In Good Faith: Working-Class Women, Feminism, and Religious Support in the Struggle to Organize J. P. Stevens Textile Workers in the Southern Piedmont, 1974–1980

This essay examines the campaign to organize southern workers in the J. P. Stevens textile plants in the 1970s, placing working-class women at the center of the story. While Crystal Lee Sutton, the "real Norma Rae," has been described and celebrated by historians and Hollywood, this essay demonstrates that the activism of many white and African American textile women was crucial to the success of the union's corporate campaign and boycott. The union and its allies used the women's stories to captivate audiences and motivate allies from religious organizations, feminists, and women's groups within and beyond the South. The working-class women carried leadership skills and lessons learned during the campaign into other political arenas and community struggles after the mills left the South.