Evangelicals on Strike at Moncure Plywood

The evangelicals of Local 369 who went on strike against Moncure Plywood believed in the righteous struggle against arbitrary managerial authority at their factory. While on the picket line, they cultivated a deep faith in God’s providential care. Faithful church-goers in evangelical churches from an array of Protestant denominations in rural towns in central North Carolina, their framework for interpreting the Bible and practicing their faith was shaped by the experience of producing plywood with friends, family members, and fellow church members. Drawing on deep bonds inside and outside the plant, their theology was also shaped by the experience of working in a white-owned factory supervised by a newly hired white management team from Texas tasked to enforce labor discipline. Plywood workers are the latest practitioners of a proud tradition of woodworking in the United States. The believers who went on strike at Moncure Plywood became “labor evangelicals” through practices of resistance as examples of obedience to the Bible and their beliefs. On the picket line at Moncure Plywood, faith in God and faith in each other were mutually reinforcing and essential to the struggle to prevail in the strike.