Norma Rae

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Norma Rae Wilson. That's who I am. I grew up in the same small southern town in which I now live, and I have basically been around a lot of the same persons all my life. Just a few years ago I was still living with my parents house, a simple mother of two with a less than perfect past and seemingly no more opportunity for advancement and betterment of my life than the frequent irritation and annoyance my vocal nature evoked in my supervisors at the textile factory in which I worked. Together with my parents, I helped already wealthy and influential men with hearts of stone become more wealthy as they profited from the labor of workers like myself without providing us with proper safety equipment, benefits and in general, humane working conditions. My frustration had been long building, but peaked when I realized that my poor mother had gone partially deaf under those conditions. Still besides taking as much vocal liberty as I dared with the administration, I felt there was little I could do.

On personal note, I was shamelessly subjecting myself to the passing fancies of married men who once a week brought me to a hotel, treated me to dinner then took what they concerned their sexual reward. Such actions disgusted me, but initially I felt there was no means of doing better, and with so many relationships already gone wrong I was the widow of a drunk, the mother of an illegitimate son, and the mistress at one time or the other of various men, I felt this was all I could afford. Still I finally made up my mind to stop, to really think of the future of my children and the example I wanted to show to them as a mother.

In a state of resignation one night after my weekly hotel rendezvous, I put an end to such nights. I was rewarded by being told and shown my perceived value to that married animal that was using my body. He verbally abused me, and then he slapped me, before going back home to his wife. Little did I realize it then, but that night marked many changes in my life, in my self perception and in my ability to change my destiny in my small town. As I literally ran out into a Jewish union man, he initially offered me ice to sooth my smarting face, but soon I realized he had even more to offer to me and my fellow factory workers.

Coupled with my shock as I realized my mother's deafness and my own tiredness of the monotonous disarray in my life, I started listening attentively to Reuben Warshovsky's offer of unionization to our town. It was a previously tabooed topic, and he undoubtedly received a lot of ridicule and contempt for it, but his words were making sense. As I left thanking him for the ice, I was actively thinking of the possibilities that may emerge with unionization. He in a sense started my process of symbolic rebirth in my attitude to life, I was thinking more and more of the "what if …" he was presenting and subconsciously growing in my mature outlook on life.

College Essays on Norma Rae

In an attempt to keep me quiet and from raising trouble, I was given a raise at the factory to a position as a spotter, or one who made often unfavorable reports on my fellow workers' productivity everyday. Without doubt this did little for my popularity, it even created a rift between my father and me, as I tried to speed up his work. My growth continuing, I gave it up and reverted to my lower position where at least I felt in tune with my friends and companions.

My short power stint however, brought a lasting positive development in my life. It introduced me to Sonny. After protesting my surveillance with a wild outburst of uncontrolled behavior, Sonny came to my door to apologize for almost costing us both our jobs, and as he tried to make it up over dinner are connection began. We had both made mistakes in our past and led less than perfect lives. We both seemed to be at the same rut in our lives and that made us empathize with each other even more. Shortly after, we were married, and formed one struggling but happy family, Sonny and his daughter from his former marriage, my two children and I. Indeed, my life seemed to be falling more and more in line.

No longer was I the Norma Rae who had affairs in hotel with married men who did not value her. No, I was now married to Sonny, a man who in a short time really came to love and cherish me, who later proved his faithfulness and commitment by standing by me and my children even when I became more involved in activities he feared and refused to openly support. It was not easy. After all he did marry a woman with a reputation for some lewdness, but with Sonny, I came to believe again that love can overpower all.

Still the most impacting development and the completion of my rebirth process involved the union. In a leap of faith, I trusted this stranger Reuben, an outsider, a Jew in a small Christian town, and a troublemaker in the eyes of the factory administration. I guess we connected on the level of trouble maker, after all my ready mouth already had me being labeled as one. Still I trusted him as he hinted what a union, an organization with Blacks, Whites, Christians, Jews, any worker, could do to improve the standard of living and to rid the textile industry of the inhumane treatment it currently faced. In a terse post civil rights era, prejudices were still very alive and readily acted upon. Therefore Reuben's suggestions were scary at the very least and could even be physically dangerous.

But he had touched a nerve in my heart. Therefore, one day I did go to his hotel room, not for an affair as may have happened in the past, but to sign up to be a union member, despite knowledge that my husband would disapprove, despite the possible ridicule it would bring for my family and despite the obvious greater persecution I would face by my employers. Indeed I risked losing my job. But I signed up because I was convicted to make a change. The Norma Rae of the past who let life determine her experiences was no more; she was dead to the world. Instead a Norma Rae, exploring her own capabilities, one willing to reach out on a limb to ensure that her destiny was fulfilled, that her needs and those of her family were to be met, was born.

This Norma mobilized blacks and whites, spent long hours at a Jew's hotel room, demanded a demonstration of true Christian charity from her Pastor, and on being refused took a stand to stop worship with hypocrites. This Norma was arrested for working in the union's name and lost her job. In a heart-wrenching moment, this Norma pulled her children to her and let them know who she really is a jailbird, a woman with children of different fathers, but most importantly a loving mother whose main interest was always her family. Indeed my rebirth had occurred, and I was propelling full speed along to maturity as the new me. I cried sometimes, I felt sexual attraction to my union leader; I hurt my loving husband by my choices. But I had grown into a more balanced me.

Additionally, another blow and propelling force was the death of my poor overworked father at his machines. When that man, though overprotective, who nurtured and loved me was killed by his working conditions, there was no way I could turn back from the path to unionization. If my decision to become unionized was a new birth, his death was my right of initiation into adulthood as that new person, and my works doubled. I had started using my breaks at work to spread the word of union. I was ignored by some, openly supported by many blacks in particular, but I carried on. I was on edge at times, hardly saw my children and husband, and honestly had him questioning my fidelity to him. He saw my work as trying to destroy or family, but at that point I couldn't really care, there was something much bigger at hand. Something that once achieved would make all our lives better, something that I started risking everything else for, and that was the union.

My persistence, my dedication, my belief in what I was doing paid off. Although it did involve me being physically removed from the factory and fired, because I tried to copy down and bring back to the union the untruthful propaganda the administration began to post on the notice boards. However, at that time though I was scared of the results and what it may mean for my ability to support my children, I was for the first time given the most courage by my fellow workers. Even those previously too afraid to give support to the union in the interest of keeping their jobs shut their machines down in protest as I stop on a table resisting the attempt by the administration to keep me from letting the union know of their continued inhumanities. That support had me excited and though I cried as I was dragged away forcefully and arrested, it was clear to me that slowly but surely the union was going to come into its own in the factory.

My tears were not in vain, a little later, after tense negotiations and finally the decision to put it to a vote, unionization was achieved by a majority of close to a hundred votes. My emotions at that point were almost indistinguishable. I was proud, proud that for the first time I had really achieved something I set my heart to. I was relieved that I could continue being a mother to my kids knowing that their futures would be better than mine. I was avenged for the death of my father and the by then complete deafness of my mother due to the inhumane work conditions. I was relieved that despite the difficulties and fear of repercussions, Sonny had not been the typical man and forbade me from pursuing my heart, or objected to the greater responsibility he had in raising our children as I stayed so often away from home. I was not anxious to see Reuben leave now his work was done, but thankful for the friendship that grew between us and the ability to keep it non-sexual.

It was an achievement for me as a poor woman with mistakes in her past. Also, I was aware than the work had only begun since attitudes still remained long after legal victories were won. But I think I had given hope to others like me that perseverance pays off. We had all suffered; me no less or more than many others, but at least our voices were finally being heard. After years probably centuries of unchanging conditions in small towns like ours, a new wave of development was passing and it was open to everyone, women, men, Jews, Christians, Blacks, whites.

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