“The Only Color Here is Green”

I had the privilege of working at a cement plant in Calera, Alabama for eighteen years.  Old timers referred to it as Southern Cement, one of the many names given to each with each corporate change.  It was Martin Marietta Cement when I started in 1976 and Blue Circle Inc when I left in 1994.

The cement industry is hot, nasty, dangerous, but paid good money.  I had literally begged to get a job there.  It was one of a handful of companies in my home area that young men sought to have.  I was the last man hired in October of 1976 and would be the junior man for five years.  There were 225 men with no women inside the plant.  The plant manager had a female secretary.

Employees of Southern had status in Central Alabama.  The plant is near the geographical center of the state and provided employment for men from Bibb, Chilton, Dallas, Jefferson, Perry, and Shelby Counties.  These men would become my brothers and the plant our plant.  It was Union and we were Local Union 50537 with one hundred percent membership and held monthly meetings.

Almost like an exclusive club, my brothers at the plant wanted to know how I got hired.  If you were hired, it was not by application, but by knowing and having someone on the inside.  I did know several men there and went to church with some.  I learned early in life that it is “not what you know, but who you know.”

The employee ratio was sixty percent black and forty percent white, but I learned immediately that the only color at the plant was green (MONEY).  Racial problems were non-existent.  I remember one brother yelled, “Hey boy come here.”  My brother responded, “There are only two kinda of boys, White Boys and Cowboys.”  When the table was turned, my brother would reply, “There are only Black Boys and Cowboys.”  Everyone would laugh, hug, and remain brothers.

Around 1988, came the first new hiring in ten years.  Hiring was non-discriminatory and the 60/40 ratio continued.  One of the new hires was a troublemaker.  I worked with him and tried to help him.  He was lazy with an attitude “You owe me.”  He would not work during his probationary time.  I told him that they were monitoring him.  He told me that he did not care.

Serving in the Union as Grievance Chairman, the Human Resource Manager asked me what I thought of the new hire near the end of his probation.  I told him that it would be a mistake because the man was trouble.  The human resource man told me that several supervisors and employees expressed the same concern. 

One of our black supervisors petitioned to hire the man.  I told the human resource man that it was a mistake and that when trouble arose that I would have to represent the new hire.

The new hire wasted no time causing trouble.  He filed a grievance over an issue that he was in the wrong.  I went to him to discuss the grievance and he told me that he did not want a white man representing him.  He told me that I would not fight for him because he was black.  I told him the only color a in the plant was “green” and I did not care if he was purple, pink, or yellow.  I told him that no one else felt the way he did.  I reminded him that union meetings were predominately black and that I had been elected president and for several year been elected as grievance chairman by my brothers.  I told him that should tell him something.

He caused so much disturbance that by black brothers gave him a “belt whipping” in the company showers.  They told him the only color in the plant was green, there was no racial trouble, and that there would not be any trouble.

Our “troubled brother” faked an injury and sued the company.  The human resource man summoned me to his office, told me that they had been building a file against the man, and had evidence that he faked his injury and committed fraud against the insurance company.  He said he should have listened to me in the beginning.  He did not understand the unique relationship between the men in the plant.  We were brother and had unity as evidenced during contract negotiations.

I miss my brothers since retiring. Many have gone to be with Lord.  I see the surviving occasionally, especially at annual picnics.  We will always be brothers even as the world around us becomes racially combative.



Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all and in all. Colossians 3:11 KJV