Today in Labor History November 13, 1839: The first American Anti-slavery party (Liberty Party) was founded. It believed the Constitution was an anti-slavery document and promoted working within the system to change it. James Birney was their presidential candidate in 1840. The American Anti-Slavery Society, led by William Lloyd Garrison, believed that the Constitution was […]
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Today in Labor History November 11, 1647: The first American compulsory school law was passed in Massachusetts. November 11, 1831: American slave rebellion leader Nat Turner was hanged, Jerusalem, Virginia. Three months prior, Turner had led a bloody slave revolt. He started with the execution of his owner Joseph Travis and his family. Within the
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1800s Today in Labor History November 10, 1887: Chicago Haymarket martyr Louis Lingg, 22, “cheated” the state the day before his scheduled execution by committing suicide in his prison cell. He exploded a dynamite cap in his mouth. Today in Labor History November 10, 1898: White supremacists launched a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina.
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Today in Labor History November 9, 1851: Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. They took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. Fairbank was an activist on the Underground Railroad. The authorities imprisoned him for over 17 years and lashed him 35,000 times. The governor pardoned
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Today in Labor History November 8, 1892: 20,000 black & white workers united for a General Strike in New Orleans. During a streetcar drivers labor victory earlier in the year, they won a closed shop and shorter workday. Then they launched a massive organizing campaign, creaing dozens of new unions and greater demands from the city’s
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