#LaborHistory

Today in Labor History September 20, 1973: Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome. King (29) beat Riggs (55) in three sets. Riggs had beat Margaret Court four months earlier. King was currently in her 7th year as the number one ranked woman tennis player in the world. She entered the court on a feather-adorned litter carried by four bare-chested muscle men dressed like ancient slaves. Riggs followed in a rickshaw drawn driven by models. He gave King a giant Sugar Daddy lollipop, and she responded by giving him a squealing piglet to symbolizes sexism. King, an advocate for gender equality and social justice, along with nine other women, formed the Virginia Slims Series to end the pay inequality between male and female tennis players. It evolved into the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).

#workingclass #LaborHistory #feminism #billyjeanking #tennis #equalpay #gender

Today in Labor History September 16, 1920: A bomb exploded outside the J.P. Morgan Company on Wall Street, killing 30 and injuring over 100. Authorities blamed "anarchists," forcing many to flee to Russia. The bombing was never solved, although investigators and historians now believe it was carried out by Galleanists (Italian anarchists). In particular, there is evidence that Mario Buda (1884–1963) was responsible and did it to avenge the arrests of his associates, Sacco and Vanzetti. The Wall Street bomb killed more people than the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building, which had been the deadliest terrorist act in the U.S. Several authors have written about the bombing “The Day Wall Street Exploded,” by Beverly Gage; “The Death Instinct,” by Jed Rubenfeld, and “Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb,” by Mike Davis

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #terrorism #bombing #saccoandvanzetti #wallstreet #carbomb #jpmorgan #russia #losangelestimes #books #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History September 7, 1976: Ian Davies, London social worker, won reinstatement after being demoted. He had been fired for being gay (after being entrapped by an undercover cop who approached him for sex in a public bathroom). His union, NALGO (National and Local Government Officers’ Association), fought and won reinstatement for him, but at a demoted status. So, 25 of his union members staged a wildcat strike, later approved by the union, which won him full reinstatement at his original grade.

The struggle for working-class LGBTQ rights in the UK really took off in 1972, with the establishment of gay and lesbian worker branches within NALGO. By 1976, they had won LGBTQ-inclusive policies within NALGO and were publishing their own union newsletter: NALGAY. Homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized in England and Wales (1967). In 1993, NALGO merged with two other unions to form UNISON.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #lgbtq #union #strike #descrimination #homophobia #NALGO

Today in Labor History September 6, 1869: The Avondale fire killed 110 miners, including several juveniles under the age of 10. It led to the first mine safety law in Pennsylvania. Avondale is near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. The Susquehanna River flows nearby. The mine had only one entrance, in violation of safety recommendations at the time. In the wake of the fire, thousands of miners joined the new Workingmen’s Benevolent Association, one of the nation’s first large industrial unions (and precursor to the United Mineworkers and the Knights of Labor). The union was ultimately destroyed through infiltration and sabotage by the Pinkertons. My book, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” opens with this fire. My main character, Mike Doyle, joins the bucket brigade trying to put out the flames shooting out of the mineshaft.

You can get a copy of Anywhere But Schuylkill from any of these indie retailers:
keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #coal #avondale #disaster #workplacedeaths #workersafety #union #historicalfiction #novel #books #author #writer #anywherebutschuylkill #mining #childlabor @bookstadon

Today in Labor History September 1, 1880: The utopian communistic Oneida Community ended after 32 years. The Community was founded by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers in 1848 near Oneida, New York. They believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, allowing them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves. The Community practiced communalism (holding all property and possessions in common). They also practiced complex marriage, where 3 or more people could enter into the same marriage, and male sexual continence, where the male’s goal was to not ejaculate during sex. They were also one of the first groups in the U.S. to practice mutual criticism, to root out bad characteristics in people, something adopted by many later cults, and even by Cesar Chavez and the UFW under his leadership.

The Oneida Community has been portrayed in numerous works of fiction such as “Silken Strands,” by Rebecca May Hope (2019). “Assassination Vacation,” by Sarah Vowell (2005) and “Pagan House,” by David Flusfeder (2007).

#workingclass #LaborHistory #socialism #oneida #cesarchavez #cult #communalism #books #author #writer #fiction #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 30, 1948: Fred Hampton revolutionary activist and chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party was born. He founded the antiracist, anti-capitalist, working-class Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that included Black Panthers, Young Patriots (which organized poor whites), and the Young Lords (which organized Hispanics), and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change. In December 1969, the Chicago police & FBI drugged Hampton, shot him and killed him in his bed during a predawn raid. They sprayed more than 90 gunshots throughout his apartment. They also killed Black Panther Mark Clark and wounded several others. In January 1970, a jury concluded that Hampton's and Clark's deaths were justifiable homicides.

Stephen King refers to Hampton in his novel “11/22/63” (2012). In that book, a character suggests that if you could travel back in time to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination, it could have a ripple effect that also prevented Hampton's assassination.

For a really great history of the Young Patriots movement and organizing and solidarity among poor white radicals, you should read “Hillbilly Nationalists” by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #blackpanthers #FredHampton #chicago #police #policemurder #policebrutality #fbi #racism #stephenking #fiction #books #novel #writer #author #BlackMastadon @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 30, 1813: The Fort Mims massacre took place during the Creek War. The Red Sticks faction of the Creek Nation, under the command of head warriors Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, stormed Fort Mims and defeated the militia garrison. Afterward, they massacred nearly all the remaining Creek métis, white settlers, and militia at the fort. Their victory spread panic throughout the Southeast. Settlers fled. Thousands of whites fled their settlements for Mobile, which struggled to accommodate them. The Red Stick victory was one of the greatest Native American victories. They were facilitated by the fact that Federal troops were bogged down at the northern front of the War of 1812. However, local state militias, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson and allied with Cherokees, ultimately defeated the Red Sticks Creek faction at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, ending the Creek War.

The Fort Mims massacre is cited in Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. Grandma Fontaine shares her memories of seeing her entire family murdered in the Creek uprising following the massacre as a lesson to Scarlett.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nativeamerican #indigenous #CreekNation #massacre #mobile #alabama #fiction #novel #writer #author #books @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 30, 1800: Gabriel Prosser postponed his planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia. The authorities still arrested and executed him, along with 20 others. While the revolt never occurred, it was the one event that most directly confronted the founding fathers with the enormous gulf between their ideal of liberty and their sleazy accommodations to slavery. It led to a rash of new legislation curtailing the rights of free African Americans, as well as laws prohibiting the education and hiring out of enslaved black people. Richmond, at the time of the planned revolt, was a black-majority town, with 39% of its residents being enslaved. There was a community whipping post, where people were brutalized publicly. There was also a growing number of free black people in Richmond, due in part to the influence of abolitionist Quakers and Methodists, as well as numerous refugees from the Haitian Revolution, a few years prior. The goal of the uprising was to completely end slavery in Virginia by holding Virginia's Governor, James Monroe, hostage to negotiate for their freedom. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine informally pardoned Gabriel.

Arna Bontemps, a member of the Harlem Rennaisance, wrote Black Thunder (1936), a historical novel based on Gabriel's Rebellion. Alex Haley mentions it in his book, Roots. Barbara Chase-Riboud writes about it in her 1979 novel, Sally Hemings. And "Gabriel, the Musical" was produced in Richmond Virginia in 2022, with libretto by Jerold Solomon, Foster Solomon and Ron Klipp, and Music & Lyrics by Ron Klipp.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #abolition #rebellion #uprising #GabrielProsser #Revolution #haiti #BlackMastadon #books #fiction #novel #author #writer @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 29, 1970: LAPD brutally attacked 10,000 Chicano antiwar demonstrators, killing three, including journalist Ruben Salazar. The attack led to a week of rioting. Salazar was portrayed under the name "Roland Zanzibar" in Oscar Zeta Acosta's 1973 novel “The Revolt of the Cockroach People.” Oscar Zeta Acosta, himself, was portrayed in Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” as his “Samoan attorney.” Salazar wrote for the L.A. Times and was the first mainstream journalist to cover the Chicano community. He covered the 1965 U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republican, as well as the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City. He often wrote critically about how the local L.A. government treated Chicano people, particularly during and after the school walkouts.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #chicano #antiwar #rubensalazar #students #protest #losangeles #tlatelolco #mexicocity #massacre #vietnam #journalism #books #novel #writer #author #fiction @bookstadon