The Derst Baking Company Strike

Bakery and Confectionary Workers Local #110, Savannah, correspondence and printed materials, 1970-1972 [page 40]

Bakery and Confectionary Workers Local #110, Savannah, correspondence and printed materials, 1970-1972 [page 41]

Correspondence: Edward Thomas Kehrer, 1968-1971 [page 19]

Correspondence: Edward Thomas Kehrer, 1968-1971 [page 1]

Correspondence: Edward Thomas Kehrer, 1968-1971 [page 4]

Hand bill distributed by the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, calling for a boycott of Derst bakery products to support the strike by Local 110.
Courtesy of Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department, Southern Office records.
Instructions from the Bakery and Confectionery union to the workers on a picket line in front of a grocery store that sells Derst products during the strike. The picketers are to peacefully march and distribute handbills and are forbidden from interfering with the store's customers or employees.
Courtesy of Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department, Southern Office records.
April 1970 memo from E.T. Kehrer, Director of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department, to Don Slaiman on "Southern Area Activities." Kehrer describes a March strike of Atlanta sanitation workers in which mayor Sam Massell, who had been elected with union support, "personally" dismissed all striking workers and encouraged scabbing. In response, Kehrer writes, union representatives only escalated their antagonism.
Courtesy of University of Maryland Libraries, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department records.
December 1971 memo from Kehrer to Slaiman on a recent rally in support of the Derst strike, now in its eighth month. Kehrer emphasizes that importance of Savannah ministers agreeing to ask their congregations to support the Derst boycott.
Courtesy of University of Maryland Libraries, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department records.
Program for December 16, 1971 mass rally to support the Derst strike.
Courtesy of University of Maryland Libraries, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department records.

In April 1971, Local Union 110, of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union, went on strike after the Savannah sugar refinery of Derst Baking Company refused to increase their wages as required by the union contract. Among the civil rights and labor leaders that rallied around the striking workers were Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Al Kehrer of the AFL-CIO, and representatives from the A. Philip Randolph Institute. Addressing a meeting of strikers inside a Baptist church, Abernathy stated, “I’ve been in jail thirty-seven times and I would just like to go to jail my thirty-eighth time here in Savannah.” After a December 1971 rally, the Savannah Coalition of Ministers and Laymen agreed to spread the word to more than 300 local ministers in support of the Derst boycott. The network of Black religious leaders throughout the South continued to advocate for the labor movement to their parishioners and urged them to support strikers through boycotts. Unfortunately, the outcome of the Derst strike is not recorded within the Southern Labor Archives or the archives at the University of Maryland.

Previous | Next