Moranda Smith
{{Short description|American union organizer}}
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
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.{{Cite book|title = Contributions of Black Women to America Volume II|last = Davis|first = Marianna W.|publisher = Kenday Press, Inc.|year = 1982|location = Columbia, South Carolina|pages = 123, 124}}
Personal life
Smith died in 1950 at the age of 34, "the strain of her activities seeming to be a major cause."{{Cite book|title = Black Women in White America|last = Lerner|first = Gerda|publisher = Pantheon Books|year = 1972|location = New York|pages = 257}}
References
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Category:African-American trade unionists
Category:20th-century African-American women
Category:20th-century African-American people
Category:American women trade unionists
Category:Trade unionists from North Carolina
Category:People from Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Category:African-American women activists
Category:American women activists
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