Beneath the Mills: A Bloody Struggle for Workers’ Rights in Gastonia, North Carolina

April 15, 1929, marked a turning point in the lives of 8,000 textile mill workers in Gastonia, North Carolina. For Mrs. Iva Fulbright, a 45-year-old mother of seven, it was the first time she realized her life mattered. The devoted mother and hill farm native traveled from Gastonia to New York to share the story of the workers’ strike in the textile mills of Dixie’s Mills. The strike, a long-overdue revolt against exploitation, had been brewing among the 30,000 workers in the region, a struggle as socially significant as the American Civil War itself.