Foodworkers’ strike leader, civil rights activist dies at 81

As workers sit out from work to protest in front of South Building today, former University employee and 1969 foodworkers’ strike leader Mary Hayes Smith’s life will be celebrated and remembered.

Smith, who made major strides for University workers during the civil rights era alongside the Black Student Movement, died on Sunday of a long-time heart condition. She was 81.

An Alamance County native, Smith was employed by UNC for more than 40 years, working mostly as a cook supervisor in Lenoir Dining Hall.

In 1969, Smith and her co-worker and cousin, Elizabeth Brooks, led a successful strike for better wages and working conditions for hourly food service workers.

“She was a person with a great sense of humor and humility as an individual and was also the type of person that people just tended to confide in,” said Smith’s daughter Sonserae Smith Toles, who graduated from UNC in 1990.

“She easily and unintentionally solicited the trust and confidence of others.”

Her granddaughter, Kimberly Caldwell, said she spent a lot of her time thinking about improving equality for University workers.

“(Smith and Brooks) would meet on lunch breaks and talk about grievances that they had with UNC as far as the black workers not being paid as much as the whites, not receiving benefits, and they eventually organized the strike,” she said.

Civil rights leaders like Preston Dobbins, then the chairman of the UNC Black Student Movement, became involved, Toles said.

As the movement grew, Toles said, administrators took notice — and the nearly month-long strike ended successfully for the workers when the University improved their wages.

“She had a very strong sense in values that really were a code that she lived by,” she said.

“My mother was not a woman of education, but she highly valued education, and all of her daughters have gone on to become professionals and executives.”

Smith’s husband and son preceded her in death. She is survived by five daughters.

Toles said her mother was recently honored by the Black Student Movement, and she remains a legacy in the organization.

“Carolina has lost a great figure,” said Camile B. Jones, the group’s president, in an email. “Her activism and dedication embodies the purpose of the BSM.”

Toles said Smith’s down-to-earth style is what gave her so much success.

“Her impact had a lot to do with her own sense of authenticity,” she said. “She was a truly authentic person.”

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