Charleston Hospital Workers Strike of 1969 Walking Tour - Emanuel A.M.E Church & the Events of the Strike

As the strike progressed, churches provided important moral and physical support to the strikers and protesters.  The Emanuel A.M.E church, together with the Morris Brown A.M.E. church and the Morris Street Baptist church served as places for leaders of the strike to strategize, for protesters to gather before and after marches and picket line demonstrations. The churches also provided a financial safety net for the strikers as they faced increased financial pressure as the strike went from weeks to months. Most of the strikers were African American women who were the heads of their households so the lack of income was especially acute for them.

The strike proceeded with picket lines in front of the hospital and protest marches from the churches to the hospital and through the business and tourist districts of the city. The picket lines purpose was not only to draw attention to the strike but to also discourage the scab workers the hospital had recruited from entering the hospital. The marches also drew attention to the strike but also served to disrupt commerce in the cities commercial and tourist areas. Mary Moultrie and Naomi White served two important grass routes roles in the struggle. Moultrie served to keep the protestors and strikers informed of events and plans, while White worked to discourage scabs from working for the hospital. Protestors and strikers were harassed, threatened, and jailed during the conflict, but there was little property damage incurred.

South Carolina governor Robert McNair was interested in seeing the strike end but, as a right to work state, did not want recognition of the union or collective bargaining. The Charleston County Hospital workers joined the strike on March 29. Participants were arrested on the picket lines mainly for violating the arbitrary spacing rule imposed by the hospital. McNair ordered the National Guard to the area on April 25 after over one hundred demonstrators were arrested on that day. He declared a state of emergency and imposed an evening curfew. Protestors and strikers continued to march and picket, and occasionally violate the curfew. Over one thousand people were arrested during the strike.

The movement gathered support as spring turned to summer. Ralph Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference visited, spoke at the Fourth Baptist Church of Charleston, and was arrested shortly thereafter. On April 30 Coretta Scott King spoke at the Emanuel A.M.E church and along with Moultrie led a two-thousand-person march. A larger March two weeks later on Mother’s Day involved over ten thousand people and five congressmen. 

On June 2 the governor ended the curfew. Abernathy was again arrested on June 20 and his arrested led to a near riot, and the reinstitution of the curfew. Representatives of the union, the city, and the hospital had been informally discussing for several weeks an end to the strike and on June 27 a settlement was reached to end the strike for the Medical College Hospital and three weeks later a similar settlement was reached for the Charleston County Hospital. The four demands of the strikers (reinstatement of the twelve workers fired on March 17, raising the wage to $1.60/hour, institution of a grievance procedure, and recognition of the Local 1199B as the workers union) were met.

George Hopkins. Charleston hospital workers' strike, South Carolina Encyclopedia. April 15th 2016. Accessed October 31st 2020. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/charleston-hospital-workers-strike/.

Kerry Taylor. The Charleston Hospital Workers Movement, 1968-1969, Low Country Digital History Initiative. November 1st 2013. Accessed October 31st 2020. http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/charleston_hospital_workers_mo.

Faculty and Staff. Through the eyes of the Charleston hospital workers movement: 50 years later, June 11th 2019. Accessed October 31st 2020. https://today.citadel.edu/through-the-eyes-of-the-charleston-hospital-workers-movement-50-years-later/.

Debnam, Jewell C. . Mary Moultrie, Naomi White, and the Women of the Charleston Hospital Workers' Strike of 1969. Souls, vol. 18, no. 159 - 77. Published March 1st 2016.

Hicks, Brian. "Coretta Scott King at Charleston hospital strike march: Like Selma, Memphis, ‘a national test’ ." The Post and Courier (Charleston) June 9th 2019. .