Today in Labor History November 10, 1887: Chicago Haymarket martyr Louis Lingg, 22, “cheated” the state the day before his scheduled execution by committing suicide in his prison cell. He exploded a dynamite cap in his mouth. It took him 6 painful hours to die. Using his own blood, he wrote "Hoch die anarchie!" (Hurrah for anarchy!) on the stones of his cell. In 1893, Illinois Governor John Altgeld granted Lingg a posthumous pardon because he, and his 7 codefendants were actually all innocent of the Haymarket bombing. None of them had even been present at Haymarket square when the bomb was thrown. All 8 were, however, anarchists, and were railroaded because of the political beliefs and affiliations. On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers went on strike across the U.S. to demand the eight-hour workday. It was the world’s first May Day/International Workers’ Day demonstration—an event that has been celebrated ever since, by nearly every country in the world, except for the U.S. Two days later, another anarchist, August Spies, addressed striking workers at the McCormick Reaper factory. Chicago Police and Pinkertons attacked the crowd, killing at least one person. On May 4, anarchists organized a demonstration at Haymarket Square to protest that police violence. The police ordered the protesters to disperse. Somebody threw a bomb, which killed at least one cop. The police opened fire, killing another seven workers. Six police also died, likely from “friendly fire” by other cops. The authorities, in their outrage, went on a witch hunt, rounding up most of the city’s leading anarchists and radical labor leaders, including Albert Parsons, Louis Lingg and August Spies. Read my article on Lucy Parsons and the Haymarket affair here:

Michael Dunn

Lucy Parsons - Michael Dunn

Lucy Parsons anarchist communist revolutionary

#laborhistory #WorkingClass #haymarket #anarchism #prison #deathpenalty #EightHourDay #chicago #police #policebrutality #lucyparsons #louislingg

I know this is an old meme (goes back long before internet memes were a thing...long before there was even an internet). But I thought it was particularly apropos to this moment, as so many people are talking about renewing their passports and fleeing the country. Or sitting on their butts, fretting, complaining about how their neighbors, family and friends allowed, or caused, this to happen. As Joe Hill famously said: Don't Mourn, Organize! But what does organizing mean? What does it look like? First, it’s not about internet rants or memes, nor even calls to action on the internet. It’s most effective when done in person, face-to-face, in our workplaces, communities, schools. It’s not about telling people what to do or how to do it, either. It’s most effective when we listen to what people say, hear their fears, and their grievances, talk about what kind of world they really want to live in. It’s about finding ways to connect, helping people identify who the common enemy is, building solidarity, and recognizing that this means always punching up, and never down. It’s about building networks. Coalitions of like-minded groups. Affinity groups for safety and effectiveness when doing Direct Action. It’s about providing mutual aid whenever possible. Not just because it’s a nice thing to do, or because it helps keep people alive and safe. It also helps strengthen solidarity, connection, commitment to the struggle. This is not only how we defeat the right. It is also how we build a new, better society within the shell of the old! #workingclass #solidarity #MutualAid #antifascism #Organizing #generalstrike #directaction #workingclass #solidarity #MutualAid #antifascism #Organizing #generalstrike

Today in Labor History November 9, 1851: Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. They took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. Fairbank was an activist on the Underground Railroad. He spent over 17 years in prison and was lashed 35,000 times. He was pardoned in 1864. He was believed to have helped at least 47 people escape slavery. Fairbank wrote a memoir in 1890 called “Rev. Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times: How He "Fought the Good Fight" to Prepare "the Way." He died in near-poverty, in Angelica, New York, in 1898, at the age of 81. #workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #abolition #prison #racism #blm #UndergroundRailroad #books #writer #author #books #memoir #biography @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today in Labor History November 8, 1972: The “Trail of Broken Treaties” marchers occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Washington, DC. The protest was led by Dennis Banks and Russell Means and members of the Rosebud Sioux. They were demanding legal recognition of all existing treaties, restoration of the treaty-making process, and the return of 110 million acres of stolen Indigenous land. #workingclass #LaborHistory #TrailOfBrokenTreaties #nativeamerican #indigenous #protest #AmericanIndianMovement #aim

Today in Labor History November 8, 1923: Hitler led a failed coup d’etat in Munich, known as the Beerhall Putsch. Inspired by Mussolini’s march on Rome, roughly 2,000 Nazis marched on Munich, but were repelled by police, who killed 16 Nazis in the process. Hitler escaped, wounded, but was eventually caught and imprisoned. The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German public for the first time, and his trial gave him his first significant public platform. In prison, he dictated “Mein Kampf” to fellow prisoners, Rudolf Hess and Emil Maurice. Nearly 11 years later, on May 2, 1933, in one of his first acts after coming to power, Hitler abolished all labor unions. Storm troopers occupied union offices across Germany. Union leaders were arrested, beaten, tortured and imprisoned, or sent to concentration camps. In the coming months, thousands more communists, anarchists and labor activists were arrested and murdered. #workingclass #LaborHistory #unions #nazis #hitler #prison #torture #communist #anarchist

Magon's words, truer now than ever: Rebellion is Life Submission is Death

Big demand now...but 1 year later it'll be even bigger. And they'll be going for $1400/month (unless Californians pass Prop 33, and SF actually uses that window to pass vacancy control.)

Gizmodo

San Francisco Startup Sees Big Demand for Sleeping Pods That Cost $700 a Month

$700 a month to live in a coffin where you can't even have sex.

#workingclass #housing #homelessness #sanfrancisco #rent

Today in Labor History November 5, 1916: The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. 300 IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers’ strike that had been going on for the past 5 months. Prior attempts to support the strikers were met with vigilante beatings with axe handles. As the boat pulled in, Sheriff McRae called out, “Who’s your leader?” The Wobblies answered, “We’re all leaders!” The sheriff pulled his gun and said, “You can’t land.” A Wobbly yelled back, “Like hell we can’t.” Gunfire erupted, most of it from the 200 vigilantes on the dock. When the smoke cleared, two of the sheriff’s deputies were dead, shot in the back by their own men, along with 5-12 Wobblies on the boat. Dozens more were wounded. The authorities arrested 74 Wobblies. After a trial, all charges were dropped against the IWW members. The event was referenced in John Dos Passos’s “USA Trilogy.” #workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #anarchism #Everett #massacre #vigilantes #police #policebrutality #union #strike #books #fiction #novel #writer #author @npub1wceq...lzu8