Velma Hopkins Quotes

I surround myself with people. I know my limitations. And I'll surround myself with people that I can designate to be sure it's carried out...And if you can't do that, you're not an organizer.

Paul Robeson, they came and told us he had been to Russia and what communism was.

In the beginning of the union we set up, because we had poor people, they didn't have enough. And you couldn't go to the welfare or nothing if you were black. If you were black and had a clean house, you went to the welfare, you didn't get nothing. They'd tell you if you had a little old raggedy radio set, sell the radio and use that money. So we had clothes banks and things, and churches would contribute to that.

My training, I guess, came from coming from a mother and working in the church and in the school. I'd always participated in PTAs, and we had organizations. And I was head of an organization in the church. I got lots of my training from my pastor too.

We had one voting place in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, for blacks, Fairview School. And when we started our drive to get people to register, actually pulled it to its height, it was at that school. That's where the policeman came out there, in gear, to arrest everyone of us.

Shiloh was the only church that we could go into.

We felt like that instead of those nationals sending in white organizers that would go to 256, we wanted them to go where the white workers were.

They knew I'm going to fight you for...what I feel like is for the workers.

We'd go to singing and he'd say, "Velma, how can you sing? They're working the hell out of you." And I said, "I'm singing the hell out of you."...it made you forget how hard you were being worked and the treatment you were going through. Singing is something that is good for the soul, and we used to do lots of it. We had to.

The women were the backbone of that union.

Having a union made a lot of difference.

They were afraid of black people. They just couldn't stand to see, their nerves would not allow them to meet with ten black people without an attorney, whole lots of us.

They went on the air and labeled the union top and all the union leadership as communist that night at midnight (before an election).

When we once got the union, I think people began to realize, I've got a crutch, and they began to tell some things. See, some things would happen to people that maybe they were afraid. Self-preservation, I've got to work. I'm head of a household. I'm feeding children. Even though you ain't making but $9.35. That $9.35 meant survival. And once we got the union, they felt like, well, I've got some protection. I've got somebody that really cares. They didn't feel like it was a little group here and there. It was 10,000 on check-off, and 10,000 members makes you feel good, you know. You're surrounded. And the grievances became more.

They called us niggers, communists, everything in the book.