Labor History Today

Together We Can Move Mountains

Bev Grant is a cultural worker from Brooklyn, NY; she’s a social justice feminist, a choral director, an occasional bandleader, a dance artist and a photographer.  She’s also a much beloved singer/songwriter, and on today’s show, she tells us the story behind one of her best-known songs – and one that seems especially meaningful this post-election week, Together We Can Move Mountains.On this week’s Labor History in Two: The Benevolent Dictator.
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Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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A Wild Woman Sings the Blues

“The life and music of Barbara Dane,” from The Harry Bridges Project. The story of America told through its social upheaval, its achievements and, above all, its music. Originally broadcast on WPFW's Labor Heritage Power Hour (10/31/24). On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1975; that was the day that the National Organization for Women, or NOW, called for a strike by women across the nation.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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Remembering the West Virginia Mine Wars

LHT tours the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum with Executive Director Mackenzie New-Walker. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1948. That was the day that a thick yellow fog rolled over the town of Donora, Pennsylvania just south of Pittsburgh.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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“The Union’s Inspiration”

The Pittsburgh Labor Choir’s Tom Hoffman and Kira Yeversky lead a master class in the history of labor songs in their inspirational session at this year’s Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium, recorded with a live – and enthusiastically singing – audience. On this week’s Labor History in Two:  The year was 1945; that was the day that Paul Robeson received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. 
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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Bill Pancoast’s Road to Matewan

I could not put this away. Once I saw what happened here: the orange Tug River from the strip mines…the strip mining, the desecration, the poverty. I owed it to the world to tell what happened.William Trent Pancoast has worked as a construction laborer, gas station attendant, railroad section hand and brakeman, factory laborer, commercial laundry foreman, and machinist. He’s been an English teacher and a journeyman die-maker. In 1986 The Wall Street Journal dubbed Pancoast a "Blue collar writer" and that’s just fine with him, as he told the Journal, "The reason I write about work is that that's just about damn near all I've ever done."His working-class-flavored short stories and essays have appeared in many Midwestern and international magazines and newspapers. Pancoast's novel Crashing was published in 1983. In 1986, his United Auto Worker's union history was published. Pancoast spent the next twenty years as the editor of a monthly union newspaper-the Union Forum-while continuing to publish his fiction, essays, and editorials not only in the Union Forum but also in the UAW's 1.2 million circulation Solidarity magazine. A revised version of his novel The Road to Matewan has just been published and yesterday Bill Pancoast drove down from his home in Ohio to give a reading and talk at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum so I figured the least I could do was make the 7-hour drive down – my own 300-mile Road to Matewan – to record it for you. By the way, as you’ll hear, the train still runs through town right across from the museum. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1965; that was the day acclaimed photojournalist Dorothea Lange died.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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What Can We Learn From the Great Depression?

Chris talks with labor historian Dana Frank; her new book is What Can We Learn From the Great Depression? Stories of Ordinary People and Collective Action in Hard Times. The book takes a new look at working-class activism during the 1930s from the perspective of our own time, examining mutual aid, eviction protests, the expulsion of a million Mexicans, a sit-down strike by African American women working as wet-nurses, and a white supremacist fascist organization in Ohio known as the Black Legion. Dana will be in conversation with Bill Fletcher Jr. this Tuesday, October 7, at the K Street Busboys and Poets; click here for details. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1918. That was the evening that a series of explosions began at the T.A. Gillespie Company near Morgan, New Jersey. 
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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Bill Lucy on Black power

William Lucy – an icon of the labor movement -- died this past Wednesday at the age of 90. “Bill Lucy served as a brilliant strategist whose words instantly cut to the heart of an issue,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, who called Lucy “a bridge across generations of our movement; and a leader in connecting the fights of working people all across the world.”As Shuler noted, when Lucy was just 34 years old, “he wrote four simple words—'I Am a Man’—that would change the course of history in Memphis, Tennessee,” helping “all Americans see the humanity of Black sanitation workers in their struggle for dignity and respect on the job.”Bill Lucy also co-founded the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and it’s that aspect of his extraordinary career that we’re going to explore on today’s show.
In January 2021, Lucy talked with the Black Work Talk podcast about the relationship between Black unionists, the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, and the labor movement during the 60s and 70s. Labor Movement Celebrates Extraordinary Life and Career of Bill Lucy“Tired of Going to Funerals”: The 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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The Disney Revolt (Encore)

The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 of the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), resumed negotiations with Hollywood studios this week and are fighting for pay equity for color designers, a job historically staffed by women. Today’s show originally ran on July 6, 2023, when the strike by Hollywood writers was in its’ 10th week. Among those turning out to support that strike were members of the Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839); in March of 2023, the animators staged a “solidarity walk” around Walt Disney Studios in Burbank with dozens of the studio’s animation production workers protesting Disney’s refusal to voluntarily recognize its unionization efforts. Those who know their Hollywood labor history will have recognized the echoes of another Hollywood strike, the 1941 walkout by hundreds of animators at Walt Disney Studios. On today’s show, animation historian Jake Friedman joins us to discuss his book The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age. (Original airdate 7/6/2023)On this week’s Labor History in Two: The Squeegee Strike.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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