Union organizer Clinton Jencks, who led New Mexico mineworkers in a McCarthy-era strike chronicled in the classic 1953 motion picture “Salt of the Earth,” has died. He was 87.
Jencks died Dec. 14 in San Diego of natural causes, according to his daughter, Linda O’Connell.
A native of Colorado Springs, Jencks served in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Pacific Theater throughout World War II. He later worked in a smelter near Denver before he was sent to southern New Mexico as an organizer for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers.
As organizer for a progressive union, Jencks led a 15-month strike begun in 1950 near Bayard, N.M., against Empire Zinc Co. The largely Hispanic strikers sought pay equal to that of white workers, improved safety conditions and health care – goals they eventually won with great effort.
When company officials obtained an injunction barring the men from picketing, their wives and children took their place. Jailed, the families made such noise that a sheriff let them go.
Hollywood could not ignore such drama, and blacklisted producer Paul Jarrico, director Herbert Biberman and screenwriter Michael Wilson decided to make a movie about the conflict.
Because of the anti-Communist scare gripping Hollywood, the filmmakers had no financial backing and little professional help. They hired blacklisted actor Will Geer and Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas, who was deported for her participation.
Otherwise, the mineworkers and their families portrayed themselves. Jencks, a tall, blond man nicknamed “El Palomino,” played Frank Barnes, a character based on him. Jencks’ first wife, Virginia, played Barnes’ spouse, Ruth.
The movie is one of 400 selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry.
Under McCarthyism pressure, the film was shut out of all but 13 theaters across the United States.
In addition to his daughter, Jencks is survived by his second wife, Muriel; three stepdaughters; and three grandchildren. His son, Clinton, died in 1995.
