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Wiley Cash, author of The Last Ballad

Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans. But the mill owners claim the union is nothing but a front for the Bolshevik menace sweeping across Europe. To maintain their control, the owners will use every means in their power to prevent workers from banding together.