Moranda Smith
Moranda Smith was a black labor organizer and unionist who served as the first regional director of Winston-Salem, North Carolina's local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America (FTA) in the 1930 and 1940s.
Career
[edit]Born of a sharecropping family in South Carolina, Smith led thousands of Winston-Salem workers to win $1,250,000 in back pay in the leaf houses and stemmeries. In 1943, after a Black worker fell dead at a Reynolds Tobacco Company plant, Smith, along with thousands of other Black women, participated in a spontaneous sit-down leading to a massive walkout forcing Reynolds to temporarily shut down.
Her leadership at the local 22 saw a 50% rise of minimum wages. The union also increased voter registration in the area, leading to the election of the first Black alderman in the South. Throughout her career as a unionist, Smith worked extensively, "openly defying" the Ku Klux Klan.[1]
Personal life
[edit]Smith died in 1950 at the age of 34, "the strain of her activities seeming to be a major cause."[2]
References
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- African-American trade unionists
- 20th-century African-American women
- 20th-century African-American people
- American women trade unionists
- Trade unionists from North Carolina
- People from Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- 1910s births
- 1950 deaths
- African-American women activists
- American women activists
- American activist stubs