LAUREL —
Gloria Jean Washington Jordan Lofton will be remembered as a good mother and an activist.
Jordan Lofton, 64, of Laurel, died Sunday at South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel.
“My mother really worked hard to bring about change,” said Evelyn Jordan, one of Lofton’s daughters. “She was a very ambitious woman who opened doors to make life better for others, who worked with her at Sanderson Farms.”
According to family members, Lofton led the local 882 Chemical Workers Union strike for equal rights and privileges.
Manuel Jones, former president of the Laurel-Jones County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he remembers her involvement in the union and the strike they had.”
That strike, which began in February of 1979, lasted about eight years and resulted in the union’s struggle being taken to the nation’s highest court, the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C.
Jordan Lofton (whose last name was then Jordan) was featured in an April 1980 edition of Black Enterprise where she — as vice president of the International Chemical Workers Union Local 882 — spoke at a gathering of black labor leaders in Ann Arbor, Michigan about the strike occurring at the then $50 million a year chicken-processing firm with three plants in Mississippi and Louisiana.
According to the article, Jordan reportedly told about how “she and about 200 other poverty-stricken workers, most of them black women, are fighting for an end to racist abuse, sexual harassment and hazardous working conditions.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Jordan and others reportedly returned to work at Sanderson under better working conditions. Jordan-Lofton later retired.
According to her family, Jordan was employed at Sanderson Farms for 20 years.
Jordan, formerly of Vossburg, graduated from Southside High School in Heidelberg.
Funeral services for Lofton will be held at 3 p.m. today at First Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Laurel, with burial in Mt. Jordan Cemetery in Rose Hill.
Brown Mortuary, Inc. of Laurel is in charge of arrangements.
Local News
Related Photos
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Gloria Lofton Photo/File
Gloria Lofton remembered as activist, mother
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