The Memorial Day Massacre

(Originally released May 27, 2018)

Labor historians Joe McCartin, Ben Blake and Julie Greene remember the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre, when police opened fire on striking steelworkers at Republic Steel in South Chicago, killing ten and wounding more than 160.

Patrick Dixon interviews Tom Sito on the 1941 strike by animators against Walt Disney. Sito, a well-known American animator (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Lion King, Shrek and many more), animation historian and teacher, is the author of “Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson.”

And in this week’s Labor History Object of the Week we take a look at a United Farm Worker banner commemorating the 1965 strike against grape growers in California. The banner is part of the exhibit “For Liberty, Justice, And Equality: Unions Making History In America” at the George Meany Labor Archives at the University of Maryland College Park campus.

Plus we’ve got music by Joe Glazer, the Eureka's, Willie Sordill and Joan Baez.

Union City Radio's Chris Garlock hosts.

Joe McCartin is professor of history at Georgetown University and Executive Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
Julie Greene is a historian of United States labor, immigration, and empire; she teaches at the University of Maryland. She is the author of The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal (Penguin Press, 2009).
Benjamin Blake works at the University of Maryland, where he’s a labor archivist at the George Meany Labor Archives.
Chris Garlock, Union Cities Coordinator for the Metro Washington AFL-CIO, hosts Union City Radio on WPFW 89.3FM.

Questions, comments or suggestions 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. Engineered by Chris Garlock.

Labor history sources include Today in Labor History, from Union Communication Services unionist.com/

This week's music:
Memorial Day Massacre - Joe Glazer
2006 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings / 1975 Collector Records

Union Thru and Thru -- the Eureka's
Rob Mitchell and Ken Walther (c) Walther Music

Talking U.F.W. · Willie Sordill
What Now People?, Vol. 2
℗ 2004 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings / 1977 Paredon Records

No nos moveran - JOAN BAEZ