THANKSGIVING SERVICES—The paster, Rev. Donald R.
Ingram, officers and members of tho First Congregational
United Church of Christ, recently observed their 125 years
of spiritual development and growth. Durino the Service of
Praise and Thanksgiving, Dr. floin Russell, Conference
Minister of the Southern Conference United Church of
Christ, spoke on the title, “I Have Overcome The World.”
(Photo by James Giles)
Focus On
Wake Forest
BV KI.IZABKTH AKOIKH
JOBS AND THE WORKING
POORs FOCUS ON A
WAKE FORESTTIE
Because of the Thomas hearings
back in October of last year, I was
given many issues of the Washing
ton Post newspaper. Besides all of
the information obtained about
Justice Thomas and Anita F. Hill,
another important item from the
Post Foreign Service caught my eye.
The headline read, “Disfigured
Children, Distressed Parents...
Suit Filed Against U.S. Firm Over
Alleged Effects of Pollution in Mexi
can Border Region.”
Because I live in an area of farm
ing, where the way of life today is
hiring Mexican labor, especially to
farm tobacco, for the last three
summers, I’ve watched these “little
brown men” come into my very
community. Six or seven of them live
peacefully and quietly nearby for
about two and a half months, and
then they're off again to Mexico,
another year older and a few dollars
richer.
The news item talked about a
U.S.-Mexican free trade agreement
designed to multiply industrial ex
changes across the border.” The
story went on to say, “Foreign com
panies, most of them U.S.-based,
have opened nearly 2,000 cross-bor
der assembly plants, called maqui
ladora$, to take advantage of cheap
Mexican labor.”
Alawsuit has been filed in a Texas
district court just across the U.S.
Mexican border to spotlight the
down side of the new prosperity in
Mexican frontier towns.
On Sept 23,42 families filed suit
against the Mallory Capacitor Co.,
although the plant went out of busi
ness in 1977. In its wake, mothers
who bore children with deformed
limbs, learning deficiencies and
faces that make them look like vic
tims of Down's Syndrome had to live
with their boys and girls with whom
they had become pregnant during
their employment at the Mallory Co.
These mothers bore their pain in
private for more than 15 years, the
story stated. One mother said, “The
hard thing to put up with is that my
son will never be normal. He only
began to walk five years ago, when
he was 12, and still has to be cared
for like an infant.”
The mother said that as far back
as 1970, she and the other women
knew that they were affected by the
chemical wash for the capacitors,
which are used in television sets.
“Many of the several hundred
women who worked there fainted
regularly,” she said, and many were
euphoric from the fumes; one
Woman, 36, said that she spent a
week in a hospital after being over
come two months before getting
pregnant with her daughter, who at
18, still cannot speak. But, she said,
“No one complained because we
were afraid of losing our jobs.”
Have we forgotten the 25 lives
that were lost in the Hamlet fin? It
seems that no one there complained
either. They, too, I suppose, “were
afraid of losing their jobs.” I don’t
have time to fUrther tell you of the
unbridled industrial pollution and
untreated toxic waste—and accord
ing to the suit—“inhuman tragedy’
that’s being dumped in the Mexican
towns.
A Mexican anti-pollution activist
in Brownsville, Texas, just across
the border, said, “If they could do
what they’re doing in Mexico, they
wouldn’t have left. The wages, that’s
one huge incentive. But there’s that
other one too; getting away from the
regulation.” It seems that the “Ugly
American” isn’t all that slick, after
all, huh? *
The other week I took special joy
in listening to a stay from a resi
dent of Wake Forest that so re
minded me of the Mexican story that
I felt that I just had to tell you of it.
Doris Hartsfleld Harris is an at
tractive, fortyiah, well-dressed
woman who also has a very good
personality. I wondered why it was
that Doris was always home, re
gardless of the hour that I visited
her community. Being the ”no«y”
person thatlam,one daylaskedher
if she waked a not.
“No, I don’t wak because Tm a
disabled person,” Doris told me. I
found that hard to believe, because
Doris would always be in the street,
dressed beautifully in casual attire,
with everything matching. She al- f
ways called me “Archer” and was
indeed friendly. Fd told ha several
months ago that I’d like to do a
profile on ha. J
Like all ofthe other promises thati
Fve made, it has taken a very long f
time, but once Doris started telling
me ha story, I had to share it with
you.
“In 1975,1 lost one of my kidneys.
Lata, I had breast cancer, and after j
an operation, cancer was found in j
another party of my body. Shortly •
after that, I once again found myself
in the hospital. This time, I suffered i
'congestive heart failure.’ So now
you know that I really wasn’t joking
when I told you that I am disabled to
work.”
At the courthouse in Raleigh in i
1960, Dorisbecame the wife of Fred- i
die L. Harris. Shortly thereafter,
teh couple moved to Wake Forest,
and made their home with his pa- :
ents, Isaac and Lucy Harris. In the
process of time, they became the
parents of three children, two sons •
and one daughter. Shortly after the
Tayla Street Housing Develoment
was built, they moved into the unit i
in which Doris has made her home
fa mae than 20 years. j
The couple separated, with Fred-1
die having moved out, leaving Doris
with the children, Reginald, Melvin
and Norma. Melvin remains at
home with his mom, while Reginald
and Norma live elsewhere.
The children were all in school
when the separation of parents
came about, and Doris talked of the
struggle she had in waking in a
plant which made batteries for auto
mobiles and other uses.
“I personally could well under
stand why the employees kept silent
about the conditions of the Hamlet
plant,” she said. “Number one, they
needed their jobs, and number two,
they probably wouldn’t have been
paid any attention even if they had
complained.
“Talking about ‘bitching,’ I com
plained every single day that I went
to wak, but it sure didn’t Iplp. One
thing I bated was having a “knotty
head,’ and talking about hair going
back! I don’t care how good you
looked when you went to wak, a few
minutes later your hair was as
kinky as could be.
“That was because the floors had
to be kept wet all of the time in order
to keep down the lead dust. Hie lead
dust would cause some workers to
have a blood buildup, to the point
that they’d have to have their blood
drawn oft every several weeks.
‘The heat in that place was al
most unbearable, and we had to
make hundreds of plates, which had
to be fired inside of a kiln, and when
we had to remove them and fill them
with acid, one had to be a strong
person in order to endure it. If one
wasn’t extra careful, you could get
severely burned handling the acid.
That acid was like lye that our par
ents used to make soap out of, once
that lye was dissolved, and when
poured, it was something else,”
CARE Helps Mozambique Communities
To Rebuild Lives Through Private Relief
"I was tired of running,* said
Ernesto Rodrigues, one of two mil
lion Mozambicans displaced by
more than a decade of civil war in
their homeland. *1 remember pray
ing every day that my wife and I
could stay put somewhere safe.”
Two years ago, Rodrigues and his
wife, Costanza, were thrown off
their land by anti-government
forces. The soldiers destroyed their
farming community, taking all the
wheat that had just been harvested.
Doris said.
Asked if she thought the terrible
working conditions had anything to
do with her failing health at such a
young age, she replied, “I really
can’t say, but I do know that some
other people did have cancer, and
several died. One person died of al
coholism, and another died of some
thing else, I’m not sure what. I used
to come home so tired, and worn out
completely, because we had to make
production, we had to put the bat
tery inside of a tub and keep the tub
filled with water. I'd tell my chi
ludren all of the time, that just as
soon as I got them out of school, that
I wouldn’t ever work that hard
again.
“I simply had to work, but when
the Exide Battery plant closed its
doors, after Fd worked there for all
of 13 years, I wasn’t sorry one bit,
because if they hadn’t I guess I
would still be trying to work there.”
There is more to Doris’ stoiy that
I will include in another article, but
for now, we must all realize that as
we drive around in our cars, vans,
and trucks, someone else is still
making batteries. Could it be the
“working poor of Mexico?”
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The couple was left with nothing but
theclothes on their backs.
It was awful,” Rodrigues ex
plains, “but honestly, we were a lot
more fortunate than most. The reb
els tortured and killed nearly all of
our neighbors when they took over.
We survived without any injuries.”
Late in 1991, the situation
throughout southern Mozambique
began to improve. Western aid
groups such as CARE, the world’s
largest private relief and develop
ment organization, gave thousands
of the country’s homeless the chance
to rebuild their lives and their live
lihoods.
"For a long time, we were forced to
focus on keeping people alive with
emergency rations of food because
so many were dying of starvation,”
says David Neff, who recently ended
a three-vear tenure as director of
Mozambican programs for CARE.
“Although we’re still providing
emergency relief,” Neff continues,
‘because fighting in the southern
part of the country has quieted, it’s
now possible for us to look toward
the fhture.”
“This is the most fragile first step
in the difficult transition from relief'
to development,” explains Neff.
“During peacetime, green and lush
Mozambique could easily feed itself.
But in this civil war, self-sufficiency
is impossible.” ;
Rodrigues is one of the farmers
who is being helped by CARE agri
cultural experts. Late last year, he
was given vegetable seedlings and
training in the best methods •
“We’ve got enough tomatoes
growing in Inhambane alone to
paint the whole state of Arkansas
red,” Neff says.
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FAITH SAYS OUR ONLY REAL
WEALTH IS OUR LOVED ONES
It's a deadline each year that will always appear.
For supporting the needs of our nation.
That unmerciful day, we're required to pay;
A procedure that's known as taxation.
The more money we earn and the more we return
Make it seem like a terrible racket.
For by working too hard we will then disregard
Our attaining a loftier bracket;
So it's foolish indeed to get more than we need,
In our efforts at wealth without measure;
Let's abandon our climb and begin to spend time
With our loved ones, our only real treasure.
— Gloria Nowak
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