Labor History Today

Bill Lucy on MLK; Shubert Sebree on Debs

Today’s show covers a lot of ground, from legendary labor leader Bill Lucy’s memories of Dr. King and the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike to Shubert Sebree’s memories of Gene Debs, founder of the powerful American Railway Union and three-time Socialist candidate for President of the United States.    Bill Lucy has some inspiring advice for those who are carrying on Dr. King’s fight for justice, especially younger activists, and Shubert Sebree reveals a gentler side to Debs, as fierce a labor leader as we’ve ever known. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the founding of the United Mine Workers, Knights of Labor founder Terrance Powderly, and the 1959 Knox Coal flood disaster.Music: The Ballad of Eugene Victor Debs; Joe Glazer.
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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Strong Winds and Widow Makers

Often cast as villains in the Northwest's environmental battles, timber workers have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues, argues Steven C. Beda his new book Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country. In a discussion with the Labor Radio Podcast Network this week, Beda talked about how life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers.Music: Strong Winds and Widow Makers - Buzz MartinBread and Roses – The R.J. Phillips Band (includes video commemorating the Bread and Roses Strike, which began on January 11, 1912)Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome; 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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The Cambridge Movement

Professor of African American History and Culture Bernard Demczuk on how Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, was known as “Maryland’s Mississippi” because of pervasive racial oppression and discrimination, about the civil rights and labor organizing that began in Cambridge, Maryland, and how that town became the site of the longest period of martial law within the United States since 1877, and how that that history carries on today in movements like Black Lives Matter. Music: Cambridge Town, by the R.J. Phillips Band.Read more about Gloria Richardson here.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: One of the largest slave revolts in American history.
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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“No Labor Dictators for Us”

The success of the Flint Sit-Down Strike that began on December 30, 1936 was far from assured at the time; GM management fought the union bitterly, and then, as now, there were workers who didn’t support the union. In “’No Labor Dictators for Us’: Anti-Union Workers During the Flint Sit-Down Strikes” -- a forthcoming article in the Michigan Historical Review -- Dr. Gregory Wood takes a closer look at the influence of anti-union workers and the General Motors-supported Flint Alliance both during and after the strike. He discussed his research on Tales from the Reuther Library, the excellent labor history podcast from the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University.On this week’s Labor History in Two: The misunderstood Emancipation Proclamation, and Transit Workers Push Back.  
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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory @ReutherLibrary

A Working-Class Christmas Story Christmas

I don't love economic exploitation, but I do love Christmas and Christmas movies. They work to sell me stuff and ideology, but they also critique commercialism and exploitation. See what subversive messages you can find in a holiday classic; I triple dog dare you. Kathy M. Newman joins Labor Goes to the Movies hosts Elise Bryant and Chris Garlock to explore A Working-Class Christmas Story Christmas, from the Working-Class Perspectives blog. Kathy’s an associate professor of literary and cultural studies at Carnegie Mellon University, where she writes about radio, television, and contemporary media. On this week’s Labor History in Two: Debs Released; Real Gift Was His Message.
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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  @LaborHeritage1 @_kathymnewman

Red Jerseys in Detroit

Argentina plays France today in the 2022 World Cup final. The U.S. team bowed out on December 3 when they went down 3-1 to the Netherlands. But soccer, it turns out, has a long history in the United States, thanks to its popularity among immigrant workers from European countries.From 1927 to 1935, the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) established the Labor Sport Union, a coalition of worker athletic clubs, primarily located in the urban Northeast and Midwest. The CPUSA’s 1925 sport manifesto emphasized that sports should be used as a medium for class struggle and even to create “proletarian fighting units against militarism and fascism.”One of their successful sporting accomplishments was the Workers’ Soccer Association, or WSA, which organized leagues in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. This communist soccer league played two seasons per year and competed for city, regional, and national championships. On today’s show, history professor Gabe Logan recounts the history of the Workers’ Soccer Association and explains an overlooked aspect of U.S. soccer that intersected political ideology, labor, and athletics.On this week’s Labor History in Two: No Justice, No Bagels!
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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Julia Reichert: “Documentarian of the Working Class”

Julia Reichert, dubbed “Documentarian of the Working Class” by The New York Times, died of cancer on December 1. 9 to 5 co-founder Karen Nussbaum interviewed Julia in 2020 after her film American Factory won an Oscar; Part 1 ran in our April 26, 2020 episode. This week, we’re re-running Part 2. Reichert made documentary films for 50 years and was known as “a godmother of the American independent film movement.” Karen and Julia start out talking about the classic labor film Union Maids and the strong connection of that film – made nearly fifty years ago – to Reichert’s most recent film, 9to5: The Story of a Movement, co-directed with Steven Bognar, who also co-directed American Factory. The interview ends with the wonderful back story of Julia’s call at the 2020 Academy Awards for workers of the world to unite.On this week’s Labor History in Two: Founding of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor.
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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

“Capital’s Terrorists”

Professor and labor historian Chad Pearson traces “the continuity of thuggery” by bosses in his new book “Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century”. Pearson recently talked with fellow Texan Gene Lantz on Workers Beat, a weekly radio show on KNON Radio in Dallas, Texas.On this week’s Labor History in Two: Organizing to end slavery.
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.
#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory @KNON893FM