Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”
The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.
One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.
For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).
Today in Labor History June 1 is the day that U.S. labor law officially allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 8 hours per day between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 pm. Time is ticking away, Bosses. Have you signed up sufficient numbers of low-wage tykes to maintain production rates with your downsized adult staffs?
The reality is that child labor laws have always been violated regularly by employers and these violations have been on the rise recently. Additionally, many lawmakers are seeking to weaken existing, poorly enforced laws to make it even easier to exploit children. Over the past year, the number of children employed in violation of labor laws rose by 37%, while lawmakers in at least 10 states passed, or introduced, new laws to roll back the existing rules. Violations include hiring kids to work overnight shifts in meatpacking factories, cleaning razor-sharp blades and using dangerous chemical cleaners on the kills floors for companies like Tyson and Cargill. Particularly vulnerable are migrant youth who have crossed the southern U.S. border from Central America, unaccompanied by parents. https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/
Of course, what is happening in the U.S. is small potatoes compared with many other countries, where exploitation of child labor is routine, and often legal. At least 20% of all children in low-income countries are engaged in labor, mostly in agriculture. In sub-Saharan Africa it is 25%. Kids are almost always paid far less than adults, increasing the bosses’ profits. They are often more compliant than adults and less likely to form unions and resist workplace abuses and safety violations. Bosses can get them to do dangerous tasks that adults can’t, or won’t, do, like unclogging the gears and belts of machinery. This was also the norm in the U.S., well into the 20th century. In my soon novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” the protagonist, Mike Doyle, works as a coal cleaner in the breaker (coal crushing facility) of a coal mine at the age or 13. Many kids began work in the collieries before they were 10. They often were missing limbs and died young from lung disease. However, when the breaker bosses abused them, they would sometimes collectively chuck rocks and coal at them, or walk out, en masse, in wildcat strikes. And when their fathers, who worked in the pits, as laborers and miners, went on strike, they would almost always walk out with them, in solidarity.
Today in Writing History May 22, 1967: Writer and activist Langston Hughes died. Hughes was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the early pioneers of Jazz Poetry. During the Civil Rights Movement, from 1942-1962, he wrote a weekly column for the black-owned Chicago Defender. His poetry and fiction depicted the lives and struggles of working-class African Americans. Much of his writing dealt with racism and black pride. Like many black artists and intellectuals of his era, he was attracted to communism as an alternative to the racism and segregation of America. He travelled to the Soviet Union and many of his poems were published in the CPUSA newspaper. He also participated in the movement to free the Scottsboro Boys and supported the Republican cause in Spain. He opposed the U.S. entering World War II and he signed a statement in support of Stalin’s purges.
Today in Writing History May 22, 1927: Author Peter Matthiessen was born. Matthiessen was an environmental activist and a CIA officer who wrote short stories, novels and nonfiction. He’s the only writer to have won the National Book award in both nonfiction, for The Snow Leopard (1979), and in fiction, for Shadow Country (2008). His story Travelin’ Man was made into the film The Young One (1960) by Luis Bunuel. Perhaps his most famous book was, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), which tells the story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement. Peltier is still in prison (over 43 years so far) for a crime he most likely did not commit. The former governor of South Dakota, Bill Janklow, and David Price, an FBI agent who was at the Wounded Knee assault, both sued Viking Press for libel because of statements in the book. Both lawsuits threatened to undermine free speech and further stifle indigenous rights activism. Fortunately, both lawsuits were dismissed.
Today in Labor History May 20, 1911: Anarchist Magonistas published a proclamation calling for the peasants to take collective possession of the land in Baja California. They had already defeated government forces there. Members of the IWW traveled south to help them. During their short revolution, they encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands. They also supported the creation of cooperatives and opposed the establishment of any new government. Ricardo Flores Magon organized the rebellion from Los Angeles, where he lived. In addition to Tijuana, they also took the cities of Ensenada and Mexicali. However, in the end, the forces of Madero suppressed the uprising. LAPD arrested Magon and his brother Enrique. As a result, both spend nearly two years in prison. Many of the IWW members who fought in the rebellion, later participated in the San Diego free speech fight. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). Read my article on the San Diego Free Speech fight here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2022/02/01/today-in-labor-history-february-1/
So, you read my article on the SD free speech fight, too? Cool.
Lots of other heavy SD history, too. The minutemen, a white supremacist group, threatened Angels Davis when she was a student at UCSD. And activists later attacked the Fallbrook home of White Asian Resistance leader Tom Metzger. I think that was in the late 80s or early 90s.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon yeah, i know a lot more about the white supremacists and other fascists because we still are fighting with them. One of the local muncipalities, Santee, is still known by everyone as Klantee for a reason, ugh. If you ever want to share more about that stuff or have suggestions of books, i am here for it! 😁
Today in Labor History May 15, 1917: The Library Employees’ Union was founded in New York City. It was the first union of public library workers in the United States. One of their main goals was to elevate the low status of women library workers and their miserable salaries. Maud Malone (1873-1951) was a founding member of the union. She was also a militant suffragist and an infamous heckler at presidential campaign speeches.
Today in Writing History May 9, 1981: Nelson Algren, American novelist and short story writer died. His most famous book was “The Man With The Golden Arm,” which was made into a film in 1955. He was called the “bard of the down-and-outer” based on his numerous stories about the poor, beaten down and addicted. Algren was also called a “gut radical.” His heroes included Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs and Clarence Darrow. He claims he never joined the Communist Party, but he participated in the John Reed Club and was an honorary co-chair of the “Save Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Committee.” The FBI surveilled him and had a 500-page dossier on him.
Today in Writing History May 7, 1861: Indian poet and playwright Rabindranath Tagore was born. Also known as the Bard of Bengal, Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was also an anti-imperialist and supported Indian nationalism. In 1916, Indian expatriates tried to assassinate him in San Francisco.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon more accurate statement would be that these 2 nations adopted his poems as national anthems for their countries. He didn't write the poems with the specific intention to compose national anthem for any country.
Having said that, national anthem of India describes the country so beautifully that it is hard to believe that it was not written with that express intention. But again, I am biased, so the moral of the story is he was a great poet, writer & human being.
If you're in Vegas for the Punk Rock and Bowling festival this Memorial Day weekend, be sure to stop by Avantpop Books, Sunday, May 26, noon. I'll be reading from my working-class historical novel, "Anywhere But Schuylkill." Billy Bragg will be headlining, with his book, "Roots, Rockers and Radicals."
Today in Labor History April 30 1945: Eva Braun and Adolph Hitler committed suicide, in Berlin, after being married for less than 40 hours. Many Nazis were tried, convicted and executed. And literally thousands were secreted into the U.S., given false identities, and put to work as spies, intelligence officers, informants, and rocket scientists in the Cold War. Some of them had even been high-ranking Nazi Party officials, secret police chiefs, and heads of concentration camps. In fact, during the first few years after WWII ended, it was easier to get into the U.S. as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish concentration camp survivor. There were policy makers in Washington who said the Jews shouldn’t be let in because they’re “lazy” and “self-entitled.” For more on this sordid history, read “The Nazis Next Door
How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men,” By Eric Lichtblau.
Michelle Cruz Gonzales’s “The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band,” is one of the best rock memoirs I have ever read. It honestly portrays much of what made the 1990s punk scene beautiful, and much of what made it ugly, too. But what really makes this book great is how eloquently, and passionately, Gonzales writes about how it shaped her own personal growth and identity as a working-class woman of color.
First, some of that beauty. $5 live shows. DIY performance spaces and organizations like Gillman Street, Klub Komotion and Epicenter Zone. The political activism. And, of course, the raw energy of bands like Spitboy. Mimi Thi Nguyen’s preface does a great job of anchoring the book in its historical context (e.g., Gulf War, Rodney King, and the rarity, even in the San Francisco Bay Area, of an all-women, anarchist feminist band). Which brings us to some of the ugliness. In spite of the leftwing politics of so many of the bands, and fans, it was still a straight, white, male-dominated scene. Sexism, racism, and homophobia were always present, sometimes overtly, and other times subtly, in the form of “colorblindness,” or the uncritical exercise of privilege.
Many of us were, in fact, very self-critical. But we were also young and inexperienced. Sometimes we came up with good analyses and effective solutions. Other times, well… Let me share one of my favorite parts of the book, when Spitboy is playing in Washington, D.C., with members of Bikini Kill in the audience. Before their set, a tall guy comes up to Gonzales and asks if the men have to stand in the back of the room, like they were told to do during a Bikini Kill set. Irate, Gonzales announces to the audience that men do not have to stand in the back. “We’re not a riot grrrl band.” The room goes silent. So, Spitboy’s lead singer, Adrienne, follows with “Please don’t block a woman’s view; don’t stand in front of someone who is shorter than you are. Just use common sense.”
The first time I experienced the men-in-the-back rule, I willingly complied. The mosh pit was notoriously dominated by big, aggressive dudes, and sometimes outright bullies. And even though I considered myself a feminist, I am tall and probably quite often blocked the view of shorter people without even realizing it. So, it seemed a fair and reasonable compromise to me. However, Spitboy’s less authoritarian message would have really resonated with me, and would have been a much more effective reminder for well-meaning big guys to pay better attention to our oversized footprint.
One of the most powerful chapters in the book is titled Race, Class and Spitboy. It highlights how easily a person from a marginalized group can become invisible to those around them, even when those people are friends, and even when they, themselves, have leftist politics. In one scene, Gonzales introduces her bandmates to her working-class abuela, in East Los Angeles. The band is uncharacteristically quiet and awkward. No one asks her grandmother any questions or tries to get to know her. One of the bandmember’s has a bemused expression similar to the expression she had when Gonzales explained that her two siblings have two different dads, both different from her own dad. Reading this now, I think, what’s so hard to get? Her mom was poor. They lived on welfare. Her dad was abusive. They had to leave him. Tragic and traumatic, but not uncommon, especially for working-class women. Yet somehow this was perplexing to her middle-class bandmates who hadn't experienced such things. I saw some of this same kind of perplexion, or obliviousness, growing up, when many of my middle-class peers assumed my best friend, was working-class and Xicana, was middle-class and white, like them, somehow overlooking the clue in her surname.
This invisibility becomes even more glaring, and ironic, when a white riot grrrl accuses Spitboy of cultural appropriation for naming their 3rd album “Mi Cuerpo Es Mio.” But reflecting back on this incident, Gonzales gains some important insight, too. That her own anger at being accused of racism by a riot grrrl “who couldn't tell a person of color when she was looking right at one,” was actually a mask for the sadness she felt because people didn’t see who she really was, and that she had allowed that to happen.
There are many other moments like this in the book, but you’ll have to pick up a copy and read those for yourself. Likewise, if you want to know why they called themselves Spitboy, or what the Spitboy rule is. You won’t be disappointed. It’s a great book, with lots of rare fliers and posters, as well as stories of touring and performing that range from humorous to frightening. But one last thing I’d like to say in closing is that it’s tragic that Spitboy didn’t get to open for Fugazi, at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, on May Day, 1993—a regret that was referenced twice in the book, once in the preface, and again toward the end. The significance is that Fugazi was a band that meant a lot to Spitboy, and to so many of us in the DIY punk scene. Also, because it was such a seminal show. I was there. I was the guy doling out free condoms to anyone who asked, doing my DIY part to stop the spread of HIV. I also gave a speech at the beginning of the show about the Haymarket martyrs, and the anarchist history of May Day. It was a fantastic show, and a great moment in my life. But if Spitboy had played, it would have been one of the greatest punk shows ever.
Today in Labor June 30, 1906: United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act in response to Upton Sinclair's novel, “The Jungle,” which exposed atrocious sanitary conditions in Chicago meat packing industry. Sinclair intended his book not only to bring attention to the public health threat of the squalid working conditions, but also to the racism faced by Chicago’s largely immigrant meat workers, as well as the corruption of both the politicians and union officials. However, the public was most outraged by the prospect of getting food poisoning from the rotten meat.
Today in Labor History June 30, 1840: Publication of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's “What Is Property?” Proudhon is considered by many to be history's first anarchist and founder of the philosophy of Anarchism. In the book, he makes the following argument for why Property is Theft: “If I were asked… What is slavery? … I should answer… It is murder! … No extended argument would be required to show that the power to remove a man's mind, will, and personality, is the power of life and death, and that it makes a man a slave. It is murder. Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery! without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?” However, he was not the first to say this. Marquis de Sade, in his 1797 novel, “Juliette,” says, "Tracing the right of property back to its source, one infallibly arrives at usurpation. However, theft is only punished because it violates the right of property; but this right is itself nothing in origin but theft."
Today in Labor History June 27, 1905: The Industrial Workers of the World (AKA IWW or the Wobblies) was founded at Brand's Hall, in Chicago, Illinois. The IWW was a radical syndicalist labor union, that advocated industrial unionism, with all workers in a particular industry organized in the same union, as opposed by the trade unions typical today. Founding members included Big Bill Haywood, James Connolly, Eugene V. Debs, Lucy Parsons, and Mother Jones. The IWW was and is a revolutionary union that sought not only better working conditions in the here and now, but the complete abolition of capitalism. The preamble to their constitution states: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. It also states: Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."
They advocate the General Strike and sabotage as two of many means to these ends. However, sabotage to the Wobblies does not necessarily mean bombs and destruction. According to Big Bill Haywood, sabotage is any action that gums up the works, slowing down profits for the bosses. Thus, working to rule and sit-down strikes are forms of sabotage. The IWW is the first union known to have utilized the sit-down strike. They were one of the first and only unions of the early 20th century to organize all workers, regardless of ethnicity, gender, nationality, language or type of work (e.g., they organized both skilled and unskilled workers). They also were subjected to extreme persecution by the state and by vigilantes working for the corporations. Hundreds were imprisoned or deported. Dozens were assassinated or executed, including Joe Hill, Frank Little, Wessley Everest and Carlo Tresca. And scores were slaughtered in massacres, like in McKees Rock railway strike, PA (1909); Lawrence Textile Strike, MA (1912); San Diego Free Speech Fight, CA (1912); Grabow, LA Lumber Strike (1912); New Orleans, LA banana strike (1913); Patterson, NJ textile strike (1913); Mesabi Range Strike, MN (1916); Everett, WA massacre (1916); Centralia, WA Armistice Day riot (1919) and the Columbine, CO massacre (1921). There was also the Hopland, CA riot (1913), in which the police killed each other, accidentally, and framed Wobblies for it.
There are lots of great books about the IWW artwork and music. The Little Red Songbook. The IWW, Its First 50 Years, by Fred Thompson. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology, by Joyce Kornbluth. But there are also tons of fictional accounts of the Wobblies, too. Lots of references in Dos Passos’, USA Trilogy. Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, was influenced by his experience working as a Pinkerton infiltrator of the Wobblies. The recent novel, The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter, has a wonderful portrayal of Elizabeth Gurly Flynn, during the Spokane free speech fight. And tons of classic folk and protest music composed by Wobbly Bards, like Joe Hill, Ralph Chaplin, Haywire Mac and T-Bone Slim.
Today in Labor History June 26, 1975: Two FBI agents and one member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Undercover FBI agents framed AIM activist Leonard Peltier for the two FBI deaths. During the trial, some of the government’s own witnesses testified that Peltier wasn’t even present at the scene of the killings. Nevertheless, a judge him to two consecutive life terms. Peltier is still in prison and his health has been deteriorating. Peltier admitted to participating in the shoot-out in his memoir, “Prison Writings, My Life in the Sundance.” However, he denied killing the FBI agents. He became eligible for parole in 1993. Amnesty International, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama, all campaigned for his clemency. President Obama denied his request for clemency in 2017.