Moranda Jane Smith

3 June 1915 - 13 April 1950

After a successful strike in June 1943 at RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with FTA Local 22, striker Moranda Smith, daughter of sharecroppers, built a union with her coworkers and became one of the first Black women elected to U.S. national union leadership. She pushed for “not words, but action” in defense of democracy, so that people can “walk the picket lines free and unafraid and know that they are working for their freedom and their liberty.” Moranda was “close to” a fellow worker and union leader.

Viola Brown

12 March 1910 - 1 January 1992 

Moranda Smith was “close to” Viola Brown, chief shop steward, a fellow worker and union leader at RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem in FTA Local 22. According to fellow workers and union members, “Vi was extraordinary,” “absolutely brilliant,” “indispensable.” “She’d come up with materialist explanations, very sound ones, and you follow her lead…, getting at whatever the root problem was. She could tell personal pique from political difference any time. She looked ahead and she was able to put things in a political context. She looked ahead, she put things in their context, and she thought deeply.” In the wake of losing their union, she and other trade unionists founded the radical National Negro Labor Council at the height of the Cold War.

About the Artist

Annabelle Heckler (she/ella) draws visual stories and comics in solidarity with social movements, uplifting solidarity as our superpower, often at the intersections of queer and labor justice. Annabelle is a proud alum of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, and has worked with many unions, groups, social movements and racial justice organizations. See her work at @annabelleheckler and http://cuny.is/annabelle, and beyond.