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Bringing To Life The Voices Of The UNC Food Worker Strike

WUNC | By Frank Stasio,
Amanda Magnus
Published March 19, 2019 at 12:13 PM EDT
Students protesting during the 1969 UNC food workers' strike.
Students protesting during the 1969 UNC food workers' strike.

Fifty years ago, food services workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill went on strike for better wages and working conditions. The Black Student Movement supported the strike, which put a spotlight on labor and racial inequities at the university.

Host Frank Stasio talks about the 1969 UNC Food Workers Strike and a play it inspired, 'Voices from the Archives: The 1969 UNC Food Workers’ Strike,' with the plays director Kathy Williams and UNC Archivist Jennifer Coggins.

A new performance from Playmakers Repertory Company called “Voices from the Archives: The 1969 UNC Food Workers’ Strike” uses material from the Wilson Special Collections Library at UNC to tell the story of this strike.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Jennifer Coggins about how oral histories, archival documents and news accounts formed the basis for this performance. Coggins is a collections management and engagement archivist at UNC Archives in the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Kathy Williams also joins the conversation to share what it is like to turn first-person stories into a theatrical production. Williams is a member of the Playmakers Repertory Company, the director of the new production and a faculty member in the department of dramatic art at UNC.

 

Strike leaders Mary Smith (L) and Elizabeth Brooks (middle) stand with a young man during the 1969 UNC food workers' strike.
Credit Courtesy of UNC-Chapel Hill University Libraries
Strike leaders Mary Smith (L) and Elizabeth Brooks (middle) stand with a young man during the 1969 UNC food workers' strike.

“Voices from the Archives: The 1969 UNC Food Workers’ Strike” will be performed in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room in the Wilson Special Collections Library on Wednesday, March 20. The library also has an exhibition, called “Service, Not Servitude: The 1969 Food Workers’ Strikes at UNC-Chapel Hill” on view in the North Carolina Collection Gallery until May 31.

Copyright 2019 North Carolina Public Radio
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
Amanda Magnus
Amanda Magnus grew up in Maryland and went to high school in Baltimore. She became interested in radio after an elective course in the NYU journalism department. She got her start at Sirius XM Satellite Radio, but she knew public radio was for her when she interned at WNYC. She later moved to Madison, where she worked at Wisconsin Public Radio for six years. In her time there, she helped create an afternoon drive news magazine show, called Central Time. She also produced several series, including one on Native American life in Wisconsin. She spends her free time running, hiking, and roller skating. She also loves scary movies.
See stories by Amanda Magnus