Eva Belle Favors Davis ( – June 5, 2012) was an American housing and labor activist in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
East Lake Meadows
Davis was a community organizer and advocate for the East Lake Meadows public housing projects, where she lived with her children. She led a group called the United Concerned Citizens of East Lake Meadows, and she was highly critical of Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) and it's stewardship of the community. In 1972, she supported a probe into the AHA, calling on the federal department of Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate flooded apartments and unsafe construction that violated proper building code.
Davis was also president of the neighborhood's tenants' association and led rent strikes against the AHA in the 1970s, with the goal of pressuring the agency to address chronic health and safety problems in the projects. In response, the AHA made some improvements to the community, including adding more sidewalks and a daycare center.
In 1979, she led demonstrations at City Hall to protest against discrimination in the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). Although the program was designed to offer summer jobs to youths in low income communities, Davis and other protesters alleged that young people in all-black public housing projects were mostly ignored.
1972 Church's Chicken wildcat strike
In 1972, Davis organized a wildcat strike against a Church's Chicken location in Atlanta. Workers' demanded sick leave, overtime pay, fringe benefits, and an increase in their hourly payup from $1.60 (). They also wanted an assistant manager to be rehired, after he had been replaced. Davis criticized Church's for refusing to invest in the neighborhood while making over $7,000 () a week from the people in it.
The strike quickly expanded to picketing at multiple Church's Chicken locations throughout the city, forcing some stores to close. Not all workers at other Church's locations could afford to walk off their jobs and join the strikers, but in some cases customers refused to cross the picket line. As labor scholar Augustus Wood writes, "the Church’s wildcat strike became a Black working-class symbol for citywide resistance and class solidarity".
In June 1972, a settlement was reached with Church's Chicken, and the company agreed to provide a 10 cent per hour raise. Previously, most employees did not receive employee benefits like sick leave because they were considered part-time. Church's agreed to ensure that no store would have more than two part-time employees, and they also agree to consider any employee with more than 30 hour per week to be full-time.
Personal life
David had three daughters, five sons, and 32 grandchildren. When she died in 2012, she had 33 great-grandchildren.
References
Bibliography