Today in Labor History December 28, 1869: Uriah Stephens founded the Knights of Labor (KOL) on this date. Though the leadership often denounced socialists and anarchists, the KOL attracted and spawned many, including Daniel DeLeon, who would go on to later cofound the IWW and the Socialist Labor Party, as well as two of the anarchist Haymarket martyrs. The KOL also denounced strikes, yet, like its more radical cousin, the IWW, it called for the abolition of the wage system and fought to organize all workers into one big union, including women and immigrants. They gave lectures on the evils of wage slavery, monopoly, and over-accumulation of wealth. And, like the IWW, one of the KOL’s slogans was, “An Injury to One is the Concern of All.” They were also one of the first labor organizations not only to take on the Robber Barons, but to defeat them (if only temporarily). And they were one of the only labor organizations to support the 1877 strike wave known as the Great Upheaval, in which over 100 workers were killed by police and soldiers as they protested wage cuts and firings across the U.S.
The Knights of Labor was a “brotherhood of toil,” open to every laborer, mechanic, and artisan, regardless of country, creed, or color. They were particularly accepting of black workers at a time when virtually all other unions in the U.S. refused to do so. By 1886, there were over 60,000 African American members of the KOL, with 500 all-black branches, mostly in the South. In 1877, 10,000 Louisiana sugarcane workers went on strike with the KOL. It was the largest strike ever in that industry, and the first to be led by a union. During that strike, the Louisiana Militia, aided by vigilantes, murdered 35-50 unarmed black workers in the Thibodaux Massacre. The massacre ended the strike and any concerted effort to organize black cane workers until the 1940s. And in the wake of that strike, Democrats in the state passed a series of laws that disenfranchised black voters and enforced segregation and Jim Crow.
As the KOL grew, so did its xenophobia. They supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, and its members participated in several anti-Chinese pogroms. In 1882, the San Francisco branch of the KOL joined a rally demanding the expulsion of the city’s Chinese population. Several years later, they participated in a pogrom that expelled Chinese residents from Seattle, Washington. In the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre, in Wyoming, a mob of mostly KOL members murdered at least 28 Chinese immigrant laborers and drove the survivors out of the state. Also in 1885, KOL members participated in an anti-Chinese pogrom in Tacoma, Washington, in which over 10% of the city’s Chinese population was expelled.
The KOL, like the IWW, often included music in their regular meetings, and encouraged local members to write and perform their work. In 1885, a Knights of Labor songbook was published that included the song, "Hold the Fort," which was often included in the IWW’s Little Red Songbook. It was the most popular labor song in the U.S. until IWW member Ralph Chaplin's anthem "Solidarity Forever."
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