There were colored men working at Medical, and they were paid better than the women, but the work was harder on their egos. When all of the colored employees got together in their own dining area of the hospital, they would talk about the way they were treated at work. Working inside the hospital was cleaner, steadier, and less strenuous than picking up outside day work, but it carried less respect. In the tomato fields, you were judged and paid by how many pounds you could pick in a day. You were paid your due, no matter the color of your skin. In the hospital, grown men were called “boy” all the time, and that was by the whites who thought they were being courteous; sure was better than nigger.

There was tension in air at Medical that spring of 1969. Five nurses’ aides had been fired the year before when they claimed that they were not allowed to look at the records of the patients in their care. How were you supposed to take care of a patient if you couldn’t see his chart?

Talks had been in progress for more than a year about organizing a strike of the hospital’s colored workers. Mary and about ten other workers at Medical and even more from County Hospital had met several times with union organizers from New Jersey and New York.  The organizers had even come to her AME church on a few Sundays to talk to people about the benefits of a union, especially their union, Local 1199.

It had been less than a year since Dr. King had been murdered; and even closer to home, about 90 miles away, there was the Orangeburg massacre in February of ‘68. Three young men, college boys, with a chance for a real future ahead of them, dead, shot in the back. Twenty-seven more of them shot, some on the bottoms of their feet as they lay on the ground, just as they’d had been ordered to do. Those young people, gunned down, just because they wanted to go in a bowling alley and have some fun. They tried for two nights to get into the only bowling alley in town, but they were turned away. They went back to campus and started a bonfire, singing and having a demonstration to try to get more students involved. A few state troopers showed up and told them to disperse, but not everyone was ready to leave. There was a scuffle, and next thing you know, there was a line of about 70 patrolmen with shotguns and pistols. One of them fired his gun in the air, as a warning shot, but instead it set off a panic, with all of the troopers shooting at the students.

Surely, it was time that things changed for colored people -- it was past time -- but it was scary. Someone had to be in the front, someone had to stick her neck out if anything was going to change, ever. Mary thought about it. What if she joined the union and got fired?  That might bring attention to job conditions.  Better yet, what if a lot of people joined the union, which would make it harder for the hospital to fire folks without cause.  But hadn’t Orangeburg proved you weren’t safe, even in a group? What if they had a demonstration and people got shot? Still, some people had to stand up, and Mary resolved to be one of them.

Mary’s mother and grandmother always spoke of her spirited attitude.  Sometimes it even caused her to get a whippin’ when she was young. They always said Mary took after her daddy, and he’d been telling her about the union: If you belong to a union, he said, then you have some power, and you can make a good wage.

At Medical, Mary worked on 7-West, which meant she took care of white folks; colored patients were always on the east wings of the hospital. Two of the ladies who rode in with her every day worked on 7-East, and on the morning drives Mary got an earful of their complaints about their nurse supervisor. Mary’s supervisor was a little more understanding than some of the others. Generally, being a little late was something that could be overlooked. Everyone knew though, if any other complaints came up, your record of attendance and tardiness was something they would use against you. Sometimes Mary’s supervisor would joke that Mary and her friends operated on “colored time,” and that’s why they were late.  Mary figured she’d better laugh along when the supervisor said this.