Crystal Lee Sutton, 68, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants that had low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film “Norma Rae,” died Friday of brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said.
Actress Sally Field portrayed a character based on Sutton in the movie and won a best-actress Academy Award.
In 1973, Sutton was a 33-year-old mother of three earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at J.P. Stevens when a manager fired her for pro-union activity. In a final act of defiance before police hauled her out, Sutton, who had worked at the plant for 16 years, wrote “UNION” on a piece of cardboard and climbed onto a table on the plant floor. Other employees responded by shutting down their machines.
Jordan said his mother spent years as a labor organizer in the 1970s. She later became a certified nursing assistant in 1988 but had not been able to work for several years because of illnesses.
Jody Powell, 65, who was White House press secretary and among the closest and most trusted advisers to President Jimmy Carter, died Monday of a heart attack at his home near Cambridge, Md. Powell first worked with Carter during his campaign for governor in Georgia the 1960s, then joined Carter’s presidential campaign in 1976 and served as chief White House spokesman from 1977 to 1981.
Carter called Powell’s death “a great personal loss.”
“Jody was beside me in every decision I made as a candidate, governor and president, and I could always depend on his advice and counsel being candid and direct,” Carter said.
After leaving the White House, Powell became one of the founders of the Powell Tate public relations firm in Washington.
