| Summary: | In this interview, Frank Sykes talks about recreation in the company camps, segregation, and discusses at length his job at an iron pipe plant and their attempts to organize a union. Sykes explains about company baseball teams, when they played and how companies would give good players a job so they would play for them. He says that the company also had a basketball team but no football because it was too dangerous. Sykes also talks about music in the camps, company bands and male choruses. He remembers popular quartets coming through Birmingham and recalls singing in quartets when he was younger. Sykes says he liked finally owning his own home, but the company housing was good because it was cheaper. He also discusses being one of the first residents in the Smithfield Housing Project. Sykes recalls segregation, how he didn't buck the system, believing that change would eventually come. He says he only had trouble out of the police once. He describes the early meetings of civil rights groups in churches. He adds that the pipe plant where he worked was segregated. Sykes describes the pipe plant, from the types of jobs available to the processes that went on in the plant, especially making core for pipes. He worked in that job occasionally but mostly just cleaned up the pipe room. He talks about the condition colloquially known as white eye. He discusses seeing an accident in the pipe shop once. He ends by talking about the workers' attempts to unionize the plant. The company had snitches, called "sand toters." The company never unionized because the company belonged in part to the workers. However, he says the workers never did get bonuses equal to that of those running the company.The digitization of this collection was funded by a gift from EBSCO Industries.
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