Norma Rae Inspiration Dies

categories: Activism, Corporations, Health & Healthcare, Jobs & Unemployment, News, Race Ethnicity Class & Gender, Unions, Women

Published September 15, 2009 @ 10:27AM PT

Crystal Lee Sutton, the workers' rights and union activist who inspired the Academy Award-winning movie Norma Rae, died yesterday of brain cancer. She was 68.

She was a 33 year old mother of 3 earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at the J.P. Stevens textile manufacturing plant in North Carolina in 1973. "Low pay and poor working conditions had impelled her to take a leading role in efforts to unionize the plant. She was met with threats, she said." She was eventually fired for her organizing work.

Her final act of rebellion was enshrined in Norma Rae, played by Sallie Field - before cops ushered her out of the building, "“I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word ‘union’ on it in big letters, got up on my worktable, and slowly turned it around,” she said... “The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet.”

In less than a year 3,000 workers were unionized at 7 plants, including J.P. Stevens, in NC. Ms. Sutton went on to work as a union organizer.

In the final years of her life, she battled with her insurance company to receive the necessary cancer medications. Ms. Sutton asks to be remembered as a fighter for the working poor, and hopes she'll inspire her children and grandchildren to take up the cause in her honor:

"Stand up for what you believe in, not matter how hard it makes life for you," she said. "Do not give up and always say what you believe."

..."It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S. and the world," she said. "That my family and children and children like mine will have a fair share and equality."

Words for us all to live by.

R.I.P., Crystal Lee Sutton.

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Comments (7)

Fantastic movie, strong and powerful lady. Good people like her will be missed!

Posted by Clayton Cleverly on 09/15/2009 @ 01:41PM PT
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So very sad. What an amazingly brave woman. May she rest in peace.

Posted by Rachel Russell on 09/15/2009 @ 03:41PM PT
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Funny, most of us didn't know the real woman's name until she died. Her having to fight for cancer drugs might just help get the health bill through. I feel sorry for how low the quality of humanity is sinking.

Posted by jan Lightfootlane on 09/15/2009 @ 06:55PM PT
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Thank you for acknowledging her. Her story and the film are very powerful. Wishes of peace and healing to her loved ones. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

Posted by Rev Bookburn on 09/15/2009 @ 07:24PM PT
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With the history of the common man battling against the corporate elites that this country has, one would think that the ordinary citizen would see through the haze of corporate propaganda and give every person in this country the right to free health care, a basic level of economic subsistence, and free education through university level.

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Posted by brax peace on 09/16/2009 @ 05:22PM PT
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To the author - I hope you read Molly Ivins. I miss her. She could get folks to listen, to hear ideas they would otherwise have no use for. She was smart, relaxed, and funny. I like your work and would like to see the serious work catch an audience drawn in by good humor.

For some reason, before today, I was thinking this was or had become purely an action site. I need to explore... (I joined early on, then got swamped elsewhere.)

Posted by Carol Crooks on 09/20/2009 @ 09:53AM PT
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Carol, I've heard a lot about Molly Ivins but am not familiar with her work. I should check it out!

We are pretty action-oriented here at Change.org, but we also have lots of analysis and news coverage to keep the conversations around these issues going.

Posted by Leigh Graham on 09/20/2009 @ 11:09AM PT
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Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.