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Storyline

UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996

The Black cafeteria workers who led the two walkouts of 1969, Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks among them, with the Black Student Movement as their ally, and the housekeepers who organised in the 1990s.

In briefUNC cafeteria workers struck twice in 1969 over pay and working conditions.

Read the 24 eventsAll storylines

33 works about UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 are indexed here.

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In the chronology

Episodes in this history, in date order. Each has its own page.

UNC foodworkers’ strikes, 1969Both walkouts of 1969: the February–March strike the Lenoir Hall cafeteria workers led, with Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks at its head and the Black Student Movement in support, and the November–December strike against SAGA Food Service The second UNC food workers’ strike, November 1969Eight months after the spring walkout the cafeteria workers struck again, this time against SAGA Food Service, the contractor that had taken over campus dining UNC housekeepers’ movement, 1991–1996The Housekeepers Association’s campaign for pay, respect, and a grievance process, settled in 1996

Other events in this storyline, in date order. See these 24 dated events in the chronology →

  1. UNC food workers' strike On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor. People: Mary Smith, Elizabeth Brooks, J. Carlyle Sitterson, Robert W. Scott, Julius L. Chambers, Preston DobbinsUNC Libraries: Foodworkers' Strike, I Raised My Hand To Volunteer
  2. Governor Scott orders Lenoir Hall reopened under Highway Patrol guard After Chancellor Sitterson closed Lenoir Hall on March 5 during the foodworkers' strike, Governor Bob Scott ordered it reopened, sent at least 50 state patrolmen to Chapel Hill and mobilized a National Guard unit in Durham. The dining hall opened the next morning with more than 40 riot-equipped troopers and about 25 Chapel Hill police at its entrances while as many as 300 people picketed. People: J. Carlyle SittersonSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 7, 1969, p. 1
  3. State troopers clear Manning Hall on Governor Scott's orders About 75 state troopers ringed Manning Hall, the striking food workers' headquarters, on the afternoon of March 13 after Governor Bob Scott ordered it vacated. Students left before police arrived, and a crowd of up to 1,000 then rallied on the steps of South Building. People: J. Carlyle SittersonSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 14, 1969, p. 1
  4. UNC hands campus dining to the SAGA Food Service contract Two months after settling the spring strike the University signed a contract with SAGA Food Services on May 19, 1969, ending its own management of campus dining. SAGA laid off many temporary and part-time workers within weeks, which set up the second strike that autumn.UNC Libraries: Foodworkers' Strike, I Raised My Hand To Volunteer
  5. UNC foodworkers strike a second time About 250 of UNC's 275 cafeteria workers, organized as the UNC Non-Academic Employees Union, struck SAGA Food Services on November 7, 1969 over pay, job reclassification, and the firing of workers for union activity. They voted on November 21 to affiliate with AFSCME, and the strike was settled in December after Ralph Abernathy visited the strikers and Black students from across the state threatened to converge on the campus. People: J. Carlyle Sitterson, Mary Smith, Elizabeth BrooksUNC Libraries: Foodworkers' Strike, I Raised My Hand To Volunteer
  6. Striking SAGA cafeteria workers vote 94 to 26 to join AFSCME In the strike's third week the full-time SAGA food service workers marched from a noon rally at Wilson Library to the Student Union and voted 94 to 26 for representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. SAGA's regional director said mediation with the union would begin that weekend. People: Elizabeth BrooksThe Daily Tar Heel, November 22, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
  7. Two union officials and a striking worker are arrested at Lenoir Hall; Chancellor Sitterson pledges to subsidize workers SAGA does not rehire On the strike's 24th day two union officials and a striking worker were arrested at Lenoir Dining Hall in the morning. Later that day Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson said the University would subsidize any workers SAGA did not rehire, after efforts to revive negotiations had stalled on the rehiring question. People: J. Carlyle SittersonThe Daily Tar Heel, December 2, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
  8. Police charge pickets at Lenoir Hall; nine are arrested and four hurt About 25 police charged a group of pickets and sympathizers at the north end of Lenoir Hall when they did not disperse. Nine people were arrested, including AFSCME official Gene Gore and a graduate student, and four were treated at Memorial Hospital. The next day Mayor Howard Lee announced that town police were being withdrawn from the strike scene. People: Howard N. LeeThe Daily Tar Heel, December 6, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
  9. Ralph David Abernathy joins the striking cafeteria workers in Chapel Hill SCLC president Ralph David Abernathy picketed with the striking SAGA workers behind Lenoir Hall, then told strikers, students and faculty gathered in the Carolina Union that he pledged them his support. He went on to South Building for a meeting with Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson and Mayor Howard Lee. People: J. Carlyle Sitterson, Howard N. LeeBlack Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), December 1969, p. 1
  10. Students stage LeRoi Jones's Dutchman as a benefit for the strikers A benefit staging of LeRoi Jones's play Dutchman, paired with original Black poetry read by UNC and Chapel Hill High School students under instructor John Holt, played two nights at the Community Church. The proceeds went to the striking cafeteria workers.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), December 1969, p. 4
  11. Nearly a thousand Black students rally at UNC for the striking cafeteria workers On what organizers called Black Monday, close to a thousand Black students from campuses across the state answered a call by the Black Student Movement and the statewide group BSUL to back the striking SAGA workers. The strike had been settled before dawn, so the afternoon rally by Lenoir Hall turned into a celebration, with talks by union organizer Jesse Eppes, Mayor Howard Lee and others. People: Howard N. LeeBlack Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), December 1969, p. 1
  12. The 31-day SAGA strike is settled Union and management reached a settlement on Monday morning and the workers approved the contract unanimously, returning to work the next day. The contract ran to June 30, 1970 and provided job classification, seniority, a minimum four-hour day, ten paid holidays, ten sick days, an end to split shifts and a no-strike clause; the University promised to find jobs for the more than 50 workers SAGA planned to phase out by February 1, 1970.The Daily Tar Heel, December 9, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
Show all 24 dated events
  1. Eight men charged during the cafeteria strike appear in Orange County District Court Howard Fuller of Malcolm X Liberation University, two of its students, AFSCME official Gene Gore and four others charged with disorderly conduct, riot, failure to disperse or interfering with officers during the strike appeared before Judge D. M. McLellan, who continued the cases to January 7, 1970 at the defendants' request.The Daily Tar Heel, December 11, 1969, p. 1 (OCR text)
  2. UNC moves its classroom and office cleaning staff to a 3:50 a.m. shift Late in the fall 1973 term the Physical Plant moved workers who clean classrooms and offices from a 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. day to a 3:50 to 11:50 a.m. shift. Assistant Vice-Chancellor John Temple cited efficiency; workers who could not adapt were offered other jobs, and some faculty voiced concern for the workers.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), February 1974, p. 3
  3. UNC housekeepers present grievances to the Physical Plant Thirty Physical Plant housekeeping assistants gave director Claude Swecker a list of grievances in Berryhill Hall, including the rehiring of Gene Alston, an organizer they said had been fired for organizing. On April 2 Swecker granted two concessions to about sixty housekeepers.The Daily Tar Heel, March 31, 1980, p. 3: Workers list grievances
  4. A Black physical plant worker is fired after refusing to remove a badge protesting racism A Black craftsman at the UNC Physical Plant was suspended and then dismissed after he would not take off a small badge reading Quiet, Racism at Work, which he wore to protest work overload and what he called racial tension and harassment that his complaints had not stopped. He filed a complaint to get his job back and, according to Black Ink, said Black craftsmen were kept from becoming supervisors.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), April 28, 1983, p. 5
  5. UNC Housekeepers organize for pay and respect UNC housekeepers formed the Housekeepers Association in 1991 and brought a class-action discrimination suit against the University over pay, advancement and treatment. Led by Marsha Tinnen and Barbara Prear, they signed a settlement with UNC on November 26, 1996, that brought raises, a career training program and monthly meetings with administrators.The Daily Tar Heel, November 27, 1996, p. 1: UNC, Housekeepers near end of legal battle
  6. UNC housekeepers take their grievances to the Campus Y cabinet Housekeepers, most of them Black women earning about $11,000 a year, asked the student groups at a Campus Y cabinet meeting to back their push for better pay and working conditions. Students for the Advancement of Race Relations and the Student Environmental Action Coalition took up their cause, and the housekeepers spoke at a Human Rights Week rally for Sonja Haynes Stone on November 4 to 8.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), November 11, 1991, p. 8
  7. Housekeepers and student allies hold a cook-out to publicize the housekeepers' demands UNC housekeepers, Students for the Advancement of Race Relations and the Student Environmental Action Coalition held a cook-out in November 1991 to make the housekeepers' demands public. Chancellor Paul Hardin later recalled buying lunch from the housekeepers in the Pit to show support.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), January 21, 1992, p. 6
  8. UNC housekeepers rally and file a step 3 grievance At a rally on January 22, 1992, the housekeepers turned in a step 3 grievance over pay and treatment; the associate vice chancellor for human resources, Laurie T. Charest, left before they finished, so it went to her secretary. The housekeepers named the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, the Black Student Movement, the Campus Y, the State Employees Association District 35 and other student groups as supporters, and attorney Alan McSurely represented them. People: Alan McSurelyBlack Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), February 4, 1992, p. 3
  9. UNC housekeepers hold a Unity Day celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. UNC housekeepers held a Unity Day dinner honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday, January 15, 1993. Black Cultural Center director Margo Crawford spoke on what King would say about their fight for decent wages and respect from supervisors, and the center's office manager played.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), February 10, 1993, p. 9
  10. More than 200 housekeepers and students march after a judge dismisses the housekeepers' grievance Two days after Wake County Superior Court Judge Henry Hight dismissed the UNC housekeepers' racial discrimination grievance, more than 200 housekeepers and students marched in protest. Arthur Kinoy of the Center for Constitutional Rights spoke, urging the housekeepers to keep up their fight.Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), March 28, 1994, p. 4
  11. Black town workers and UNC housekeepers march down Franklin Street on Labor Day More than 150 supporters of the Black Public Works Association and the UNC Housekeepers Association rallied on the steps of the post office and courthouse and marched down Franklin Street to the Hargraves Center. NAACP branch president Fred Battle opened the day; speakers raised pay, privatized hiring and training. People: Fred Battle, Alan McSurelyBlack Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), September 1995, p. 5
  12. UNC Housekeepers’ settlement is reached UNC administrators and leaders of the UNC Housekeepers Association signed a mediated agreement on November 26, 1996, meant to end the housekeepers' 5 1/2-year-old discrimination suit. Housekeepers had approved it 212 to 1; it included back pay for about 340 workers, a career training program and regular meetings with administrators.The Daily Tar Heel, November 27, 1996, p. 1: UNC, Housekeepers near end of legal battle

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 9Biography 5Interviews 4Photographs & portraits 4Periodicals 2other types 2

Period

20th century 10

Place

Chapel Hill 21North Carolina (statewide) 17Orange County 12

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991: interview L-0064-6, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sixth Pollitt interview, recorded March 21 and 22, 1991, by Ann McColl, about an hour long. Its single subject is the 1969 strike by food service workers at UNC, which Pollitt supported. He sets the strike in its local and national context, the labor and civil rights currents of the late 1960s, then follows how it unfolded among the workers, their union backers, the faculty and the university administration. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Strikes and lockouts -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Food service employees.

NC Cardinal UNC

I raised my hand to volunteer: students protest in 1960s Chapel Hill : an exhibit of the Manuscripts Department in the Wilson Library

Hollingsworth, Biff · 2007

Catalog of an exhibit mounted by the Manuscripts Department of Wilson Library from January 23 to May 31, 2007, on student protest in Chapel Hill during the 1960s. Topics include civil rights demonstrations, the Speaker Ban Law, the Black Student Movement, restaurant strikes and Vietnam War protests at the university. Compiled by Biff Hollingsworth, 59 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, published by the university library.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Library of Congress record: Strikes and lockouts -- Restaurants -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- History -- 20th century -- Exhibitions.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Oral history interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974: interview E-0062, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Davis, Ashley · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Strikes and lockouts -- Food industry and trade -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Brooks, October 2, 1974: interview E-0058, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Brooks, Elizabeth · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Elizabeth Brooks, a cafeteria worker at UNC and a leader of the 1969 food workers' strike, speaks in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded October 2, 1974, by Beverly Jones. Born in Caswell County, Brooks had made her home in Hillsborough since 1949 and raised nine children before her first paid job, at the university. She describes the strike, the Black Student Movement's support for the workers, and the response of Governor Robert W. Scott. Published online in 2006 in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Food service employees -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

It Wasn't Slavery Time Anymore: Foodworkers' Strike at Chapel Hill, Spring 1969

Williams, J. Derek · 1979

J. Derek Williams's 1979 study of the 1969 strike by cafeteria workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, examining a chapter in the university's labor and Black history. A typescript of 270 leaves with a bibliography.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Strikes and lockouts -- Food industry and trade -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

UNC

Progress and protests : UNC-Chapel Hill leaders during "the Long Sixties" (1957-1972) : covering chancellors William Brantley Aycock, Paul F. Sharp, and J. Carlyle Sitterson

Roundtree, Lynn · 2024 · Lynn Roundtree

Lynn Roundtree covers the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between 1957 and 1972 through its three chancellors, William Brantley Aycock, Paul F. Sharp and J. Carlyle Sitterson, set against the student movements of those years. Part of the Coates university leadership series, published by the author in 2024 and running to 926 pages. It is twentieth century campus history.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

UNC
Show 6 more

20th anniversary of the historic UNC housekeepers' agreement.

2016 · The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History

Commemorative booklet from the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History marking twenty years since the UNC housekeepers' agreement. Sixteen unnumbered pages with illustrations, facsimiles and portraits, published at Chapel Hill in 2016. Topics include the UNC Housekeepers Association, labor unions among housekeepers, and discrimination in employment at the university.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: UNC Housekeepers Association.

UNC

Oral history interview with Bob Scott, April 4, 1990 interview L-0193, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).

Scott, Robert Walter · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Robert W. Scott (1929-2009), North Carolina's governor between 1969 and 1973 and son of Governor Kerr Scott, interviewed by William Link on April 4, 1990 for the Southern Oral History Program. Scott discusses his student years at North Carolina State College in the early 1950s and his dealings with university president William Friday, including the food workers' strike at Chapel Hill, college integration, and the consolidation of the state's universities into the UNC System during his term. One hour thirty-seven minutes. Electronic edition 2007.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Strikes and lockouts -- Food industry and trade -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

We are all housekeepers

1996 · UNC Housekeepers Association

The newsletter of the UNC Housekeepers Association, dated 1996 and published in Chapel Hill by the association itself. Its subject is the living wage movement in the town, the campaign housekeeping staff at the university waged over pay and treatment. A serial.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: UNC Housekeepers Association.

UNC

The Records of William Clyde Friday, President of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, 1957-1972, and General Administration of the University of North Carolina, 1972-1986

Friday, William C. · 1991

Compiled in 1991, this catalog of the university archives covers William Clyde Friday's records from his presidency of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, 1957 to 1972, and from the General Administration of the University of North Carolina, 1972 to 1986. It is arranged as a guide to the archival record groups.

Included because: Its title names this subject.

Durham NC Cardinal

Women behind the lines.

1990

Documentary running twenty-six minutes on the 1969 food service workers' strike at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told through the women who carried it, among them Elizabeth Brooks and Mary Smith. Wages, discrimination in employment and the Black Student Movement on campus are among its subjects. Released in 1990 in color with black and white segments.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Food service employees -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

UNC

The coming of consciousness : UNC food workers' strikes, 1969

Meroney, Millicent · 1986

Millicent Meroney's 1986 Duke honors paper on the 1969 strikes by food service workers at the University of North Carolina, an episode in the town's race relations and its civil rights history. Eighty leaves of typescript with a bibliography, covering labor unions in food service, the strikes and lockouts themselves, and university employees at Chapel Hill.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Strikes and lockouts -- Food industry and trade -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

Duke

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