Jim Wrenn Papers, 1977-2021

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Summary

Creator:
Wrenn, Jim (James)
Abstract:

Jim Wrenn is a white labor organizer, civil rights activist and researcher. The Jim Wrenn Papers, 1977-2018, document labor organizing, a sanitation workers strike, community building, civil rights struggles, and Martin Luther King Day celebrations in Nash and Edgecombe Counties, N.C. Organizations include the People's Coalition for Justice, the Consolidated Diesel Company Workers Unity Committee, the Carolina Auto, Aerospace & Machine Workers Union--UE 150, the Phoenix Historical Society, Inc., and the Bloomer Hill Community Center in Whitakers, N.C. Materials include newsletters, video recordings, speeches, writings, and digitized scrapbooks of photographs, clippings, and news releases.

Extent:
365 items (1.0 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Jim Wrenn is a white labor organizer, civil rights activist and researcher based in Edgecombe County, NC. Wrenn retired in 2019 after 35 years of working in the Rocky Mount Engine (RME)/Consolidated Diesel Company (CDC) manufacturing plant, where he served as a shop steward for the Carolina Auto, Aerospace & Machine Workers Union-UE150 (CAAMWU-UE150), and as an organizer with the CDC Workers Unity Committee. Wrenn also has been an active member of the Phoenix Historical Society and has participated in many initiatives aimed at commemorating local historical events, particularly important events in African American history or the history of the labor struggle in the region.

Scope and content:

The Jim Wrenn Papers document the People's Coalition for Justice, which formed in reaction to the murder of African American man by a white service station owner in Whitakers, N.C.; a sanitation workers strike in 1978 in Rocky Mount, N.C., and subsequent commemorations; community building and civil rights struggles in Nash and Edgecombe Counties; Martin Luther King Day celebrations, 1991-2020, at Bloomer Hill Community Center; labor organizing by the Consolidated Diesel Company Workers Unity Committee and the Carolina Auto, Aerospace & Machine Workers Union--UE 150; the Community Empowerment Alliance; and African American and labor history of Edgecombe County, N.C. Materials include newsletters, video recordings, speeches, writings, and digitized scrapbooks of photographs, clippings, and news releases. There are also photographs and digital video recordings that document Wrenn's retirement from the Rocky Mount Engine (RME)/Consolidated Diesel Company (CDC) manufacturing plant in June 2019, including interviews with Wrenn and fellow labor movement leaders Ethel Jones, Carolyn Beale, Marvin Arrington, Jerry Neville and Dennis Cobb.

Acquisition information:

Received from Jim Wrenn in May 2015 (Acc. 102225), December 2018 (Acc. 103506), February 2019( Acc. 103548), August 2019 (Acc. 103668, 103669), January 2020 (Acc. 20200117.1), and July 2020 and May 2021 (Acc. 20220413.1).

Processing information:

This summary description was created in November 2017 to provide information about unprocessed materials in Wilson Special Collections Library.

Encoded by: Laura Smith

Revisions by: Biff Hollingsworth and Nancy Kaiser, January, March, and October 2019; February 2020; Biff Hollingsworth and Dawne Howard Lucas, April 2022

In 2017, we began using "white" as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions. We use this identity term so that whiteness is no longer the presumed default of the people represented in our collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to use:

No usage restrictions.

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Jim Wrenn Papers #05625, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu