Let me cite from a newspaper, the Charlotte Observer of August 17, 1969, wherein it is stated that the textile industry is helping to solve the national problem of Negro migration to the horthern ghetto. In a recent interview, the Governor of South Carolina Robert McNair stated:
"Without meaningful import controls the less sophisticated segments of the textile industry--the very operations that often hire the most Negroes--eventually will be transferred overseas.
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The Observer article notes:
"The number of Negroes employed in textiles in the two states has gone from less than 6 percent in 1964 to at least 20 percent today--from 21,000 to more than 85,000 workers."
A survey of several of the firms in the area reveal the following, as reported in the Observer.
"Burlington Industries of Greensboro estimate that at least 20 percent of its hourly workers in the two states are Negores.".
"Springs Mills of Fort Hill, South Carolina, report that its percentage of Negro wage earners has climbed from 7.2 percent in 1964 to better than 23 percent today."
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"J. P. Stevens and Company reports a 13.4 percentage overall Negro employment rate but a figure closer to 30 percent at several of the seven plants built or acquired on the Costal. Plains in recent years."
"A spokesman for Lowenstein's Pacific Columbia Hill Inc. in Columbia, South Carolina, reports that the percentage of Negores. there has climbed from less than 5 percent in 1965 to 25 percent today.
The Observer article also refers to a report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which stated:
"The textile mill industry may serve as a training ground for Negroes in the future as it has for whites in the past."
"The industry teaches skills to workers who have previously engaged in unmechanized agricultural production, thus allowing them to participate in an industrial society, and perhaps move on to higher paying jobs.
Location of Industry
There are an estimated 7,000 textile plants and over 25,000 apparel plants throughout the United States. Every state in the union has some apparel production and approximately 47 states have textile plants. There is, however, some significant concentration of these industries in two different kinds of areas.
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