Black Tyson Foods Employee Says Harassment With Nooses and Castration Threats Left Him Fearful for His Life

A Black employee at a Tyson Foods plant in Virginia claims he was subjected to racial discrimination so horrific, the 62-year-old mechanic “lived in fear of leaving work each day, fearing [he] would be followed and killed” by his white colleagues, according to court documents reviewed by The Independent.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday, Alvin Clark – the only Black worker on his team – says the bigotry eventually got so bad, he began staying in area hotels rather than his own home, “so that he was not located by Tyson employees and murdered.”

Among other things, Clark’s complaint contends he was passed over multiple times for a more desirable position because, he was allegedly told by white higher-ups, “Ain’t no [n-word] getting the job,” that a supervisor hung a noose in front of him, that a group of managers pulled knives and vowed to castrate him, and that he survived an attempted shooting by one of his shift leaders only because the man’s gun jammed.

Clark’s white managers laughed and did nothing, according to the complaint. And when Matthew Reeves, a white coworker, tried to put a halt to the abuse, the complaint says supervision threatened to have him raped by a man on the cleaning crew.

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The two were fired. Clark’s harassers remain on the job, according to the complaint.

Reeves has filed a companion suit alongside Clark’s.

Attorney Brittany Haddox, who is representing both Clark and Reeves, said on Wednesday that both of them “are fairly fragile from everything they went through.”

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The one person who took Clark’s side was Reeves, who insisted Clark’s tormentors leave him alone, according to the complaint. In response, it says white managers called Reeves a “[n-word] lover,” and told him that he was “not Mr. Clark’s ‘kind.’”

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Clark and Reeves were also forced to work in unsafe conditions, being ordered to reassemble food production machines after cleaning, but before the toxic chemicals used to clean them had dissipated, the complaint states. During one such occasion, Clark was handling a heavy steel pipe – which was slippery from having been covered in cleaning solution – when it fell and broke his nose. Bleeding profusely, Clark told his boss he needed to go to the emergency room, but was instructed, “Just go back to work,” according to the complaint.

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Clark and Reeves are both suing Tyson for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race-based discrimination, along with violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act. They are seeking compensatory damages for emotional pain and suffering, punitive damages, and liquidated damages to be determined by a jury, as well as back pay and benefits and/or reinstatement, plus attorneys’ fees and court costs.

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