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Abstract

In Marion, North Carolina, the local residents of the city and surrounding region have forgotten a tragic strike that took place at one of the local mills in 1929, though it was possibly the deadliest textile mill strike in the South. The strike, which officially took place between July 11, 1929 and October 2, 1929, was in response to inhumane labor practices and unsatisfactory pay. While the strike was supported by the United Textile Workers, it was primarily organized by the local strikers who were unhappy with their working conditions. While the UTW was not affiliated with the Communist Party, and the strikers in Marion were decidedly anti-communist, past and present criticisms of the strike revolve around the inaccurate perception of the strikers being led by communists, which turned their neighbors against them. The strike ended on October 2, 1929, when a group of deputies fired into a strike-line, killing six men and injuring an untold number of others. Rather than reconcile and heal from this event one could call the residents of the town, including the mill workers, experts at forgetting. Shame, misinformation, and an unease toward perceived communist ties have fueled this forgetting fire. Not only has this event been ignored in local history, but it also is missing from the study of labor history, labor in the South, and the history of resistance in Appalachia.

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