggly Wiggly produce manager and his spiritual guru.

In case y’all missed it, over in Union City, Tennessee a man assaulted his momma with a ham. Yeah, he shanked her. Now, the alleged ham chucker said he indeed did throw that ham, but was not expecting his momma to be walking down the hall and get smacked by his lofting of the pork. I’m sorry, but you don’t go willy nilly throwing ham around without hitting something unless it’s a spiral sliced ham. Then obviously it’s going to cut to the right and miss momma altogether. I know that assault with smoked meats can happen anywhere, but there’s just something so Southern Gothic about knocking momma out with dinner. And let’s face it, in the South, that’s the only way you’re gonna knock your momma out with dinner because your sweet potato pie will never be as good as hers. I don’t know what kind of eccentric that makes our ham-handed assailant. I’m leaning more towards O’Connor eccentric because the government-owned buildings Miss Eudora’s characters inhabit tend to be more of the post office persuasion than the jail persuasion.

Susan Wilson, "Embracing My Inner Flannery"

From company town to labor rights precedent: Brownville, Alabama.

The dying town of Brownville, Alabama contributed more than wood poles to American history. I found an article in the Spring 1994 issue of Southern Historian detailing the role of Brownville in the labor rights movement. Jon Chalmers' insightful "Pickets in the Woods: The Strikes and Conciliation Behind Thornhill v. Alabama" (pp. 68-77) concludes that the interests of local Brownville workers "were sacrificed so that the national union could win a great victory" in Thornhill v. Alabama.

Chalmers surveys how Brownville was the "birth place" of the Thornhill decision, the first U.S. Supreme Court Case where picketing was recognized as a constitutionally protected free speech activity. Essentially, Thornill set the precedent that federal and state action restricting the picketing process must not infringe on the constitutional right of free speech. Picketing was determined to be a form of speech. 

At the time, the governing Alabama Code of 1923 contained a section 3448 which made picketing on the job a violaton of the Code. The events that culminated in the Supreme Court case began in 1937, when all 96 members of the Creosoters Local 19974 refused to work. Of the 100 men working in the plant at this time, 96 were union members. Since only four men were left to work, this strike shut down the plant.

In particular, the workers wanted the following:

• a pay raise for all those making $0.30 per hour to $0.34 per hour
• a 20% increase for all those making $0.35 per hour
• an eight-hour day
• four holidays per year
• time and one-half for overtime

The Tuscaloosa courts ordered the union to comply with the state Code and stop the strike. Judge Henry Foster of Tuscaloosa provided an injunction against the picketing. An arbitration produced agreement by both parties to a 10% general wage increase with no mention of the other labor demands. Later that year, the company fired fourteen of the Creosoter's Local 19974 leaders and imported workers from a Brown railroad subsidiary into the Brownville plant. The imports were making $0.22 per hour as opposed to the agreed company minimum of $0.28 per hour.

The union leaders requested intervention by the US Conciliation Service, a forerunner of the Meditation and Conciliation Service dedicated to defusing labor-management conflicts. By the time J.C. Howard arrived in Tuscaloosa, the union had ordered another strike. Howard stepped into a mine field. The union hired the Tuscaloosa firm of Mayfield & Mayfield, and James Mayfield immediately challenged the injunction against picketing that was issued the previous spring.

The local contended that the injunction applied only to the strike of the last spring while the company held that it was still binding. The company was represented by Hyman Rosenfeld and Judge Fleetwood Rice... The hearing on its merits was put off until December 20.

On December 9, 1937, 38 workers were arrested for contempt. While the strikers admitted they were picketing in violation of the injunction, they insisted that they were peaceful and had a right to picket. These 38 workers were fired for violating the injunction. The strike was resolved by mediation, but the labor battle was far from over.

Byron Thornhill, the leader of the local union, was again arrested for picketing. He was tried under the criminal provisions of Section 3448, and found guilty. James Mayfield began preparing his case for the US Supreme Court, since he knew the state courts could lean towards ruling in favor of the prohibition in the state code. 

At first, Mayfield planned to challenge the injunction as a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. But the NLRA determine that "creosoting was not a large enough industry to warrant fair working conditions and wages". In other words, there weren't enough creosoting unions to force a national hand. Thornhill's case followed a torturous route to lay foundation for future appeals that would take him and the picketing statute to the US Supreme Court. In the end, the anti-picketing statute was struck down as a violation of the constitutional right to free speech. 

But the Brownville Creosoters did not have their labor demands met. The reasons the strikes were called in the first place were never resolved.