Today in Labor History May 29, 1830: Anarchist school teacher Louise Michel was born. Also known as the Red Virgin, she was a leader of the Paris Commune. During the Bloody Week, the authorities executed 30,000 men, women and children. They forced Michel to turn herself in by threatening to kill her mother, then deported her to New Caledonia, where she taught both the children of colonists and the indigenous people of New Caledonia. Her struggle against French colonialism and her support for the indigenous people is remembered today in their local museum of anarchism.
In 1880, the French gave amnesty to commune prisoners and allowed her back into the country. Many of those prisoners could not find work and were starving. She helped set up soup kitchens to feed them and devoted herself to writing about strikes and worker protests. On Mach 9, 1883, she led a demonstration through Paris. During the march, starving workers looted bakeries and stole bread. They arrested Michel and sentenced her to six years solitary confinement. Two years after being released, a would-be assassin shot her behind her ear. During the trial, she defended the would-be assassin, arguing that he had been misled by an evil society. She died on January 9, 1905.
Margaret Skinnider was born in Coatbridge, Scotland on 28th May 1892. She was a revolutionary and feminist who fought during the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin as a sniper, among other roles, and was the only female wounded in the action. 1/2
Today in Labor History May 21, 1935: Jane Addams died. Addams was a peace activist, sociologist and author. She was a co-founder of the ACLU and a leader in the history of social work and women’s suffrage. In 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1889, along with her lover, Ellen Gates Starr, she co-founded Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago. Eventually, the house became home to 25 women and was visited weekly by around 2,000 others. It became a center for research, study and debate. Members were bound by their commitment to the labor and suffrage movements. The facilities included a doctor to provide medical treatment for poor families, gym, adult night school and a girls’ club. The adult night school became a model for the continuing education classes that occur today.
Today in Labor History May 21, 1871: The Bloody Week, a savage orgy of repression and violence, was launched against the Paris Commune. As a result of the French government’s massacres and summary executions, 20,000 to 35,000 civilians died. 38,000 people were arrested. Prior to the repression, workers had taken over the city for 2 months, governing it from a feminist and anarcho-communist perspective, abolishing rent and child labor, and giving workers the right to take over workplaces abandoned by the owners.
During the Commune, workers took over all aspects of economic and political life. They enacted a system that included self-policing, separation of the church and state, abolition of child labor, and employee takeovers of abandoned businesses. Churches and church-run schools were shut down. The Commune lasted from March 18 through May 28, 1871. Karl Marx called it the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Louise Michel was one of the leaders of the revolution. During the Commune, she was elected head of the Montmartre Women’s Vigilance Committee. She also participated in the armed struggle against the French government. In her memoirs, Michel wrote the following about her state of mind during the commune: “In my mind I feel the soft darkness of a spring night. It is May 1871, and I see the red reflection of flames. It is Paris afire. That fire is a dawn.” She also wrote “oh, I’m a savage all right, I like the smell of gunpowder, grapeshot flying through the air, but above all, I’m devoted to the Revolution.”
#OnThisDay 21 years ago, I became a professional artist, or at least this is the day I celebrate and I don't even remember why exactly--it's been that long!
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.
Just a reminder, if you're in a state without access to abortion, there is a network of care, providing safe, effective, and free abortion pills and information.
It's so sad and demoralizing that some 170 years later in the U.S. we have to implement a new "Underground Railroad" for women to receive reproductive healthcare in Northern states.
And yes, it's a thing. Just search "Abortion Railroad" on Duck Duck Go (please don't use Google). #Backsliding #WomensRights #Feminism
Today in Labor History May 15, 1872: Julia Ward Howe declared the first Mother's Day as an anti-war holiday. Howe was an abolitionist and a feminist who wrote the lyrics for the Battle Hymn of the Republic. However, despite her disgust with slavery, she never thought black and white people were equal. She wanted to create a "Mother's Day For Peace," where mothers would ask that their husbands and sons to no longer get killed in wars. In 1870, she called upon mothers of all nationalities to promote the "amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace." In 1907, Anna Jarvis held the first official Mother’s Day at an Episcopalian Church in Virginia. She wanted to honor Howe’s original vision, and to set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed a mother is "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world."
Today in Labor History May 13, 2019: Unita Zelma Blackwell died. She was a civil rights activist and project director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She was also the first African-American woman to be elected mayor in Mississippi.
Today in Labor History May 7, 1845: Mary Eliza Mahoney was born. She was the first African American to work professionally as a trained nurse. She helped establish the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. The organization had a big influence on reducing discrimination in the field of nursing. Mahoney was also an activist for both civil rights and women’s suffrage.
Today in Labor History May 5, 1882: Sylvia Pankhurst was born on this day. Plankhurst was a leader of the English women's suffrage movement. She was also a left (council) communist activist and follower of Anton Pannekoek. In her “Constitution for British Soviets,” she argued that "Mothers and … organizers of the family life of the community [should] be adequately represented, and … take their due part in the management of society [through] a system of household Soviets..."
As tennis (WTA) agrees to be hosted in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi's deride 'outdated' depictions of their treatment of women, a feminist activist is jailed for eleven (!!) years effectively for wearing dungarees.
Some tennis players are outraged, others are taking the money; if you're taken in by the idea that this will encourage Saudis to reduce its repression of women, it may be time to stop & reflect on reality!
"We need, as we always have, the “YES” of our practices:
constellations of care, where each and every one of our
still-beating hearts, in concert, rebelliously speaks louder
than words, forming unmistakable patterns of different cosmologies, different worlds, life against their death machine."
"Ollas comunitarias: Avivando las llamas de la memoria y la rebelión" por Vilma Rocío Almendra Quiguanás
"Nuestra relación con el fuego es fundamental en la intimidad familiar y también en la colectividad territorial. Los fuegos de la intimidad familiar se tejen en la colectividad territorial, no solamente por el aporte material que cada familia lleva, sino también por la energía espiritual que cada familia dispone para la comunidad. Este tejido de fuegos también ha parido palabras y acciones colectivas para defender la vida, más allá de la ruralidad y la urbanidad, que el estado nos ha asignado."
Tuve el honor de traducir este ensayo al inglés. Se encuentra en la nueva antología "Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice" editada por @cbmilstein
"What do we do when the state has abandoned us? From failing health systems to housing crises to cascading ecological collapse, it's increasingly evident that state-centred politics do not protect us from the violence of colonialism and capitalism, fascism and patriarchy. In fact, they actively work to harm us."
Today in labor history April 28, 1896: Na Hye-sok was born. She was a South Korean feminist, poet, writer, painter and journalist. She was the first female professional painter and the first feminist writer in Korea. In 1919, the authorities jailed her for participating in the March 1st Movement against Japanese rule in Korea. In 1934, she published an essay called “Divorce Testimony.” In that piece, she wrote about the repression of female sexuality. She also said that her ex-husband couldn’t satisfy her sexually and refused to talk about it with her. And she also promoted the idea of "test marriages," where a couple would live together before marrying to see if they really were compatible. These ideas were considered so scandalous and shocking that her career took a tailspin and never recovered.
Today in Labor History April 27, 1882: Jessie Redmon Fauset was born. She was an African-American editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator. Her emphasis on portraying an accurate image of African-American life and history inspired literature of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. In her fiction, she created black characters who were working professionals. This was inconceivable to white Americans at the time. Her stories dealt with themes like racial discrimination, "passing", and feminism. From 1919 to 1926, she was literary editor of The Crisis, a NAACP magazine.
Excited to share this lengthy interview I conducted (and translated) with an feminist-anarchist affinity group in Mexico City, now up on @igd_news:
"As for our aspirations, we simply do not have them. The least we try to do is to walk towards life in a dignified way, towards death in a meaningful way, even if it is for ourselves. The maximum: the social revolution, the destruction of the capitalist-patriarchal system, the creation of other forms of living life, although we are not married to the idea that someday this will appear, rather we are building it as much as we can in the here and now."
Today in Labor History April 25, 1993: Over one million people marched in Washington, D.C., for gay, lesbian, bisexual, & transgender rights. This was in the era of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discrimination within the military and Colorado’s constitutional amendment invalidating laws that protect LGBTQ rights. The marchers had seven basic demands. The 1st demand was a civil rights bill and ending all discrimination by state and federal governments, including the repeal of all sodomy laws. They also demanded more funding for AIDS research and treatment; an end to discrimination in adoption and child custody; full inclusion of all LGBTQ people in the education system; and an end to all discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people. However, in their platform, they also demanded these same rights and protections for ALL people, especially people of color, people with disabilities, women, nonbinary and trans people, and working class and poor people.