Carrboro locals call her Norma Rae. She sits in a tiny side garden outside Townsend Bertram & Company Adventure Outfitters in Carr Mill Mall, a renovated mill turned boutique shopping center in Carrboro, NC. Despite her sunny mosaic tile dress, her expression is contemplative, staring off into the distance as if she has a story to tell.

The building that houses Carr Mill Mall has been around since 1898 when Tom Lloyd built the brick edifice as a cotton mill he named Alberta. The mill went through several names and iterations before finally ceasing operations in the 1960s. In 1975 the Town of Carrboro decided to tear down the empty, decrepit shell, but the community rallied behind the old historic site and persuaded the Board to renovate the existing structure. The mill reopened in 1977 as Carr Mill Mall.

Commissioned by Audrey Bertram (of Townsend Bertram), the oversized sculpture of Norma Rae has graced the courtyard outside Weaver Street Market at Carr Mill Mall since 2001. The history of the mill is Norma Rae’s history as well. According to the sculptors, Virginia Bullman and LaNelle Davis, Norma Rae symbolizes the lives of the thousands of women who toiled and sweated in the hot, humid air, throats clogged with cotton dust, and ears deafened by the thumping of the looms that formed the rhythm of life in the cotton mills.

“We don’t know her name, but we know she has a life outside the mill. Her bone-wearing work in the mill is represented by the institutional green work apron. Her dream is represented by her yellow dress. She is looking out away from the mill, determined to survive.” – Virginia Bullman