Today in Labor History June 21, 1982: John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981. A Few years later (1990), Reagan was found not guilty by reason of dementia, when he said “I don’t recall,” 88 times during the Iran-Contra hearings, a rate of more than 10 per hour. (In 1994, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s). Hinkley said he tried to assassinate Reagan to impress actress Jody Foster, who had played Iris, a twelve-year-old prostitute in the film Taxi Driver. In that film, Robert DeNiro’s character, Travis Bickle, tries to assassinate the president. And from all this came one of the more amusing band names from the classic era of Hardcore Punk, JFA, or Jody Foster’s Army.
Today in Labor History June 21, 1964: Civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner were disappeared near Philadelphia, Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan, who beat them to death with clubs and chains. Their mangled bodies were later found by federal agents.
Today in Labor History June 20, 1943: Striking African American auto workers were attacked by the National Workers League, KKK and armed white workers at Detroit's Bell Isle amusement park. 34 people were killed and 1,800 arrested in these race riots (scores of whom were African American victims of racist violence). The U.S. army had been brought in to restore order. 400,000 Southerners, black and white, had migrated to the Detroit area from 1941-1943 for work in the automotive industry, which had been converted to support the WWII effort, creating housing shortages and increasing pre-existing social tensions. Further exacerbating tensions were years of discrimination and police brutality against black workers. Earlier in 1943, there were race riots in Harlem, Los Angeles (Zoot Suit Riots), Texas and Alabama.
Today in Labor History June 20, 1912: Voltairine de Cleyre, one of the earliest feminist anarchists, died at the age 45, following a long illness. Two thousand supporters attended her funeral at Waldheim cemetery, in Chicago, where she was buried next to the Haymarket Martyrs. De Cleyre opposed capitalism and marriage and the domination of religion over sexuality and women’s lives. Her father, a radical abolitionist, named her after the Enlightenment writer and satirist, Voltaire. Her biographer Paul Avrich said that she was "a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist." The Haymarket affair, and the wrongful execution of anarchists in Chicago, radicalized her against the state and capitalism. She was also a prolific writer, and poet, publishing dozens of essays and poems in her short life.
Today in Labor History June 20, 1893: Eugene Debs formed the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the first unions to organize by industry and regardless of race (along with the Knights of Labor and IWW, which he cofounded in 1905). Within a few months the union was leading an 18-day strike against the Great Northern Railroad, successfully forcing management to reverse three wage cuts, despite the fact that the nation was in the midst of a terrible depression. The victory set the union on a remarkable course in which it averaged 2,000 new members a day. Debs was jailed during World War I for making antiwar speeches. He ran for president from jail, as a socialist, and won 4% of the vote. The photograph shows union leaders who were jailed during the 1894 Pullman Strike, including Debs.
Today in Labor History June 20, 1763: Wolfe Tone, Irish rebel leader, was born. He helped create the United Irishmen, a Republican organization that fought against British rule in Ireland. The United Irishmen was a relatively nonsectarian organization that united Irishmen of both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. Wolfe Tone also led the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The leaders of this major uprising were inspired by the French and American Revolutions. They started off strong, winning many battles. However, in the end, the British prevailed, killing up to 50,000 rebels and civilians. Wolfe Tone said, “Our independence must be had at all hazards. If the men with property will not support us, they must fall. We can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community: the men of no property.” The British captured Wolfe Tone in November, 1798. Scholars believe he committed suicide in prison a few days later.
Today in Labor History June 19, 1985: Gunmen opened fire on an outdoor restaurant in San Salvador’s upscale Zona Rosa, killing 13, including four U.S. Marines and two U.S. businessmen. A broadcast by Radio Venceremos, the FMLN’s pirate radio station, said: "If U.S. Army members and CIA agents died in San Salvador, it was because they came to attack our people. No one had summoned them; they died as a result of the interventionist policy carried out by President Reagan, whose intervention grows day by day. Reagan will have to assume full responsibility for his deeds." I was in El Salvador in 1993 and some of the bullet holes were still visible from the Zona Rosa attack. And, even though peace had been officially declared at this point, there were still sporadic death squad murder occurring, even while I was there. I remember going to a peace march in San Salvador that was patrolled by armed United Nations monitors. Buses had driven in from every corner of the country, displaying banners of the department or town from where they came, as well as others demanding an end to governmental impunity and assassinations.
Mark Danner wrote a really horrifying, but excellent article in the New Yorker, 1993, about the dirty war the Salvadoran government had waged against its own people. It includes the story of how guerillas pretended to allow the Radio Venceremos transmitter to get captured by the ruthless Colonel Monterosa, when in reality they had packed it full of explosive to destroy the colonel. You can read it here: http://markdanner.com/1993/12/06/the-truth-of-el-mozote/
Today in Labor History June 19, 1938: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Vancouver cops attacked strikers with tear gas and clubs on Bloody Sunday. Over 100 were injured, with over 43 hospitalized. The strikers were primarily unemployed men, affiliated with the Communist Party. They had been on strike for months and had occupied hotels, the Vancouver art gallery, and post office. Events began on May 20, when 500 unemployed workers began a sit-down strike in the Hotel Georgia, in Vancouver, British Columbia. In early ’38, the government had cut grants to the provinces. As a result, many of the relief camps shut down and jobs dried up. In response, protesters occupied the Hotel Georgia, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the main post office beginning on May 20. They were led by communist organizers. The owner of the hotel refused to call the cops, fearing major property damage in the melee that would ensue. So, he bribed the men to leave. However, those in the post office and art gallery remained for weeks.
Today in Labor History June 19, 1937: The Women's Day Massacre. During the Great Ohio Steel Strike of 1937, there were numerous street battles between workers and police, including the Youngstown Riots and Poland Avenue Riot on June 21st. On June 19th, there were smaller battles that some believe were initiated by the cops to test the likely extent of union resistance in a real fight. When the cops in Youngstown couldn't find any union leaders to beat up, they went after women picketers who were sitting in chairs to support the strike. They fired tear gas and, when the women refused to leave, began firing live rounds at them, killing 2. Over the course of the entire strike, police killed 16 workers, many of whom were shot in the back as they ran away.
Today in Labor History June 19, 1903: Benito Mussolini, at the time a radical Socialist, was arrested by Bern police for advocating a violent general strike. As strange as it may seem, in light of his rise to become one of the most powerful and violent fascist leaders in the world, Mussolini came from a radical leftist background. In his youth, he idealized figures like Bakunin and Garibaldi. His father, who was a socialist, named him Benito, after Mexico’s liberal leader Benito Juarez. His two middle names, Andrea and Amilcare, were named after Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani.
Today in Labor History June 19, 1865: African Americans were declared free in Texas, more than 2 months after the end of the Civil War and the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. This date is now celebrated each year as "Juneteenth." It officially became a national holiday in 2021. Emancipation under the proclamation only applied to enslaved people living in former Confederate states. Enslaved people living outside the former confederacy did not gain legal freedom until the 13th Amendment was ratified in December, 1865. And incarcerated prisoners are still constitutionally exempt from protections against slavery.
Today in Labor History June 18, 1984: The Battle of Orgreave occurred in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. One of the most violent police assaults on labor in British history, it was also a pivotal event in the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike. After several workers had been killed on the picket lines, the National Miners Union (NUM) organized 5,000 workers to picket at Orgreave. Riot police, with long shields and dogs, surrounded the picketers and charged them, beating them with clubs. 95 strikers were arrested and charged with rioting. However, the trials collapsed and all charges were dropped. In 1991, the police paid out £425,000 in compensation to 39 miners for assault, wrongful arrest, unlawful detention and malicious prosecution.
Today in Labor History, June 18, 1935: The Battle of Ballantyne Pier occurred during a docker's strike in Vancouver, British Columbia, led by the International Longshoremen’s Association. Nearly 2000 relief camp workers had come to Vancouver on April 4. These unemployed men were protesting the conditions in the federal relief camps. They organized with the Workers' Unity League into the Relief Camp Workers' Union. Communists tried to merge the two strikes and spark a General Strike. Police and Shipping Bosses tried to spin it as an attempted West Coast Bolshevik revolution. On June 18, about 1000 strikers and their supporters marched towards Ballantyne Pier, where strikebreakers were unloading ships. Chief Constable Colonel W. W. Foster warned the demonstrators to halt. When they refused, police attacked them with clubs. Vancouver police, British Columbia Provincial Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police all participated in the assault. They continuing to club people even as they fled and fired tear gas at them. Many fought back, throwing rocks at the police. 28 were hospitalized. Police raided offices of communist and labor organizations.
Today in Labor History June 18, 1872: The Rochester, New York police arrested Susan B. Anthony for attempting to vote, in violation of laws allowing only men to vote. She was convicted, but refused to pay the fine. In 1878, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton arranged for Congress to introduce a constitutional amendment that would extend voting rights to women. In 1920, it was ratified as the 19th amendment to the constitution.
Today in Labor History June 18, 1923: A nationwide General Strike took place in Argentina in protest of the assassination of the anarchist Kurt Wilckens in his prison cell. Two workers were killed in the strike as police tried to raid the offices of the anarchist union FORA.
Wilckens was born in Germany. He moved to the U.S. in the 1910s, where he joined the IWW and was exposed to anarchist ideas. He worked as a copper miner in Arizona and was one of hundreds arrested and expelled from the region during the Bisbee Deportation, July 12, 1917. During the Bisbee strike, authorities sealed off the county and seized the local Western Union telegraph office to cut off outside communication, while several thousand armed vigilantes rounded up 1,186 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The workers were herded into manure-laden boxcars and dumped in the New Mexico desert. After that, Wilckens was arrested for making antiwar statements and deported to Germany in 1920 under the Espionage Act.
However, Wilckens moved to Argentina that same year, at the height of the Libertarian Workers’ Movement. Workers in Patagonia rebelled in 1920-1922 and were violently suppressed by the military, led by Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela. They slaughtered 1,500 workers. While the British landowners cheered Varela with rounds of “He’s a jolly good fellow,” the local prostitutes all shouted “Assassins! Pigs! We won’t go with killers” when any soldiers entered their brothels. Many of the sex workers were jailed for “insulting men in uniform.” To avenge the workers massacred by the military, Wilckens, who was a Tolstoyan pacifist, bombed and shot Varela. At his trial, Wilckens stated that he had shot Varela so that he could never kill again.
Hector Olivera’s film about these events, “La Patagonia Rebelde,” came out in 1974. “Bisbee ‘17,” (1999) by Robert Houston, is a historical novel based on the Bisbee deportations. There was also a really interesting film of the same name that came out in 2018. In the film, the town’s inhabitants reenact the events 100 years later. It also includes interviews with current residents.
Today in Labor History June 17, 1876: U.S. army soldiers attacked an encampment of Lakota and Cheyenne in Rosebud, South Dakota. Led by Crazy Horse, the native warriors routed the Americans. The Cheyenne called it the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother because the fight involved Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who courageously road out into the middle of the battle, grabbed her brother, and carried him to safety. The area had been promised to the tribes through treaties, signed after they had won previous battles. However, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the U.S. government wanted the land. Buffalo Calf Road Woman also fought at Little Bighorn, alongside her husband, Black Coyote. She was the one who struck the blow that knocked Custer off his horse, resulting in his death.
To this day, Mexico honors Ricardo Flores Magon, and his brothers, who led the anarchist revolution in, and occupation of, Tijuana and other northern Baja California towns in 1911, during the early days of the Mexican Revolution.
Berlin has a Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in the Mitte neighborhood. I spoke at a radio station there, about Food Not Bombs, back in the early 1990s. Germany has at least one street named after Emma Goldman.
There is a Kropotkinskaya metro station in Moscow & Mount Kropotkin in Antarctica. There are still numerous schools around the world named for Spanish anarchist educator Francisco Ferrer. And numerous places have streets or squares named after Karl Marx.
But where are the revolutionary street and place names in the U.S.? Emma Goldman and Ricardo Flores Magon both spent considerable portions of their lives in the U.S., including time in U.S. prisons (Magon died in Leavenworth). Joe Hill's music lives on, was performed by Pete Seeger, Utah Philips, and Paul Robeson, was executed by the state on trumped up charges. Where are the Joe Hill streets? How about Albert Parsons, falsely convicted and executed for the Haymarket bombing, or his wife Lucy, radical organizer and cofounder of the IWW? How about street names or parks named for Cherokee radical and IWW organizer Frank Little, lynched by vigilantes? Or African-American IWW organizer Ben Fletcher?
The closest thing that comes readily to my mind is a short stretch of 9th St., in Oakland, renamed Huey P Newton Street, in 2021. Or Malcolm X school in Berkeley.
If you know of other examples of street or place names in the U.S. named for radicals or revolutionaries, please share photos.
Today in Labor History June 17, 1911: Federal troops, led by Madero, recaptured Tijuana from the Magonista anarchist rebels. Among those surviving and escaping was the famous Wobbly (IWW) songwriter, Joe Hill. Another Wobbly bard, Haywire Mac (compose of The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum), also participated in the occupation of Tijuana. The Magonistas had captured the Baja California border town of Mexicali on January 29, and Tijuana on May 8, as well as Ensenada, San Tomas, and many other northern Baja California towns. The rebels 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. Many U.S. members of the IWW participated in the revolution. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). The IWW had been active in nearby San Diego since 1906, sight of an infamous Free Speech fight in 1912. During that struggle, in which many veterans of the Desert Revolution fought, police killed 2 workers. Vigilantes kidnapped Emma Goldman and her companion Ben Reitman, who had come to show their support. However, before deporting them, they tarred and feathered Reitman and raped him with a cane.
Today in Labor History June 16, 1976: 20,000 students protested in Soweto South Africa, against the requirement that they learn the Afrikaans language in their schools. They considered Afrikaans to be the language of the brutally racist and repressive Apartheid regime. The uprising spread to seven other black townships and became known as the Soweto Uprising. The police responded by shooting directly into the crowds of children and teachers. Official reports claim that the police killed the 176 people, mostly children. However, some estimate that over 700 were killed. By the end of the year, thousands had died in demonstrations throughout the country.
Today in Labor History June 16, 1869: In the small mining town of Ricamarie, France, troops opened fire on miners who were protesting the arrest of 40 workers. As a result, troops killed 14 people, including a 17-month-old girl in her mother’s arms. Furthermore, they wounded 60 others, including 10 children. This strike, and another in Aubin, along with the Paris Commune, were major inspirations for Emile Zola’s seminal work, “Germinal,” and the reason he chose to focus on revolutionary worker actions in that novel.
Today in Labor History June 16, 1836: The London Working Men's Association was formed, launching the Chartist movement. The Chartists took their name from the People's Charter, which demanded universal suffrage for men, regardless of social class. The movement appealed to skilled workers, not the masses of unskilled laborers. They followed the utopian socialism of Robert Owen. The movement lasted from 1838 to 1857. America’s first cop, Allan Pinkerton, creator of the Secret Service & persecutor of the Molly Maguires, was a radical participant in the Chartist movement before becoming the bulldog of capitalists. While the Chartism was primarily a constitutional movement, there was a radical, insurrectionary wing. Pinkerton was a part of this wing. He fought cops, destroyed property, set fires and had to flee the UK in order to avoid imprisonment. You can read my satirical biography of him here: https://marshalllawwriter.com/the-eye-that-never-sleeps/
Today in Labor History June 15, 1950: As part of their Cold War hysteria, the Senate opened an investigation of 3,500 alleged "sex perverts" (i.e., homosexuals) in the federal government, somehow overlooking their cross-dressing darling in the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.
Today in Labor History June 15, 1917: President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act into law. The law targeted leftist, anti-war and labor organizations, especially the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was virtually destroyed because of the arrests and deportations of its members. When Eugene Debs spoke against the draft in Canton, Ohio, he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He ran for president from prison in 1920, winning nearly 1 million votes (3.4%). The government used the law to arrest anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and depart them to the Soviet Union. They used the law against the Rosenbergs, whom they executed. They also used it against Daniel Ellsberg, whose “Pentagon Papers” were published by the NY Times 51 years ago. The Espionage Act is still on the books and was used recently to prosecute Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
Today in Labor History June 15, 1914: Westinghouse strike, Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Congenial Industrial Union (ACIU) struck against Westinghouse. They were demanding union recognition and protesting against the "scientific management" theories of Frederick Taylor. They also wanted an eight-hour day, reinstatement of fired workers, and higher overtime and holiday rates. Women played a major role in the strike and many of the striking workers were women. Bridget Kenny organized marches and recruited workers to join the ACIU and rose to become one of the main spokespeople for the union. She had been employed by Westinghouse but fired in 1913 for selling union benefit tickets on company grounds. The Pittsburgh Leader, one of the city’s newspapers and one that hired numerous women writers, including Willa Cather, nicknamed Kenny “Joan de Arc.” And the women in this strike provided some of the inspiration for the workingwomen characters in Willa Cather’s short fiction. The Westinghouse plant on Edgewood Avenue was one of three they possessed in the Pittsburgh region, and one of the main sights of strike activity. In late June, the company used armed thugs to intimidate the workers, leading to a violent exchange in which several workers, and the East Pittsburgh police chief, were injured.