Frank Little, union martyr, born August 1, 1879

“Frank Little, a Union organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was born in 1879. He was a metal miner who became active in the IWW. Frank helped organize mineworkers, oilfield workers, and lumberjacks into labor unions. In 1913 he was actively involved in the “free speech” campaigns in Fresno, Peoria, Spokane, and several other towns. By 1916, Frank Little was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World General Executive Board.

Frank traveled to mining towns, logging camps, and other places where workers put in long hours and received little pay. He stood up to the company bosses and their hired thugs by educating and organizing workers so that they could one day enjoy the good life that only the bosses enjoyed. He was a man who actively put his principles into action each and every day, knowing the company bosses could jail him on trumped up charges or be shot by a Pinkerton thug at any time.

During the summer of 1917 Frank had been helping to organize copper workers in a strike against the Anaconda Copper Company, near Butte Montana. On August 1, 1917 Frank Little was forcibly taken from the boarding house he was staying at in Butte and was lynched by thugs employed by Anaconda Copper. No one was ever charged in his murder and the state legislature responded to the lynching by outlawing militant unionism.

A black steel sculpture depicting two thugs carrying Frank’s limp body, stands near the site of the boarding house where the thugs roused Frank Little from his sleep.”

May 4, 1970: 4 students killed by National Guard at Kent State

Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four students and wounding nine others who were protesting the US invasion of Cambodia.  Many historians point to this killing, and the less known shootings at Jackson State later that month, as the incident that changed anti-war sentiment from a fringe group primarily led by young people into a broad-based movement.  

Neil Young's "Ohio," performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, capsulizes the anger of the day.

July 9, 1935: Mecedes Sosa Born

Mercedes Sosa born on this day in 1935 in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. Known popularly as La Negra, Sosa was a singer and political activist. During her career she recorded over 40 albums of folk music, winning numerous Grammy Awards and other international honors. She was one of the founders of the nueva canción movement, and helped to popularize music from her native Argentina, as well as Brazil and Cuba.

As popular as she was as an artist, Sosa was even more influential in supporting leftist causes, including opposition to Argentina’s military dictatorship. This gave her the international nickname of “voice of the voiceless ones.” At a concert in 1979 she was arrested on stage, along with here audience. International condemnation of the arrests led to her release and she left Argentina to continue her work in exile.

In the last years of her life she was appointed a UNESCO Ambassador for Latin America.

More information on Sosa on here official website: http://www.mercedessosa.com.ar/

(English and Spanish lyrics here)

June 25, 1941: President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802

June 25, 1941: President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802, forbidding discrimination in war industries. This was the first federal action prohibiting racial discrimination in employment. The order prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color or national origin, by all federal defense-related agencies and departments. The order also applied to federal defense contractors. Franklin issued the order in response to a major civil rights march planned for July 1. Civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and labor leader A. Philip Randolph were organizing a massive civil rights gathering in Washington, DC that would have embarrassed FDR and hurt the effort to build a consensus for the United States to join the war against Hitler in Europe. After Roosevelt issued the order, Randolph and Rustin called off the march.

Text of Executive Order 8802:

WHEREAS it is the policy of the United States to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders; and

WHEREAS there is evidence that available and needed workers have been barred from employment in industries engaged in defense production solely because of considerations of race, creed, color, or national origin, to the detriment of workers' morale and of national unity:

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as a prerequisite to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organizations, in furtherance of said policy and of this order, to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

And it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. All departments and agencies of the Government of the United States concerned with vocational and training programs for defense production shall take special measures appropriate to assure that such programs are administered without discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

2. All contracting agencies of the Government of the United States shall include in all defense contracts hereafter negotiated by them a provision obligating the contractor not to discriminate against any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin;

3. There is established in the Office of Production Management a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which shall consist of a chairman and four other members to be appointed by the President. The Chairman and members of the Committee shall serve as such without compensation but shall be entitled to actual and necessary transportation, subsistence and other expenses incidental to performance of their duties. The Committee shall receive and investigate complaints of discrimination in violation of the provisions of this order and shall take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid. The Committee shall also recommend to the several departments and agencies of the Government of the United States and to the President all measures which may be deemed by it necessary or proper to effectuate the provisions of this order.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
The White House,
June 25, 1941.

Janury 1, 1831- William Lloyd Garrison publishes the Liberator

William Lloyd Garrison publishes the abolitionist newspaper Liberator.

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in December, 1805. He was a working person who served as a printer’s apprentice, becoming the editor of a number of New England newspapers before becoming co-editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, an anti-slavery publication.  He was imprisoned for libel after criticizing a slave trader in his publication.  While in prison he strengthened his anti-slavery views, eschewing his previous call for gradual emancipation.  He started his own paper, “The Liberator,” starting on January 1, 1831.  Its masthead read, “Our country is the world - our countrymen are mankind.”

He was also one of the founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and the national Anti-Slavery Society.  Garrison was an ardent feminist and a pacifist, although he supported the Union in the Civil War, viewing it as a war of African liberation.

Garrison viewed the Constitution as a document of slavery, and publicly burned a copy at an anti-slavery rally.  “The Liberator” never achieved a circulation over 3,000, but its influence was far more widespread.  Garrison’s tenacity and unwillingness to compromise for the sake of political expediency should serve as a model for today’s politicians, journalists and activists.