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#workingclass

14 posts10 participants1 post today
MikeDunnAuthor

Today in Labor History August 7, 1971: Jonathan Jackson, aged 17, brother of imprisoned Black Panther George Jackson, raided a Marin County, CA courtroom with an automatic weapon, and freed prisoners James McClain, William A. Christmas and Ruchell Magee. He took a judge, Deputy DA, and three jurors hostage. He demanded the release of the "Soledad Brothers," including his brother. Police killed 3 of the hostages as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse, as well as Jonathan Jackson and the freed inmates. Angela Davis, who owned the weapons used by Jackson, was jailed for 2 years, but was later acquitted of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. Prior to the escape attempt, Davis had organized a defense committee for the Soledad Brothers which included Noam Chomsky, Pete Seeger, Marlon Brando, Jame Fonda, the scientist Linus Pauling, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg.

In 1970, George Jackson had published his book, “Soledad Brother,” a collection of his prison writings from the 1960s, including numerous letters he had written to his then kid brother Jonathan. He also wrote critically about racism and white supremacy, class, and the brutality of the prison system. The Soledad brothers were George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, accused of murdering a prison guard at Soledad Prison, in California, in retaliation for the murder of three black inmates by prison guards three days prior. Clutchette and Drumgo were later acquitted. Jackson never got his day in court. He was murdered by prison guards, at San Quinten Prison, California, before his trial, exactly two weeks after his brother’s murder in the botched escape attempt. George Jackson had originally been imprisoned for the crime of stealing $70 from a gas station in 1961.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #georgejackson #angeladavis #blackpanthers #soledadbrothers #riot #sanquinten #prison #murder #police #policeabuse #conspiracy #racism #books #writer #author @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor

Today in Labor History August 7, 1890: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was born in Concord, New Hampshire. Flynn joined the IWW in 1907, two years after its formation, and quickly became one of their best organizers. She was instrumental in the Patterson Silk Strike (1913). In 1909, during the Spokane Free Speech fight, she chained herself to a lamp post to delay her arrest. Jess Waters portrayed her role in the Spokane struggle in his 2020 novel, “The Cold Millions.” John Updike also fictionalized her in his book, “In the Beauty of the Lilies,” (1996).

Flynn was a socialist early in her life, but later joined the Communist Party USA, rising to its chair in 1961. She was also a founding member of the ACLU, where she played an important role in the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti. Additionally, she was a feminist activist, fighting for birth control rights and women’s suffrage. In 1934, despite her poor health, she actively supported the West Coast Longshore Strike. She was also a prolific writer, including the 1916 book, “Sabotage: the Conscious Withdrawal of Workers Efficiency.” The famous IWW bard, Joe Hill, wrote the song “Rebel Girl” (1915) for Flynn, and the photograph of a woman, holding a red flag, on the cover of the sheet music, bears a striking resemblance to Flynn.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #eliazabethgurleyflynn #IWW #union #organizing #strike #sabotage #communism #socialism #anarchism #aclu #writer #author #books #fiction #novels @bookstadon

*
Dr Alexandrina Vanke

Part 2 of the blog is now live. I continue the conversation on class within today’s global socio-political agenda in a dialogue with the reviewers of ‘The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia’ due to be out in paperback in January 2026. Join the conversation in comments, on other blogs or through debate in academic journals and books 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

alexandrinavanke.com/2025/08/0

@bookstodon
@sociology
@anthropology
@geography
#poverty #everyday #life #struggle #urban #class #workingclass #Russia

Alexandrina Vanke · Paperback release incoming: what critics think about my book and why it matters for the class debate – Part 2This is the second part of the blogpost with my response to the reviewers who engaged with ‘The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia’ to be released in paperback in January 2026. In this par…
MikeDunnAuthor

Today in History August 6, 1945: The B-29 Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, immediately killing 70,000 children, women and male civilians. Tens of thousands more died in subsequent decades from radiation-induced illnesses. Nagasaki got the same two days later. However, today’s nuclear weapons are far more powerful and the U.S. has 5,800 of them, enough to obliterate the planet several times over. Russia has 6,375, and China has 320. And let’s not forget Israel’s nukes, as they draw the U.S. closer to putting boots on the ground in Iran. Or India and Pakistan’s, as shooting skirmishes flare up every few years in Kahsmir. Or North Korea’s. Or France’s and UK’s.

Oh, we will all char together when we char
And let there be no moaning of the bar
Just sing out a tedium when you see that I-C-B-M
And the party will be "come as you are”

RIP Tom Lehrer

#workingclass#LaborHistory#nuclear
MikeDunnAuthor

Old Bisbee jail: 2 story brick building with iron bars on the window.

Local IWW headquarters used to be next door (now an empty lot). I asked local historian, and IWW fellow worker, Mike Anderson about it. He said yeh, the location was weird, but the town was incredibly dense (20,000 people squeezed into a few city blocks), and you rented where you could.

During the 1917 strike and deportation, many Wobblies (IWW members) were arrested and jailed here. During more recent restorations, after removing old plaster, they discovered IWW graffiti on the walls.

Many of the men who were kidnapped and deported were taken to Columbus, New Mexico, where Pancho Villa had invaded just the year before (in one of the only times a foreign army invaded US mainland since the War of 1812). They no doubt were hoping that the US army, which was still there, would brutralize the men.

#workingclass#LaborHistory#strike
נאריש זשלאָב מענטש

"When #Jewish families started summering in the #Catskills’ #BorschtBelt hotels in the 1920’s, there was a very different scene taking place on the other side of the Hudson River. A couple miles south of the town of Beacon, #workingclass #Jews with #leftist political sympathies were gathering in a #proletarian vacation resort with ties to the #Communist Party. Most of the #workers who came to Camp Nitgedaiget to escape the steamy #NewYorkCity summers were employed in the needle trades.

“These are people who never had a vacation or had no money to leave the city,” said Diane Lapis, a retired kindergarten teacher who spent ten years researching the scene at Nitgedaiget [Nish-guh-die-get]. The fruits of her labor are on display in a new exhibit at the Beacon #Historical Society."

forward.com/culture/760285/cam

The Forward · Greetings Comrade, and welcome to the the Communist camp for working-class JewsLocated near Beacon, New York, Camp Nitgedaiget offered Jewish vacationers a proletarian alternative to the Borscht Belt.
MikeDunnAuthor

Video as we drive past the tailings of the old Lavender Pit Copper Mine, in operation from 1950-1974. Owned by Phelps Dodge, located between Lowell and Bisbee, Arizona, site of the infamous 1917 kidnapping and deportation of striking IWW copper miners, on the orders of the Phelps Dodge management.

#IWW#copper#mining
MikeDunnAuthor

Photo of me in Lowell, Arizona, outside a hat shop, with antique cars on the side of the road, and an old Indian Motorcycles shop.

Now aghost town, Lowell was incorporated into Bisbee, AZ, in 2908. It was settled by Copper miners from Serbia, Finland Montenegro.

July 12, 1917, 1,300 striking IWW copper miners and their supporters were kidnapped from Bisbee, by vigilantes to crush the union. They were forced into cattle cars and illegally deported 200 miles into New Mexico, through desert, without any food or water.

#workingclass#LaborHistory#IWW
dick_turpin
So much for #workingclass values. Allotments have been part of the working class staple for generations, as those without gardens or the need to supplement their food stocks with their own grown vegetables have depended on allotments. I remember my grandfather had a plot because they lived in a flat. Now, property developers are snapping them up to build rabbit hutches and HMO's on.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/0…
The Telegraph · Rayner declares war on allotmentsBy Tony Diver
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