Today in Labor History June 7

French Revolution

_{La Journée des tuiles en 1788 à Grenoble, 1890 painting by Alexandre Debelle. CC BY-SA 4.0}

Today in Labor History June 7, 1788: Residents of Grenoble, France, tossed roof tiles and junk down upon royal troops during the Day of the Tiles. This was one of the first events of the French Revolution. Tensions had been rising because of poor harvests, poverty and hunger. To make matters worse, the aristocracy and the church continued to collect royalties from the peasants and refused to do anything to help alleviate their misery. On the morning of June 7, men and women began marching through the streets of Grenoble, with sticks and rocks, axes and metal bars. The took over the cathedral and rang the bells, which drew in peasants from the countryside. When the navy attacked a 75-year-old man, the people began ripping up the streets. They climbed to the rooftops and began throwing tiles and other projectiles at the soldiers below. They forced the politicians to flee.

1860s

_{The Slave Trade by Auguste François Biard, 1840. Public Domain}

Today in Labor History June 7, 1862: The United States and the United Kingdom agreed to the Lyons–Seward Treaty to end the African slave trade.

_{Depiction of Fenian charge during Battle of Ridgeway. By Sage, Sons & Co. Lithographer. CC BY-SA 4.0}

Today in Labor History June 7, 1866: 1,800 Fenian raiders were forced back to the U.S. after looting and plundering the Saint-Armand and Frelighsburg areas in Canada. The Fenian raiders were members of the Fenian Brotherhood (IRB), a U.S.-based Irish Republican organization that attacked British installations in Canada. Their goal, of course, was Irish independence from the UK. They carried out raids in 1866, as well as 1870-1871. The IRB also took part in the ill-fated Fenian Rising, in Ireland, in 1867.

Civil Disobedience Against Racism

Today in Labor History June 7, 1892: The authorities arrested Homer Plessy for refusing to leave his seat in the “whites-only” car of a train. He lost the resulting court case, the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, which codified segregation and paved the way for Jim Crow. The ruling is commonly known as “separate, but equal,” but was later ruled “unequal” in actuality, in 1954, in Brown v Board of Education.

_{Bronze statue of Gandhi commemorating the incident at Pietermaritzburg Station. By Vishal Bhatia, New Delhi, India. Pub Dom}

Today in Labor History June 7, 1893: The authorities forcibly ejected Mahatma Gandhi from a train in Pietermaritzberg, South Africa for refusing to vacate a 1st class carriage for a white man. He did his civil disobedience on the one-year anniversary of Homer Plessy’s similar act of civil disobedience in the U.S. Gandhi remained all night in the train station, then tried again, successfully, the next day. On other occasions, the South African police forced him to remove his turban, and even physically kicked him into the street for deigning to use the sidewalk as a “colored” man.

Barcelona Bombing

_{Illustration of the bombing. By Unknown author. Pub Dom}

Today in Labor History June 7, 1896: Anarchists supposedly set off a bomb during a Corpus Christi parade in Barcelona, Spain. As a result, a dozen people died and thirty were wounded. No one knows who actually dropped the bomb, but the government blamed anarchists, who had set off numerous bombs over the previous four years. Consequently, the government went on a witch-hunt, arresting and torturing dozens of anarchists in the infamous Montjuich Prison. However, many leading anarchists denied the accusations and said they would never have set off a deadly bomb in a working-class community like this. They reserved their attacks for members of the ruling class. Nevertheless, the government tried and executed five anarchists, all of whom proclaimed their innocence. They sentence 67 others to life in prison. Worldwide protests erupted in response.

Wobblies Take Over Madison Square Garden

Today in Labor History June 7, 1913: The radical labor union, IWW, held a fundraising pageant at Madison Square Gardens. The production featured songs and a reenactment of events from the ongoing Paterson strike (also discussed here). 1,000 mill workers from the silk industry strike created and performed in the pageant. John Reed organized a march of strikers into Manhattan for the pageant.

Today in Labor History June 7, 1920: All cargo on the East Coast was stopped due to the continued strike of the longshoremen, who are asking for a 20c/hour increase in wage. The strike started in Philadelphia, by IWW.

Loray Mill Strike

_{An International Labor Defense magazine depicting the sixteen prisoners. By State Archives of North Carolina Raleigh, NC. No restrictions}

Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders who were convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”

The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the NTWU union headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.

Ella May Wiggans

Ella May Wiggans, a poor white woman, was one of the main organizers. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.

For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).

Today in Labor History June 7, 1971: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that clothing with the words “Fuck the Draft” was protected by the First amendment. The Court overturned the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.