- Title
- Public addresses and papers of Robert Gregg Cherry: Governor of North Carolina, 1945-1949
-
-
- Date
- 1951
-
-
- Creator
- ["Cherry, Robert Gregg, 1891-1957."]
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Public addresses and papers of Robert Gregg Cherry: Governor of North Carolina, 1945-1949
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Robert Gregg Cherry
xxxviii
1947, the flogging of an escaped convict in Halifax County later
in that same year, and the Dixiecrat movement of 1948.
In 1946 a strike on the Erwin Mills at Durham dragged on
for five months. State and Federal conciliators failed to effect a
settlement. Again and again negotiations broke down over some
minor detail after a general agreement had been reached. Gov¬
ernor Cherry finally decided that the strike had lasted long
enough. He personally telephoned Emil Rieve, president of the
Textile Workers’ Union of America, in New York City, and
William H. Ruffin, vice president of the Durham mill, and asked
them to meet him in Raleigh to talk things over. He wanted to
see just these two head men for the opposing forces, no one else.
The two men came to Raleigh, the governor talked with them
briefly, and then he gave them the conference room in the
Justice Building and asked them to stay there in a private ses¬
sion — just the two of them — until the strike was settled.
The two-man meeting dragged on and on. It went into a sec¬
ond day. On the second night when midnight approached, the
governor strolled into the Justice Building. Gathered there in
the outer rooms were aides, legal advisors, and top rankers on
both sides — waiting for some word. The governor had his pleas¬
antries with this crowd, told a joke or two, and went on into
the conference room. He sat down with Rieve and Ruffin and
announced that he would stay there until a settlement was
reached.
From that point it took the union and the mill 20 minutes to
end the strike.
In 1947 he acted with sternness and vigor when it appeared
that North Carolina’s good record in race relations had been
broken because of an attempted lynching in Northampton
County. He immediately dispatched the State Bureau of Inves¬
tigation into Northampton to ferret out those responsible for
snatching a Negro from jail. It was disclosed that seven white
men were involved and evidence was gathered against them
and presented before a grand jury in that county.
When the Northampton grand jury refused to indict the men
Governor Cherry made nation-wide headlines by digging up a
54-year old statute and assigning a Superior Court judge sitting
as a committing magistrate to conduct a hearing into the case,
and to send it to a grand jury in an adjoining county. The men
were indicted, but in a later trial were found not guilty. Resent¬
ment of the governor was tremendous in that area of the state.
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