I am continually surprised by evidence of Wilson County’s labor history. In addition to the Tobacco Workers Union, the Knights of Labor were active in the 1880s, and African-American brickmasons engaged in a series of strikes between 1902 and 1906.

This 1948 strike by stone workers was not actually the first in the industry, though it may have been the first union-led walkout. Laborers at Harris Granite Quarry, at Neverson, the apparent predecessor to Bryan Rock and Sand, struck in 1916 to protest the arrest of several workers.

Wilson Daily Times, 8 September 1948.

Wilson Daily Times, 19 October 1948.