Nan Orrock oral history interview, October 7, 2007

Interviewed by Janet Paulk. In this interview, Orrock discusses her own gravitation toward activism with organized labor and her eventual career at the Nabisco plant in Atlanta. She developed a close friendship with the labor activist Nanny Lee Washburn, who had an impact on Orrock’s life. She talks about raising her two sons with her second husband Charlie Orrock who was also active in the labor movement. Orrock had a period during the late 1970s where she concentrated more on her family at work at Nabisco than activism, but she was drawn back to activism in the early 1980s. She discusses losing her bid for union leadership and her eventual departure from Nabisco to work for the Fund for Southern Communities. While giving some background on SSOC she also talks about Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the federal government’s COINTEL Program. Orrock divorced her husband Charlie, and she talks about how they managed to continue to raise their sons jointly. She got involved in a movement to prevent the CSX railroad from developing a piggyback shipping container facility at Hulsey Yards in Cabbagetown and Renoldstown, and she worked with South Atlanta Neighborhood Development and No Intown Piggyback in order to stop the rail yard. Orrock discusses how her involvement in the CSX rail yard resistance reinvigorated her and led her to seek a seat in the Georgia legislature.