Today in Labor History November 23, 1733: A slave insurrection began on St. John, in what was then the Danish West Indies. 150 African slaves from Akwamu, in present-day Ghana, revolted against the plantation owners. It was one of the earliest and longest slave rebellions in the Americas, lasting into August, 1734. During the revolt, they captured the fort in Coral Bay and controlled of most of the island, including other Africans, who they intended to use as their own slave labor. However, the Akwamu were eventually defeated by a larger and better-armed militia of French and Swiss troops from Martinique. #workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #uprising #revolt #insurrection #racism #westindies #caribbean #ghana #denmark #african #abolition #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History November 23, 1644: At the height of the English Civil War, John Milton published an anti-censorship pamphlet, “Areopagitica.” He had been censored several times, particularly in his attempts to defend divorce, a radical idea in those days. He anonymously published “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce” (1643), which was condemned by the Puritan clergy as heretical and supportive of sexual libertinism. #workingclass #LaborHistory #FreeSpeech #censorship #liberalism #divorce #sexuality #CivilWar #books #writer #author #milton #fiction #nonfiction [@bookstadon](

gup.pe - Página informativa

)

Today in Labor History November 23, 1903: Army troops were sent to Cripple Creek, Colorado to put down a rebellion by striking coal miners. 600 union members were thrown into a military bullpen, and held for weeks without charges. When a lawyer arrived with a writ of habeas corpus, General Bell, who led the repression, responded "Habeas corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems!” The Pinkertons were heavily involved in the Colorado Labor Wars, as agent provocateurs, spies, and armed thugs operating for the mine owners. The strike was led by Big Bill Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners, which, at the time, was one of the most militant unions in the country, calling for revolution and abolition of the wage system. A year and a half later, Haywood would go on to cofound the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), along with Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, Eugene Debs, James Connolly, Ralph Chaplin, and others. You can read my full-length article on the Western Federation of Miners here:

Michael Dunn

The Western Federation of Miners - Michael Dunn

The Western Federation of Miners formed today, May 13, 1893, in Butte, Montana.

You can read my full-length article on the Pinkertons here:

Michael Dunn

Union Busting and the Pinkertons - Michael Dunn

Union Busting by the Pinkertons was key to the rapid accumulation of wealth by the robber barons like Gowen, Carnegie, Rockefeller

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #coal #union #strike #freespeech #freepress #revolution #prison #police #policebrutality #rebellion #colorado #cripplecreek

Today in Labor History November 23, 1760: French revolutionary Francois-Noel Babeuf was born on this date in St. Quentin, France. Babeuf was proto-anarchist revolutionary, who formed a secret society during the time of the French Revolution, known as the Conspiracy of the Equals, that plotted to overthrow the revolutionary government, and replace it with one that was truer to Jacobin ideals. The group included Sylvain Maréchal, Jacques Roux, Jean Varlet and others. Specifically, they called for a society with absolute equality, through the collectivization of all lands and the means of production, and putting an end to all poverty, at least for citizens of France. They also called for the abolition of private property and equal access to food, demands that resonated heavily among the impoverished French population, who were suffering from hunger during the economic crisis that followed the Revolution. By early April, 1796, half a million Parisians were in need of relief. And people began singing Babeuf’s song, Mourant de faim, mourant de froid ("Dying of Hunger, Dying of Cold"), in the cafés. Throughout his life, Babeuf advocated for the poor and for the abolition of private property. He said "Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others." #workingclass #LaborHistory #french #Revolution #jacobin #poverty #hunger #equality #gracchusbabeuf #jacquesroux #anarchism #abolition

They're not Nazis? It's just an innocent coincidence that their planned assault on Louisiana, code-named Operation Swamp Sweep, could also be called Operation SS.

AP News

DHS plans to deploy 250 border agents to Louisiana in major immigration sweep, AP sources say

Federal agents are set to conduct a major immigration crackdown called “Swamp Sweep” in New Orleans in the coming weeks.

#nazis #immigration #gestapo #ice #louisiana #racism #trump

Today in Labor History November 22, 1919: The Bogalusa labor massacre occurred in Louisiana, when a posse of company thugs and white vigilantes, working for the Great Southern Lumber Company, attacked a group of white and black lumber workers and carpenters. The attack occurred after Sol Dacus, head of the newly formed union of Black Loggers, narrowly escaped a lynching by white vigilantes hired by local business owners. He was being escorted by two white union carpenters, armed with shotguns to protect him. While many white union men in the south embraced Jim Crow, the loggers and carpenters showed class solidarity and risked their lives for each other. #workingclass #LaborHistory #racism #jimcrow #vigilantes #lynching #union #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History November 22, 1905: Jo Ann Wheeler Burbank was born. She was an artist and radical educator who lived and taught at the Modern School in Stelton, New Jersey, created after Francisco Ferrer (1859-1909) was assassinated. Ferrer opened his first Modern School (Escuela Moderna) in 1901, in Barcelona, Spain, to counter the brutality, oppression and sexism of the Catholic-run schools that predominated at the time. Ferrer’s schools were among the first coed schools in Spain and taught working-class and poor kids, side-by-side with those from more affluent families. A Francisco Ferrer Association was created in the U.S. after his death, by Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and other anarchists. This led to the formation of Modern Schools throughout the U.S. These anarchists also published the original Mother Earth magazine until August 1917. Wheeler started a new Mother Earth magazine in the 1930s to honor Goldman, the original Mother Earth and the work of earlier anarchists. You can read my full article on Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School movement:

Michael Dunn

The Modern School Movement - Michael Dunn

Share via: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More (Published in Fifth Estate, Spring 2022) In the wake of the punitive No Child Left Behind and Race to the...

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #modernschool #education #motherearth #emmagoldman

Today in Labor History November 22, 1891: Dr. Edward L. Bernays was born in Vienna, Austria. Bernays, a nephew of Freud, is considered by many to be father of public relations. He is credited with getting millions of women to start smoking with his “Torches of Freedom” cigarette ad campaign that equated smoking with feminism, and with women’s liberation and independence. He also worked to legitimize the CIA/United Fruit overthrow of the democratically-elected Arbenz government in Guatemalan, becoming the primary supplier of information for the international newswires, like Associated Press, United Press International, and the International News Service. He described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct and wrote books on how to harness this to maximize profits. In the 1930s, his critics compared him to Goebbels and Hitler, and Goebbels did, indeed, read and utilize Bernays’s books to inform his propaganda campaigns. Bernays was even offered a job by the Nazis, which he reportedly turned down. He also supposedly turned down propaganda job offers from the the Spanish fascist dictator, Francisco, Franco and the brutal Somoza family, in Nicaragua. #workingclass #LaborHistory #edwardbernays #freud #unitedfruit #cia #guatemala #publicrelations #advertising #smoking #cigarettes #arbenz #hitler #nazis #fascism