Appeals Court in Atlanta Again Rejects Racial Discrimination Claim
John Hithon, a black man, spent 13 tough years working his way into the lower ranks of management at a Tyson Foods chicken plant in Gadsden, Ala. He started out as a “live hanger,” hoisting 24 squirming birds onto moving metal hooks every minute. Then he moved up to what court records called “killing and picking.” He was later made a supervisor in charge of “eviscerating and deboning.”
But when two better jobs as shift supervisors opened up, Mr. Hithon was passed over by the plant manager, who was white, in favor of two white candidates from other Tyson plants. Mr. Hithon thought his skin color had something to do with it, and he sued for racial discrimination.
As evidence, he testified about the manager’s habit of calling black employees “boy.”
Mr. Clemon, who resigned from the bench last year, said he had followed the Hithon case closely. He added that he knew something about the “local custom and historical usage” of the word “boy,” having grown up in the segregated South.
“It’s the same as calling him a nigger,” the retired judge said.