This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Black labor in Richmond. Last week's episode: The Irish Immigrant Miners’ Memorial.
February 25 Labor organizer and civil rights activist Edgar Daniel Nixon dies. While working as a Pullman porter, Nixon organized the Montgomery local of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and served as its president for many years. He was a key organizer of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and co-founder of the Montgomery Improvement Association. 1987 February 26 Bethlehem Steel workers strike for union recognition, Bethlehem, Penn. - 1941 A coal slag heap doubling as a dam in West Virginia’s Buffalo Creek Valley collapsed, flooding the 17-mile long valley. 118 died, 5,000 were left homeless. The Pittston Coal Co. said it was "an Act of God." - 1972 A 20-week strike by 70,000 Southern California supermarket workers ends, with both sides claiming victory - 2004 February 27 Birth of John Steinbeck in Salinas, Calif. Steinbeck is best known for writing “The Grapes of Wrath,” which exposed the mistreatment of migrant farm workers during the Depression and led to some reforms - 1902 Thirty-eight miners die in a coal mine explosion in Boissevain, Va. - 1932 Legendary labor leader and socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs becomes charter member and secretary of the Vigo Lodge, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. Five years later he is leading the national union and in 1893 helps found the nation’s first industrial union, the American Railway Union - 1875 450 Woolworth’s workers and customers occupy store for eight days in support of Waiters and Waitresses Union, Detroit - 1937 The Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes, a major organizing tool for industrial unions, are illegal - 1939 - David Prosten Comments are closed.
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