Today In Labor History March 27, 1904: The authorities kicked Mother Jones out of Colorado for “stirring-up” striking coal miners. Earlier in March, the authorities deported 60 striking miners from Colorado. In June, they arrested 22 in Telluride. For nearly 2 years, strikers, led by the Western Federation of Miners, were violently attacked by Pinkerton and Baldwin-Felts detectives. 33 strikers were killed. At least two scholars have said “There is no episode in American labor history in which violence was as systematically used by employers as in the Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904.” #workingclass #LaborHistory #colorado #union #strike #mining #motherjones #WorkplaceViolence #scabs #coal #pinkertons #colorado #minewars #wfm #WesternFederationOfMiners #womenshistorymonth

Today in Labor History March 24, 1987: 250 ACT UP members protested at Wall Street to demand greater access to experimental AIDS drugs and for a coordinated national policy to fight the disease. Seventeen ACT UP members were arrested. #workingclass #LaborHistory #activism #civildisobedience #directaction #ACTUP #aids #HIV #wallstreet #lgbtq

Today in Labor History March 24, 1989: The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, dumping 240,000 barrels of crude oil. It was the largest oil spill in U.S. history until the Deepwater Horizon spill, in 2010. A major cause for the tanker’s collision was an overworked and under-rested crew, which the National Transportation Safety Board determined was a widespread practice. Thousands of people who participated in the cleanup efforts developed liver, kidney, lung, nervous system, and blood disorders due to 2-butoxyethanol and other agents that were used. An estimated 250,000 sea birds; 2,800 sea otters; 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles; 22 orcas; and unknown numbers of fish were killed by the spill. A study by the National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA found that 90 tons of oil remained on beaches in Prince William Sound in 2001. The devastation to the local fisheries caused the bankruptcy of the Chugach Alaska Corporation, an Alaska Native Corporation. #workingclass #LaborHistory #exxon #valdez #oilspill #environment #indigenous #alaska #WorkplaceSafety #ecology

Today in Labor History March 24, 1919: Poet and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born. Ferlinghetti is most well-known for his book of poetry, “A Coney Island of the Mind” (1958) and for cofounding City Lights bookstore and publishing, in San Francisco. The authorities arrested him for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” because they deemed it obscene. However, a jury acquitted him in 1957. Politically, Ferlinghetti considered himself an anarchist. His politics were influenced by Anarchist poet and IWW member Kenneth Rexroth. #workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #IWW #beatniks #Ferlinghetti #obscenity #CityLights #publishing #poetry @npub1wceq...lzu8