Working Class Calendar
## Giuseppe Pinelli (1928 - 1969) ### Sun Oct 21, 1928  --- Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli, born on this day in 1928, was a railroad worker and anarchist organizer possibly murdered by Italian police following fascist bombings in Milan. He died in 1969 by falling out of a window while in police custody. Pinelli was a member of the Milan-based anarchist association named "Ponte della Ghisolfa", and was also the secretary of the Italian branch of the Anarchist Black Cross. He organized young anarchists in the "Gioventu Libertaria" (Libertarian Youth) in 1962 and helped found the "Sacco and Vanzetti anarchist association" in 1965. On December 12th, 1969, Italian fascists from the "Ordine Nuovo" orchestrated a bombing campaign in Milan; one bomb in Piazza Fontana killed 17 people and injured 88. The bombing was blamed on Italian anarchists, and Pinelli was detained along with many other leftists, including Pietro Valpreda, who was falsely convicted and served eighteen years in prison. Just before midnight on December 15th, 1969, Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station. Three police officers interrogating Pinelli, including Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, were put under investigation in 1971 for his death, but legal proceedings concluded it was due to accidental causes. Calabresi was later gunned down at his home in 1972, for which leftist Italian journalist Adriano Sofri was convicted in 1990. --- - Date: 1928-10-21 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Pinelli), [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/pinelli-giuseppe-pino-1928-1969). - Tags: #Birthdays, #Anarchism, #Fascism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/giuseppe-pinelli-1928-1969)
## Abel Santamaría (1927 - 1953) ### Thu Oct 20, 1927  Image: *Abel Santamaría (right), with a young Fidel Castro (left)* --- Abel Santamaría Cuadrado (shown right), born on this day in 1927, was a Cuban communist, second in command within Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement. Abel was the brother of Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado (1922 - 1980), also a Cuban revolutionary communist and a founding member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). In 1947, Abel Santamaría moved to Havana and began reading Marxist texts. On May 1st, 1952, he met Fidel Castro, and they began organizing revolutionary activity together. Abel and Haydée participated in the Moncada barracks assault on July 26th, 1953 that was intended to start the revolutionary overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Fidel Castro had assigned Santamaria with the mission of taking the Saturnino Lora Hospital as part of the assault, taking on a more dangerous mission himself. Santamaría protested in a now often-quoted exchange, saying: "You are going to the most dangerous spot and sacrificing yourself, when you are most needed by everyone." Castro responded, "I am going to the garrison and you go to the hospital, because you are the soul of this movement, and if I die, you will take my place." The assault ultimately failed, and both Abel and Haydée were captured, alongside many other revolutionaries. Abel was tortured to death while in captivity to find out where Fidel was, and one of his eyes was reportedly presented to Haydée as a form of intimidation. Neither Haydée nor Abel gave away Castro's location. --- - Date: 1927-10-20 - Learn More: [www.ecured.cu](https://www.ecured.cu/Abel_Santamar%C3%ADa), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Santamar%C3%ADa). - Tags: #Communism, #Marxism, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/abel-santamaria-1927-1953)
## Maurice Bishop Assassinated (1983) ### Wed Oct 19, 1983  --- Maurice Bishop was a Grenadian revolutionary and a leader of communist New Jewel Movement, assassinated on this day in 1983. Following his death, President Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada, toppling the revolutionary government. Bishop headed the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada from 1979 until 1983, when he was dismissed from his post and shot in a coup, leading to civil unrest and a U.S. invasion of the country. Although Bishop grew up in Grenada, he left to study in London as a young adult. While there, Bishop acquired a law degree and studied the works of Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Julius Nyerere. In 1970, he returned to Grenada and was active politically, representing striking nurses in court and helping lead the "New Jewel Movement". The New Jewel Movement ultimately put him in power when, in 1979, the movement successfully led a coup against Eric Gairy and Bishop became the Prime Minister of Grenada. Among Bishop's core principles were workers' rights, women's rights, and the struggle against racism and apartheid. Women were given equal pay and paid maternity leave, and sex discrimination was made illegal. Organizations to promote education, health care, youth affairs, and literacy were also established. Due to his administration's efforts, illiteracy and unemployment greatly declined. In 1983, power struggles within the party culminated in Bishop and seven members of his cabinet being captured and executed by forces led by Bernard Coard. After Bishop's murder, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Grenada's governor-general Paul Scoon appealed to the United States for help. Within the month, Ronald Reagan launched an invasion of Grenada. "The Grenadian Revolution is 'even worse' - I'm using their language - than the Cuban and Nicaraguan Revolutions because the people of Grenada and the leadership of Grenada speak English and can communicate directly with the people of the United States. ...The people of Grenada and the leadership of Grenada are predominantly black...And if we have 95% of predominantly African origin in our country, we can have a dangerous appeal to 30 million black people in the United States." - Maurice Bishop, discussing a secret U.S. State Department report on the Grenadian Revolution --- - Date: 1983-10-19 - Learn More: [www.marxists.org](https://www.marxists.org/history/grenada/index.htm), [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/article/nobodys-backyard-maurice-bishops-speeches-1979-1983-edited-chris-searle-introduction), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Bishop), [www.zinnedproject.org](https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/grenada-revolution/). - Tags: #Assassinations. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/maurice-bishop-assassinated-1983)
## Colorado Miners Strike (1927) ### Tue Oct 18, 1927  --- On this day in 1927, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) called a strike of all mine workers, which was quickly heeded in Colorado. Nearly all the mines in Colorado were closed, and the dozen still open did so using imported scab labor. For the still-operating Columbine mine, scab workers were housed in Serene, which was fortified with barbed wire on the fences and armed guards. Mass rallies had been held by workers outside the Columbine mine in Serene for several weeks and, on the morning of November 21st, miners and their families were fired upon by a militia of ex-police, armed with machine guns and tear gas. Six people were killed, and the event became known as the "Columbine Massacre". The owner of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, Josephine Roche, brought an end to the strike several weeks after the incident at Columbine by declaring that the company union was to be affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and recognizing the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The backbone of IWW support in the Colorado mines was broken, and the revolutionary union went into decline. --- - Date: 1927-10-18 - Learn More: [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/1927-colorado-miners-strike-and-columbine-mine-massacre), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_Mine_massacre). - Tags: #Labor, #IWW. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/colorado-miners-strike-1927)
## Empire Zinc Strike (1950) ### Tue Oct 17, 1950  --- The Empire Zinc Strike, also known as the Salt of the Earth strike, was a 15-month-long miners' strike that began on this day in 1950 in Silver City, New Mexico, against the Empire Zinc Company in protest of its discriminatory pay and company housing practices. Later, workers also demanded indoor plumbing and hot water for Mexican-American homes as well. Empire Zinc fought back by sending police to harass picketers, posting eviction notices on company houses, and cutting off credit to strikers at the company grocery store. Labor activist Clinton Jencks, who was the union's business agent, was arrested on strike and kept in solitary confinement for 16 months. After the company got a court injunction forbidding picketers to return to the picket line, the workers' wives and children took their place. After 15 months of protest, the company came to an agreement with the striking workers on January 21st, 1952, giving the strikers nearly everything they asked for. The strike drew national attention, and, after it was settled in 1952, a movie entitled "Salt of the Earth" (1954) was released that offered a fictionalized version of events. --- - Date: 1950-10-17 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Zinc_strike), [www.pri.org](https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-13/and-they-will-inherit-it). - Tags: #Labor, #Imperialism, #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/empire-zinc-strike-1950)
## Pérez Collado (1915 - 2014) ### Sun Oct 17, 1915  --- Concha Pérez Collado, born on this day in 1915, was an anarchist involved with the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and anti-fascist soldier during the Spanish Civil War. When the Civil War broke out, Collado already had access to weapons and training because she was part of an anarchist group that were preparing for what they saw as an inevitable military uprising. She saw action in Barcelona and Aragon, attacking prisons, building barricades for her neighborhood, and working in a munitions factory, before eventually moving to a French refugee camp where she gave birth to her only son. Pérez Collado returned to Spain under Francisco Franco's rule and ran a jewelry shop with her partner Maurici Palau which doubled as a secret meeting place for anarchists. From 1982 to 1984, Collado participated in a series of interviews with Nick Rider about anarchism in Spain during the 1930s. --- - Date: 1915-10-17 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concha_P%C3%A9rez_Collado), [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/perez-concha-1915-2014). - Tags: #Birthdays, #Anarchism, #Fascism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/perez-collado-1915-2014)
## Million Man March (1995) ### Mon Oct 16, 1995  Image: *This photograph taken from the US Capitol Building shows thousands of people gathered on the Mall during the "Million Man March" in Washington D.C., on October 16th, 1995.* --- On this day in 1995, a collaborative rally of various civil rights and black liberation groups known as the "Million Man March" took place in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of thousands strong, the march included groups from across the political spectrum, from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to the National of Islam (NOI), and its purpose was to "convey to the world a vastly different picture of the Black male". The rally's events were broken down into several sessions on specific topics, including "Sankofa: Lessons from the Past Linkages to the Future" and "Atonement and Reconciliation". Many prominent civil rights activists spoke at the event, including Betty Shabazz (widow of Malcolm X), Dr. Cornel West, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Rev. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., and Minister Louis Farrakhan. Two years after the march, the Million Woman March was held in response to fears that the Million Man March had focused on black men to the exclusion of black women. Farrakhan held the 20th Anniversary of the "Million Man March: Justice or Else" on October 10th, 2015, in Washington, D.C. --- - Date: 1995-10-16 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Man_March), [www.blackpast.org](https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/million-man-march-1995/). - Tags: #Civil Rights. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/million-man-march-1995)
## Martin Schleyer Assassinated (1977) ### Tue Oct 18, 1977  Image: *Schleyer holding a sign that says "SEIT 20 TAGEN" with an RAF logo in the background [dw.org]* --- Hanns Martin Schleyer was a German member of the SS, business executive, and employer and industry representative who was assassinated by the Red Army Faction (RAF) on this day in 1977. Schleyer's conservative anti-communist views, anti-union activities, and his past as a former SS officer made him a target for radical elements of the German student movement in the 1970s. On September 5th, 1977, the RAF (a West German, far-left militant organization) kidnapped Schleyer in an attempt to force the West German government to release Andreas Baader and three other RAF members. The government steadfastly refused to negotiate with the RAF, and after discovering that three RAF members were killed in prison, his kidnappers executed Schleyer in a car en route to France on October 18th, 1977. --- - Date: 1977-10-18 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_and_murder_of_Hanns-Martin_Schleyer), [www.dw.com](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-terror-casualty-hanns-martin-schleyer-sacrificed-by-the-state/a-40340024). - Tags: #Assassinations. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/martin-schleyer-assassinated -1977)
## Black Panther Party Founded (1966) ### Sat Oct 15, 1966  Image: *1969 photograph of Black Panther Party members outside a courthouse in New York City* --- On this day in 1966, in the wake of spontaneous riots against police brutality, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. In an interview recorded for the 1990 documentary "Eyes on the Prize II", Seale described the founding of the BPP in his own words: "Black Panther Party, 1966, when Huey and I founded that organization, that particular year, numerous acts of police brutality had sparked a lot of spontaneous riots, something that Huey and I were against, the spontaneous riots. Even a year earlier, in 1965, in Watts, you know, sixty-five people were killed, 200 wounded, 5,000 arrested. And Huey and I began to try to figure out how could we organize 5,000 youthful Black folks into some kind of political-electorial power movement. Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture] was on the scene with Black Power. We were questioning, Huey and I, about the need for a functional definition of power and we came up with this, that 'power is the ability to define phenomena then in turn make it act in a desired manner.' With the phenomena of racism structured in the city council at that time, Huey and I working with the North Oakland Neighborhood Service Center, the advisory board, we got 5,000 signatures for them to go to the city council, to get the city council to try to set up a police review board to deal with complaints of police brutality. Well, the city council ignored them. So, that phenomena was that the city council was just a racist structure which could care less about the forty-eight percent Black and Chicano people who lived in the city of Oakland. So, there we are trying to figure out what to do. We finally concluded through those months that we had to start a new organization. And we sit down and began to write out this Ten-Point Platform and Program in the North Oakland Neighborhood Service Center in North Oakland, California, in the community where Huey and I lived. And we wrote out this program. 'We want power to determine our own destiny in our own Black community', alluding to the needs to be organized-political electoral power. Full employment, decent housing, decent education that taught us about our true selves, not to have to fight in Vietnam, immediate end to police brutality and murder of back people was point number seven. The right to have juries of our peers in the courts, what have you. We summed it up. We wanted land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. And, in the tail end, we stuck in two famous paragraphs: 'When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to separate themself from the political bondage' - that was the emphasis, the political bondage - 'which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled them.' I mean, this was the kind of summarization we gave to our meaning. And we summarized that Ten-Point Platform Program, flipped a coin to see who would be chairman. I won chairman and we created the Black Panther Party." --- - Date: 1966-10-15 - Learn More: [repository.wustl.edu](http://repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/7h149t72p), [www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE39MFcyyUs&ab_channel=AfroMarxist), [www.britannica.com](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party), [www.jacobinmag.com](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/black-panther-party-fifty-year-anniversary-founding). - Tags: #Riots. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/black-panther-party-founded-1966)
## Thomas Sankara Assassinated (1987) ### Thu Oct 15, 1987  --- Thomas Sankara was a Burkinabé revolutionary who expanded social welfare and nationalized natural resources in Burkina Faso. On this day in 1987, Sankara was assassinated in a coup led by Blaise Compaoré, who succeeded Sankara in power. Thomas Sankara was a Burkinabé revolutionary and President of Burkina Faso, assassinated on this day in 1987. A Marxist-Leninist and Pan-Africanist, he was viewed by supporters as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution and is sometimes referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara". Sankara came into power when allies instigated a coup on his behalf in 1983. He immediately launched programs for social, ecological and economic change and renamed the country from the French colonial name Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ("Land of Incorruptible People"), with its people being called Burkinabé ("upright people"). Sankara's administration refused foreign aid to remain politically independent, with him stating "Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail". He also began nationalizing land and mineral wealth and promoted literacy, women's rights, and public health. On this day in 1987, Sankara was assassinated by troops led by Blaise Compaoré, who assumed leadership of the state shortly after having Sankara killed. A week before his murder, Sankara had declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas". --- - Date: 1987-10-15 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara), [www.thomassankara.net](http://www.thomassankara.net/26-years-ago-thomas-sankara-was-assassinated-circumstances-yet-to-be-clarified-but-an-ever-growing-popularity/?lang=en), [jacobin.com](https://jacobin.com/2022/04/thomas-sankara-blaise-compaore-sentence-burkina-faso), [www.marxists.org](https://www.marxists.org/archive/sankara/index.htm). - Tags: #Marxism, #Assassinations. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/thomas-sankara-assassinated-1987)
## Karl Kautsky (1854 - 1938) ### Mon Oct 16, 1854  --- Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician born on this day in 1854. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative proponents of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, including during the Second International. Kautsky founded the important socialist journal "Neue Zeit". Following the war, Kautsky was an outspoken critic of the Bolshevik Revolution, engaging in polemics with Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin on the nature of the Soviet state. Towards the end of his life, he became close friends with Rosa Luxemburg. Of the USSR, he famously wrote "Foreign tourists in Russia stand in silent amazement before the gigantic enterprises created there, as they stand before the pyramids, for example. Only seldom does the thought occur to them what enslavement, what lowering of human self-esteem was connected with the construction of those gigantic establishments." For his part, Lenin excoriated Kautsky's interpretations of Marxist thought stating "Kautsky has beaten the world record in the liberal distortion of Marx." (see Lenin's essay "How Kautsky Turned Marx Into A Common Liberal"). Kautsky is notable for, in addition to his anti-Bolshevik polemics, his editing and publication of Marx's Capital, Volume IV (usually published as "Theories of Surplus Value"). --- - Date: 1854-10-16 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kautsky), [www.marxists.org](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/index.htm). - Tags: #Marxism, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/karl-kautsky-1854-1938)
## Max Hoelz (1889 - 1933) ### Mon Oct 14, 1889  --- Max Hoelz, born on this day in 1889, was a German Communist most known for his role as a "Communist Bandit" in the 1920s, leading raids against police, releasing prisoners, and destroying property deeds. Hoelz was politically radicalized by the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and by contact with Georg Schumann, a member of the socialist Spartakusbund (Schumann was later to be executed by the Nazis in 1945). In 1920, after the right-wing Kapp Putsch, Hoelz organized workers from Falkenstein and Oelsnitz in a Red Guard, leading armed bands against the police, the army, and the far-right paramilitary Freikorps. In this role, he became a kind of "Robin Hood", raising money from employers under threat of reprisals, liberating prisoners, destroying property deeds and police archives, and burning villas of the rich. Later in life, after the Nazis began to come into power, he moved to Soviet Russia. There, however, he became a dissident, criticizing bad working conditions in the country. On September 15th, 1933, he died in a "boating accident", which is speculated by anarchist historian Nick Heath to actually have been an NKVD assassination. --- - Date: 1889-10-14 - Learn More: [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/articles/1889-1933-max-hoelz), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hoelz). - Tags: #Communism, #Birthdays, #Fascism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/max-hoelz-1889-1933)
## Marcus Thrane (1817 - 1890) ### Tue Oct 14, 1817  Image: *Portrait of Marcus Thrane for business cards. Chicago circa 1875 [snl.no]* --- Marcus Thrane, born on this day in 1817, was a socialist labor activist who founded the first organized workers' movement in Norway. After a union he founded petitioned the King for universal suffrage and legal equality, Thrane was imprisoned. Born into a bourgeois family, Thrane was orphaned at the early age of 15 and spent the rest of his youth studying abroad in Europe. He returned to Norway, working as an educator. In 1848, Thrane began working as the editor of the local newspaper Drammens Adresse. Inspired by the February Revolution in France, Thrane expressed radical political opinions and was dismissed from the position after less than a year. Around this time, Thrane founded the Drammens arbeiderforening (Drammen Labour Union) and began publishing the union's paper. Between 1849-50, the trade union movement (also called the Thranite Movement) grew very quickly, to approximately 30,000 members. Members of the Thranite Movement were both urban and rural - both small farmers in the countryside and urban craftsmen participated. This trade union movement is often associated with a petition presented to King Oscar I on May 19th, 1850. The petition, backed by nearly 13,000 signatures, demanded universal suffrage, abolition of protective tariffs, reform of the public school, and improvement of householders ' conditions. Over the following years, this growing labor movement was repressed by the state - its leadership, including Thrane, were surveilled, arrested on false charges, and imprisoned. These tactics successfully broke the Thranite Movement, and Thrane himself left Norway for the U.S. in 1863. In 1890, Thrane died in Wisconsin. His remains were returned to Norway in 1949, and he is buried in the Æreslunden at Vår Frelser's cemetery in Oslo. --- - Date: 1817-10-14 - Learn More: [snl.no](https://snl.no/Marcus_Thrane), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Thrane), [www.britannica.com](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Moller-Thrane). - Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/marcus-thrane-1817-1890)
## Sid Mills Fish-in Arrest (1968) ### Sun Oct 13, 1968  Image: *Photo from the Facebook page "We the Indigenous"* --- On this day in 1968, while conducting a "Fish-in" protest on the Nisqually River in Washington state, activist Sid Mills was arrested. This was just one action from Mills' campaign of civil disobedience in demand of lawful fishing rights. The Fish Wars were a series of protests in the 1960s and '70s in which Native American tribes around the Puget Sound pressured the U.S. government to recognize fishing rights granted by the Point No Point Treaty. The acts of protest often involved participants fishing "illegally" on rivers that previous treaties, then ignored, had granted them rights to. On this day in 1968, while conducting a Fish-in protest at Frank's Landing on the Nisqually River, activist Sid Mills was arrested. He issued a statement: "I am a Yakima and Cherokee Indian, and a man...I served in combat in Vietnam-until critically wounded...I hereby renounce further obligation in service or duty to the United States Army. My first obligation now lies with the Indian People fighting for the lawful Treaty to fish in usual and accustomed water of the Nisqualiy, Columbia and other rivers of the Pacific Northwest, and in serving them in this fight in any way possible. ...My decision is influenced by the fact that we have already buried Indian fishermen returned dead from Vietnam, while Indian fishermen live here without protection and under steady attack..." --- - Date: 1968-10-13 - Learn More: [www.historyisaweapon.com](https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnsur19.html), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_Wars). - Tags: #Indigenous, #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/sid-mills-fish-in-arrest-1968)
## Dorothy Bolden (1923 - 2005) ### Sat Oct 13, 1923  --- Dorothy Lee Bolden, born on this day in 1923, was the founder of the National Domestic Worker's Union of America and civil rights activist who fought for women's rights and an end to segregation. Bolden began working as a domestic worker at the age of nine and would eventually utilize her past experiences to form the Domestic Worker's Union in Atlanta, Georgia. The Domestic Worker's Union had over 13,000 women members throughout the United States and won better pay and working conditions for them. Bolden was also responsible for registering thousands of black Americans to vote. > *"I would say to [young people] that you have got to show yourself that you can be independent on your own. You don't have to follow. Why do we have to follow Tom, Dick and Harry to anything when we have the strength to be ourselves and be what we ought to be. What do you want to be? Ask yourself. Get in the mirror and look at yourself and say, 'So what do I want to be, what do I want to do? Where do I want to go and how do I get there?"* > > `- Dorothy Bolden` --- - Date: 1923-10-13 - Learn More: [www.blackpast.org](https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/dorothy-lee-bolden-1924-2005/), [webapps.library.gsu.edu](http://webapps.library.gsu.edu/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=BoldenD_L1995-12_03.xml). - Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/dorothy-bolden-1923-2005)
## Ding Ling (1904 - 1986) ### Wed Oct 12, 1904  --- Ding Ling, born on this day in 1904, was a prominent Chinese Marxist and feminist author. Despite being a member of the Communist Party, she was imprisoned and sentenced to manual labor during the Cultural Revolution. In her early career, Ding Ling wrote highly successful short stories centering on young, unconventional Chinese women. Around 1930, she became a major literary figure of the leftist literature. In 1931, her husband, communist poet Hu Yepin, was executed in Shanghai by the right-wing Kuomintang government for his association with the Communists. Shortly thereafter, Ding joined the Chinese Communist Party and her work reflected communist values. According to authors Glenn Kucha and Jennifer Llewellyn, in 1957 Ding was denounced as a "rightist", purged from the party, imprisoned, and her fiction and essays were banned. Ding and her husband were then sent to the countryside and compelled to do manual labor for more than a decade. She was rehabilitated sometime in the years following Mao Zedong's death in 1976. > *"Happiness is to take up the struggle in the midst of the raging storm and not to pluck the lute in the moonlight or recite poetry among the blossoms."* > > `- Ding Ling` --- - Date: 1904-10-12 - Learn More: [alphahistory.com](https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/ding-ling/), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Ling). - Tags: #Communism, #Labor, #Marxism, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/ding-ling-1904-1986)
## Battle of Virden (1898) ### Wed Oct 12, 1898  Image: *Miners gathered on the train tracks in Virden, Illinois, the day before the Battle of Virden. October 11th, 1898. From the Mother Jones Museum.* --- On this day in 1898, the Battle of Virden began when armed members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) surrounded a train full of strikebreakers and exchanged fire with company guards. 13 people were killed, dozens more wounded. After a local chapter of the UMW began striking at a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired black strikebreakers from Birmingham, Alabama and shipped them to Virden by train. The company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany the strikebreakers, and an armed conflict broke out when armed miners surrounded the train as it arrived in town. A total of four detectives and seven striking mine workers were killed, with five guards, thirty miners, and an unrecorded number of strikebreakers wounded. After this incident, Illinois Governor John Tanner ordered the National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from coming into the state by force. The next month, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company relented and allowed the unionization of its workers. > *"When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden, Illinois...They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America."* > > `- Mother Jones` --- - Date: 1898-10-12 - Learn More: [sangamoncountyhistory.org](https://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/?p=9094), [www.motherjonesmuseummtolive.org](https://www.motherjonesmuseummtolive.org/battle-of-virden), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Virden), [www.zinnedproject.org](https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/battle-of-virden/). - Tags: #Labor. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/battle-of-virden-1898)
## El Centro de la Raza Founded (1972) ### Wed Oct 11, 1972  Image: *Group in classroom at occupied Beacon Hill School, Seattle, October 11th, 1972. Photo by Phil H. Webber [historylink.org]* --- On this day in 1972, ESL staff from South Seattle Community College, students, and families occupied a vacant school building in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, founding El Centro de la Raza ("The Center for the People of All Races"). After three months of occupying the building and numerous rallies, petitions and letters, the Seattle City Council finally agreed to hear the case of the occupiers. Although City Council approved the lease, Mayor Wes Uhlman vetoed the action, causing supporters to occupy the mayor's office. A five-year lease signed January 20th, 1973, at $1 rent annually. According to author David Wilma, in 1997 the school district insisted on fair market rates, causing rent for the property to rise to $12,000 a month. By 1999, El Centro owed $150,000 in back rent. Grants from the City of Seattle and from Washington state totaling $1 million finally allowed El Centro to buy the site from the school district. Today, El Centro de la Raza continues to function as an educational, cultural, and social service agency. It is considered a significant part of civil rights history in the Pacific Northwest. In 2015, El Centro de la Raza built more than one hundred moderately-priced apartments south of its main building. The apartments are designed for families making 30-60% of the average median annual income in Seattle, or $24,000 to $49,000. --- - Date: 1972-10-11 - Learn More: [www.elcentrodelaraza.org](http://www.elcentrodelaraza.org/history-evolution/), [www.historylink.org](https://www.historylink.org/File/2588), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Centro_de_la_Raza). - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/el-centro-de-la-raza-founded-1972)
## D.C. Jail Uprising (1972) ### Wed Oct 11, 1972  Image: *Inmates shouting to reporters and others gathered outside the D.C. jail. Source: Washington Area Spark and DC Public Library, Star Collection* --- On this day in 1972, inmates at a Washington, D.C. jail seized control of part of their prison, taking hostages and demanding to be released. The uprising began when an inmate pretending to have a seizure drew a loaded .38 pistol on the two officers that came to check on him. After subduing the officers, they freed 50 other inmates and took control of the cellblock, capturing several other guards as hostages in the process. The inmates demanded to speak to a prison reporter, Washington Claiborne. Inmates issued varying statements to him that indicated a revolutionary fervor among prisoners: "We don't want nothin' but the sidewalk. What do you think we want, better food? Bullshit. We want the sidewalk, man." "We want you to understand one thing very clearly. This is not a riot, it's a revolution." "We ain't bitches, man. We don't mind dying for the fucking cause." Prison negotiators eventually got the inmates to back off of demanding release, but only in exchange for the opportunity to go before a federal judge to air their grievances about the jail and the promise of no reprisals for their actions. The inmates got their hearing, and a new facility was built. Despite the promise of no reprisals, all nine inmates who participated in the uprising were prosecuted and convicted on various charges. --- - Date: 1972-10-11 - Learn More: [boundarystones.weta.org](https://boundarystones.weta.org/2018/10/15/hostage-standoff-dc-jail-october-11-1972), [dccrimeandpunishment.wordpress.com](https://dccrimeandpunishment.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/crime-history-oct-11-1972-inmates-at-d-c-jail-hold-corrections-officials-hostage/). - Tags: #Journalism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/dc-jail-uprising-1972)
## West African Railway Strike (1947) ### Fri Oct 10, 1947  Image: *A train traveling along the Dakar–Niger Railway, c. 1908 [Wikipedia]* --- On this day in 1947, the longest strike in African history at the time began, stretching across all branches of railway in French West Africa, the wharfs in Dahomey, and the Ivory Coast. For more than six months, 17,000 railway workers and 2,000 workers in the wharfs refused to work. The timing of the strike was crucial, undermining new French economic goals for the railway. The strike was organized by Ibrahima Sarr, the Federal Secretary of the Railway Union. Workers demanded housing, rights for temporary workers, wages to follow regional differences in the cost of living, and clearer standards for promotions. The government did not respond for three months, assuming the strike would collapse due to economic pressure. Workers had prepared for this, however, taking up community collections, the community exiling strikebreaking workers, and women of the household economically sustaining families while workers were on strike. On March 19th, the workers' union accepted a set of proposals favorable to their demands and returned to work. The strike ended with a long, celebratory march into Thiès, followed by meetings and dancing. --- - Date: 1947-10-10 - Learn More: [nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu](https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/french-west-african-railway-workers-strike-greater-benefits-1947-1948), [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/library/french-west-african-rail-workers-strike-1947-48). - Tags: #Labor. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/west-african-railway-strike-1947)
## Panama City Tenants' Revolt (1925) ### Sat Oct 10, 1925  Image: *American troops patrolling the streets of Panama City during the latter days of the tenant revolt [panamaviejaescuela.com]* --- On this day in 1925, striking tenants in Panama City held a massive, illegal rally to protest high rent and bad living conditions. Riots began after police killed four demonstrators, prompting a U.S. occupation that lasted until October 23rd. In the months preceding the uprising, the "Liga de Inquilinos y Subsistencia" (English: Tenants' Subsistence League) had been organizing against rent increases and poor living conditions. On the last day of September, in response to the government of Panama repressing this organizing, the League announced a rent strike to begin October 1st. On Saturday, October 10th, 1925, the League organized a massive rally in Panama City to protest increased rents and poor living conditions. This was held in defiance of a state ban on such a gathering. Panama City Mayor Mario Galindo had permitted the National Police to respond to any large gatherings with violent force. Accordingly, at the October 10th rally, four tenants were shot dead by police following a confrontation at Parque de Santa Ana, and many more were injured. Riots broke out following this violence. By Sunday, October 11th, the city district of Santa Ana had come almost entirely under the control of the Tenants' League. With the police ineffectual in stopping the revolt, the government of President Rodolfo Chiari requested the military intervention of the United States. Within a few days (sources differ on the exact day, ranging from October 12th to October 15th), approximately 600 United States soldiers entered Panama City. Stationing themselves at Parque de Santa Ana and Parque de Lesseps, they conducted raids on the offices and apartments of Tenants' League leaders, quickly crushing the uprising by arresting its prime organizers. While the uprising was ongoing, government officials met with tenant and landlord representatives in Panama City. According to the Academy of American Franciscan History, the government promised more public works projects, a shake-up of the national police force, and to establish a rent claims commission that met daily to hear tenant grievances. The U.S. troops continued to occupy Panama City until October 24th, by which point the protests had subsided. On October 30th, the League and landlords signed an agreement to end the strike. > *"With rhythmic heels that oppressed the heart and clouded the eyes, an army of soldiers in battle dress, with helmets of the kind used in the European war, entered with a fixed bayonet, sweaty, their backpacks on their shoulders, and their revolvers on their belts."* > > `- Revista Lotería, October-November 1973 issue, describing the American military presence` --- - Date: 1925-10-10 - Learn More: [www.academia.edu](https://www.academia.edu/80574863/The_1925_Tenants_Strike_in_Panama_West_Indians_the_Left_and_the_Labor_Movement), [publicandohistoria.com](https://publicandohistoria.com/articulos/el-movimiento-inquilinato-de-1925/), [www.panamaviejaescuela.com](https://www.panamaviejaescuela.com/movimiento-inquilinario-1925/). - Tags: #Riots, #Tenant, #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/panama-city-tenants-revolt-1925)
## Nikolai Bukharin (1888 - 1938) ### Tue Oct 09, 1888  --- Nikolai Bukharin, born on this day in 1888, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist who, with Stalin, helped oust Leon Trotsky in 1927. His controversial trial and execution in 1938 alienated communist sympathizers in the West. As a young man, Bukharin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, becoming a member of the Bolshevik faction. He served on a committee that was infiltrated by the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, and was imprisoned and exiled in 1911. In 1911, Bukharin escaped exile, fleeing to Germany. During this period, he met Vladimir Lenin for the first time and authored "Imperialism and World Economy", a work that predated and influenced Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism". After Lenin's death in 1924, Bukharin became a full member of the Politburo, allying himself with Stalin in the power struggles of that period. Bukharin formulated the thesis of "Socialism in One Country" put forth by Stalin in 1924, which argued that socialism could be developed in a single country, even one as underdeveloped as Russia. Bukharin was aligned with the forces that defeated Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, and Grigory Zinoviev in various power struggles within the Communist Party. A supporter of the market-based New Economic Policy (NEP), Bukharin opposed Stalin's support of collectivization policies in the late 1920s. On this basis, he was criticized and began politically conspiring against Stalin. After the trial and execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other "Old Bolsheviks" in 1936, Bukharin was arrested in 1937 and charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state. The following trial was controversial and drew international criticism, alienating some communist sympathizers abroad. French author Romain Rolland wrote to Stalin directly, arguing that "an intellect like that of Bukharin is a treasure for his country" and drawing comparisons to the execution of chemist Antoine Lavoisier, guillotined during the French Revolution: "We in France, the most ardent revolutionaries...still profoundly grieve and regret what we did...I beg you to show clemency." Bukharin was executed by gunshot on March 15th, 1938, at the Kommunarka shooting ground. > *"We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion."* > > `- Nikolai Bukharin` --- - Date: 1888-10-09 - Learn More: [www.marxists.org](https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/library.htm), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Bukharin), [spartacus-educational.com](https://spartacus-educational.com/RUSbukharin.htm). - Tags: #Communism, #Socialism, #Marxism, #Birthdays, #Imperialism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/nikolai-bukharin-1888-1938)
## Che Guevara Executed (1967) ### Mon Oct 09, 1967  Image: ** --- On this day in 1967, communist revolutionary Che Guevara was executed by CIA-assisted forces in Bolivia, where he had been attempting to foment revolution. His last words were "Shoot, you are only going to kill a man." Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture. After serving in Castro's government, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia. While agitating for communist revolution in Bolivia, Guevara was captured by CIA-assisted state forces and summarily executed on this day in 1967. On November 3rd, 1966, Guevara had secretly arrived in La Paz on a flight from Montevideo under the false name Adolfo Mena González, posing as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States (OAS). Once there, Guevara had difficulty getting cooperation from both local dissidents and the Bolivian Communist Party, despite besting the Bolivian military in several skirmishes. To help crush the resistance movement, the Bolivian government and U.S. military relied on the expertise of fugitive Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, who had undermined the French Resistance and was responsible for the torture and murder of its leader, Jean Moulin. Some of the inhabitants willingly informed the Bolivian authorities and military about the guerrillas and their movements in the area, which contributed to Guevara's capture on October 7th, 1967. He famously shouted "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead!", however he remained defiant in captivity. On October 9th, on orders from the Bolivian President René Barrientos, Guevara was executed. In the documentary "My Enemy's Enemy", German journalist Kai Hermann alleged that Barbie devised the strategy that led to Guevara's capture. > *"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."* > > `- Che Guevara` --- - Date: 1967-10-09 - Learn More: [nsarchive2.gwu.edu](https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara), [www.thenation.com](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-death-of-che-guevara-declassified/), [www.marxists.org](https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1967/04/16.htm), [www.theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/dec/23/world.secondworldwar). - Tags: #Communism, #Marxism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/che-guevara-executed-1967)
## West Coast Longshore Strike (1923) ### Mon Oct 08, 1923  --- On this day in 1923, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) in Vancouver struck for higher wages. With a force of 350 company guards protecting the dock and scabs, work continued until the strike's defeat in December. The Shipping Federation imported strikebreakers, housed in the CPR ship Empress of Japan, while an armed group of 350 men guarded the waterfront from potential interference from striking workers. The longshoremen gave up on December 10th, and the Shipping Federation took over the dispatch of the work force, formerly controlled by the union, and set up a company union, the "Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers Association". This union would go on to lead the more well-known West Coast Longshore Strike of 1935. --- - Date: 1923-10-08 - Learn More: [www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/west-coast-longshore-strikes-1923-and-1935). - Tags: #Labor. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/west-coast-longshore-strike-1923)
## Antonio Soto (1897 - 1963) ### Fri Oct 08, 1897  --- Antonio Soto Canalejo (also known as "El Gallego Soto"), born on this day in 1897, was one of the principal anarcho-syndicalist leaders in the 1921 rural strikes of Argentine Patagonia. In early 1921, Patagonic landowners were refusing to make concessions to an increasingly discontented working class, continuing with layoffs, holding back pay, and maintaining of poor working conditions. In response to this, a general strike was declared on March 25th. Soto and his comrades traveled along farms of the cordillera of the Andes recruiting rural workers of several large farms, driving the southeast of Santa Cruz into an uprising. They requisitioned arms and food for the campaign, granting vouchers promising to eventually return the goods and occasionally taking the landowners and managers hostage. In the aftermath of the strike, Soto fled the country and settled in Puntas Aras, Chile. There, he managed a small hotel which served as a meeting place of libertarians, intellectuals, and free-thinkers and founded the "Centro Republicano Español". His tombstone can be found in the Cementerio Municipal de Punta Arenas. --- - Date: 1897-10-08 - Learn More: [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/soto-antonio-1897-1963), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Soto_(syndicalist)). - Tags: #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/antonio-soto-1897-1963)
## Chilean Protests and Strikes (2019-20) ### Mon Oct 07, 2019  Image: *Demonstrators display flags and banners during a protest against President Sebastian Piñera on October 21st, 2019 in Santiago, Chile [time.com]* --- On this day in 2019, protests and riots began throughout Chile in response to a raise in the Santiago Metro's subway fare, the increased cost of living, privatization, and inequality prevalent in the country. The protests have been called the "worst civil unrest" in Chile since the end of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship due to the scale of damage to public infrastructure, the number of protesters, and the measures taken by the government to put down the rebellion. On the 25th of October, over a million people took to the streets throughout Chile to protest against President Piñera, demanding his resignation. As of December 29th, 2019, 29 people have died, nearly 2,500 have been injured, and 2,840 have been arrested. Human rights organizations have received several reports of violations conducted against protesters by security forces, including torture, sexual abuse and sexual assault. --- - Date: 2019-10-07 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Chilean_protests), [www.bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50191746), [www.marxist.com](https://www.marxist.com/chile-what-was-the-october-rebellion-and-what-will-come-of-it-we-need-a-working-class-marxist-tendency.htm). - Tags: #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/chilean-protests-and-strikes-2019-20)
## Joe Hill (1879 - 1915) ### Tue Oct 07, 1879  --- Joe Hill, born on this day in 1879, was a Swedish-American labor organizer, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1915, he was convicted of murder in a controversial trial and executed by the state. Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave", "There Is Power in a Union", and "Casey Jones - the Union Scab", which describes the harsh lives of itinerant workers and calls for them to organize to improve their working conditions. In 1914, John G. Morrison, a Salt Lake City area grocer and former policeman, and his son were shot and killed by two men. The same evening, Hill arrived at a doctor's office with a gunshot wound, and briefly mentioned a fight over a woman. He refused to explain further, even after he was accused of the grocery store murders on the basis of his injury. Hill was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial and executed on November 19th, despite widespread calls for clemency, including from President Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller. > *"I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning - organize."* > > `- Joe Hill` --- - Date: 1879-10-07 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill), [www.zinnedproject.org](https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/joe-hill-executed/), [aflcio.org](https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-people/joe-hill), [www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes&ab_channel=BackroomWindowPress). - Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays, #IWW. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/joe-hill-1879-1915)
## "Smiling Joe" Ettor (1885 - 1948) ### Tue Oct 06, 1885  --- "Smiling Joe" Ettor, born on this day in 1885, was an Italian-American union organizer who, in the middle-1910s, was one of the leading public faces of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Although Ettor is best remembered for his role in the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, he had been active in several strikes in the years leading up to it. Ettor also served on the governing General Executive Board of the IWW from 1908 to 1914. Ettor was particularly useful for organizing immigrant workers because he could speak five languages, and he used these skills as a leader of the Lawrence Textile Strike. During the strike, a worker was shot and killed, and he and another IWW leader present, Arturo Giovannitti, were arrested on scarce evidence. Both were eventually acquitted of charges of having been an accessory to the murder. Ettor was one of the leaders of the Waiters Strike of 1912 in New York City, and the Brooklyn Barbers Strike of 1913. > *"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists."* > > `- Joe Ettor` --- - Date: 1885-10-06 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_Ettor), [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/joseph-ettor-1885-1948), [archive.iww.org](https://archive.iww.org/history/library/Ettor/). - Tags: #Birthdays, #IWW. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/smiling-joe-ettor-1885-1948)
## Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 - 1977) ### Sat Oct 06, 1917  --- Fannie Lou Hamer, born on this day in 1917, was a community organizer and leader within the civil rights movement. "I'm gonna be moving forward, and if they shoot me, I'm not going to fall back, I'm going to fall 5 feet 4 inches forward." Hamer was the co-founder and vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She was also a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office. While having surgery in 1961 to remove a tumor, a 44-year-old Hamer was also given a hysterectomy without consent by a white doctor. Known as a "Mississippi appendectomy", this was a frequent occurrence under Mississippi's compulsory, white supremacist sterilization plan to reduce the number of poor black people in the state. Hamer was threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by white supremacists and police while trying to register for and exercise her right to vote. During a voter registration drive Hamer participated in, police fined the group because their bus was "too yellow". When she returned home, her family's landlord told her that, if didn’t withdraw her voter registration, she would be fired from her job and forced to leave. On her way back from a SNCC organizing meeting, Hamer was arrested and beaten in custody. She sustained lifelong injuries from the assault, including a blood clot in her eye that left her partially blind. Hamer later helped and encouraged thousands of African-Americans in Mississippi to become registered voters, and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her area through her work in programs like the Freedom Farm Cooperative, formed to subvert state oppression of poor black workers in the agricultural industry. > *"Nobody's free until everybody's free."* > > `- Fannie Lou Hamer` --- - Date: 1917-10-06 - Learn More: [americanarchive.org](https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_28-bg2h70895r), [www.rightsanddissent.org](https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/fannie-lou-hamer/), [ccrjustice.org](https://ccrjustice.org/home/blog/2021/02/01/black-liberation-archives-week-1-fannie-lou-hamer-taught-us), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Lou_Hamer). - Tags: #Civil Rights, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/fannie-lou-hamer-1917-1977)
## Battle of the Thames (1813) ### Tue Oct 05, 1813  --- On this day in 1813, Tecumseh was killed in the "Battle of the Thames", fought during the War of 1812 between America and Tecumseh's Confederacy. Tecumseh's death led to the dissolution of the alliances he forged. Tecumseh (1768 - 1813) was a Shawnee warrior and chief who became the primary leader of a large, multi-tribal confederacy in the early 19th century. Growing up during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War, Tecumseh was exposed to warfare and envisioned the establishment of an independent Native American nation east of the Mississippi River under British protection, and established a confederacy of tribes to fight off colonization efforts. On October 5th, 1813, Tecumseh and his second in command Roundhead were killed in the "Battle of the Thames", fought as part of the War of 1812 between America and Tecumseh's Confederacy and British allies. Tecumseh's death resulted in the dissolution of his tribal alliances, and led many indigenous peoples to begin moving west to escape colonization, across the Mississippi River. --- - Date: 1813-10-05 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Thames), [www.britannica.com](https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-the-Thames). - Tags: #Indigenous. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/battle-of-the-thames-1813)
## Philip Berrigan (1923 - 2002) ### Fri Oct 05, 1923  --- Philip Berrigan, born on this day in 1923, was a radical Christian peace activist who was ex-communicated by the Catholic Church and frequently arrested for his acts of civil disobedience during the Vietnam War. Berrigan engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience for the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament, and was frequently arrested or on the run from police. He married a former nun who was also an activist, Elizabeth McAlister, in 1972. Both were both excommunicated by the Catholic church, and eleven years of their twenty-nine year marriage were separated by one or both serving time in prison. Berrigan frequently engaged in civil disobedience to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17th, while out on bail from a similar act six months prior, Berrigan and eight other radical Christians walked into the offices of the local draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, removed 600 draft records, doused them in napalm, and burnt them in a lot outside of the building. The group issued a statement, saying "We confront the Roman Catholic Church, other Christian bodies, and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country's crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war, and is hostile to the poor." All nine were sentenced to three years in prison. > *"The poor tell us who we are, the prophets tell us who we could be, so we hide the poor and kill the prophets."* > > `- Philip Berrigan` --- - Date: 1923-10-05 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Berrigan), [www.americanswhotellthetruth.org](https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/philip-berrigan), [www.zinnedproject.org](https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/catonsville-nine-files/). - Tags: #Birthdays, #Imperialism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/philip-berrigan-1923-2002)
## Battle of Cable Street (1936) ### Sun Oct 04, 1936  Image: *Battle of Cable Street, with police clearing the way for a car carrying fascists (1936) [jewishmuseum.org.uk]* --- On this day in 1936, 20,000 anti-fascists turned out in East London to drive out a rally of 2,000-3,000 fascists organized by Oswald Mosley, forcing them to flee through Hyde Park in what is now known as "The Battle of Cable Street". The fight included the Metropolitan Police, sent to protect a march by members of the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley, and various anti-fascist demonstrators, including local anarchist, communist, Jewish and socialist groups. After it became known that the British Union of Fascists (BUF) were organizing a march to take place through the heart of the East End (an area which then had a large Jewish population), an estimated 100,000 residents of the area petitioned then Home Secretary John Simon to ban the march because of the strong likelihood of violence. He refused, and sent a police escort in an attempt to prevent anti-fascist protesters from disrupting the march. Anti-fascists built roadblocks in an attempt to prevent the march from happening, and on Oct. 4th an estimated 20,000 anti-fascist demonstrators turned out, met by 6,000–7,000 policemen (including mounted police) and 2,000–3,000 fascists. Demonstrators fought police with sticks, rocks, chair legs and other improvised weapons. Rubbish, rotten vegetables and the contents of chamber pots were thrown at the police by women in houses along the street. The leader of the BUF, Oswald Mosley, decided to abandon the march, and fascists fled through Hyde Park while the anti-fascists rioted with police. More than 150 demonstrators were arrested and approximately 175 people, including police, women, and children, were injured in the violence. --- - Date: 1936-10-04 - Learn More: [www.marxist.com](https://www.marxist.com/1936-the-battle-of-cable-street.htm), [jewishmuseum.org.uk](https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/2016/10/05/the-battle-of-cable-street/), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street), [www.aljazeera.com](https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/08/remembering-battle-cable-street-160802072152633.html). - Tags: #Labor, #Fascism, #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/battle-of-cable-street-1936)
## General Levee Strike (1907) ### Fri Oct 04, 1907  Image: *A 1900 postcard published showing steamboats on the Mississippi River, goods in sacks and barrels stacked on the levee, and groups of stevedores and horse carts. The view is looking downriver from the foot of Canal Street, New Orleans. Photo by Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library* --- On this day in 1907, shipping lines in New Orleans locked out screwmen, skilled dock workers, for failing to meet employer bale quotas, beginning a multi-racial, industry-wide strike that shut down the port for three weeks. On October 4th, 1907, all of the shipping lines locked out the screwmen, black and white alike, for failing to meet employer bale quotas. 9,000 dockworkers, also both black and white, then struck the New Orleans port that evening in a show of solidarity with the screwmen. Freight handlers from the Southern Pacific line also struck, ending any work on the port. During the second week of the strike, employers attempted to break worker solidarity by intimidating black workers To this end, they revived the "White League", a white supremacist paramilitary organization. Despite the attempts to break worker solidarity, strikers remained united, with some unions noting that if the employers successfully played one racial group against the other, they would all face starvation wages. The strike lasted twenty days, ending on October 24th, with striking workers winning most of their demands. --- - Date: 1907-10-04 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_dock_workers_and_unionization#The_1907_General_Levee_Strike), [nolaworkers.org](http://nolaworkers.org/2018/12/17/the-1907-new-orleans-dockworkers-general-strike/). - Tags: #Labor. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/general-levee-strike-1907)
## Filipino Army Strike (1983) ### Mon Oct 03, 1983  Image: *An aerial view of Clark Air Base, Luzon, Philippines, on 1 December 1989. Several U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4E & F-4G Phantom II aircraft from the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing are parked in their dispersal areas* --- On this day in 1983, 22,000 Filipino workers, paid less and given worse work than their American counterparts, walked off the job in a strike against the U.S.'s two largest foreign military bases, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. The military bases were the home of the U.S. 13th Air Force and logistics center for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, respectively. Filipinos were solely employed in maintenance and lower level positions, paid in pesos, and generally made less than their American counterparts. Striking workers demanded a 10% pay raise, and refused a counter-offer from the American government of a 4.6% increase. --- - Date: 1983-10-03 - Learn More: [www.upi.com](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/10/03/Some-22000-Filipino-workers-walked-off-the-job-Monday/6749434001600/), [www.washingtonpost.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/10/04/filipinos-strike-at-us-base/6a003fd0-acc3-423d-84d2-9a0d680b7e9e/). - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/filipino-army-strike-1983)
## Belfast Outdoor Relief Strike (1932) ### Mon Oct 03, 1932  Image: *Workers in Belfast 1932 preparing rocks for a battle with the police* --- On this day in 1932, 30,000 protesters in Belfast, Northern Ireland held a meeting on the Custom House steps to demand an increase in social welfare. When negotiations fell through, workers called a rent strike and battled with police. On September 30th, 1932, 2,000 relief workers organized by the socialist Revolutionary Workers Group (RWG) voted to go on strike if their demands weren't met. These demands included the abolition of "task work", an increase in relief payments, all work schemes to be paid at trade union rates, and adequate outdoor allowances for all single unemployed men and women who were not receiving unemployment benefits. On October 3rd, 1932, a crowd of 30,000 protesters marched from Frederick Street Labour Exchange, holding a mass meeting on the Custom House steps. Notably, Catholics and Protestants set aside their differences to unite in class struggle. After negotiations with the relief workers fell through, they called a rent strike, lit bonfires in working class districts, and speakers from the strike committee addressed thousands. Thousands of police were called in. Over the next several days, protesters clashed in battles with police and many workers were killed and injured. Workers won most of their demands, including big cash increases in their relief pay. One of the main demands, though, was not conceded - the giving of relief to single persons. Geehan and the other RWG members who were on the strike committee were heavily criticized for ending the strike before winning this demand. --- - Date: 1932-10-03 - Learn More: [libcom.org](https://libcom.org/history/1932-belfast-outdoor-relief-strike), [socialistworker.co.uk](https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/29274/1932+outdoor+relief+strike%3A+when+the+North+of+Ireland+fought+as+one). - Tags: #Labor, #Tenant, #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/belfast-outdoor-relief-strike-1932)
## Tlatelolco Massacre (1968) ### Wed Oct 02, 1968  Image: *University students are held at gunpoint in Tlatelolco. As many as 300 people were killed, but most Mexican media published the army’s figure of 27. Photograph: AP* --- On this day in 1968, ~10,000 university and high school students gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas of Tlatelolco, Mexico City were fired upon by the Mexican military, killing hundreds. More than 1,300 people were arrested. The crowd, which also included non-students such as residential neighbors, bystanders, and children, had gathered to protest the government's actions and listen peacefully to speeches. Although the Mexican government stated gunfire from the surrounding apartments prompted the army's attack, multiple eyewitness accounts claim they saw a military flare go up as a sign to begin firing on the crowd. The government also had hidden soldiers with machine guns in the apartment buildings they claimed they were fired upon from. Estimates of the total killed range from 300-400, and over 1,300 people were arrested. The event radicalized Subcomandante Marcos, who later became a prominent member of the Zapatistas, an indigenous group that fights for liberation from the Mexican government. The massacre also led CIA agent Philip Agee, an eyewitness to the violence, to resign from the organization in protest and author "Inside the Company: CIA Diary", which detailed his work on behalf of American imperialism and caused him to be deported from the United Kingdom. --- - Date: 1968-10-02 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre), [www.npr.org](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97546687), [www.zinnedproject.org](https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/tlatelolco-massacre/). - Tags: #Massacre, #Protests. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/tlatelolco-massacre-1968)
## The "Jerry Rescue" (1851) ### Wed Oct 01, 1851  Image: *A monument to the Jerry Rescue* --- On this day in 1851, arrested fugitive slave William "Jerry" Henry was broken out of jail by hundreds of abolitionists in Syracuse, New York. Jerry and prominent members of the rescue fled to Canada afterward. Earlier that year, the pro-slavery Secretary of State Daniel Webster had warned that the new Fugitive Slave Act (passed in 1850) would be enforced even "here in Syracuse in the midst of the next Anti-Slavery Convention." The arrest was considered a message that the locally-unpopular law would be enforced by federal authorities. The abolitionist Liberty Party was holding a state convention in Syracuse and, when Jerry's arrest became known, several hundred abolitionists broke into the city jail and freed him. The event came to be widely known as the "Jerry Rescue". Jerry himself was hidden in Syracuse for several days, then was taken to the Orson Ames House in Mexico, New York, and from there to Oswego, before crossing Lake Ontario into freedom in Canada. Many of the prominent members of the jailbreak also fled to Canada, including Reverend J.W. Loguen and Minister Samuel Ringgold Ward. --- - Date: 1851-10-01 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rescue), [www.nyhistory.com](http://www.nyhistory.com/gerritsmith/jerry.htm), [www.cnyhistory.org](https://www.cnyhistory.org/2014/10/jerry-rescue/). - Tags: #Abolitionism. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/the-jerry-rescue-1851)
## Trail of Tears (1838) ### Mon Oct 01, 1838  Image: *"The Trail of Tears", by Robert Lindneux, a painting depicting the forced removal of indigenous people.* --- On this day in 1838, the first major group of Cherokee, more than 12,000 people, were forced out of Tennessee, traveling westward from the town of Red Clay. A Choctaw leader called the forced deportations "a trail of tears and death". The Trail of Tears was the cumulative result of a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000-100,000 Native Americans in the United States from their ancestral homelands in the southeast to areas west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as "Indian Territory". In 1837-38, President Martin Van Buren allowed Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama, using an armed force of 7,000 people, to relocate about 13,000 Cherokees to Cleveland, Tennessee. On October 1st, 1838, the first major group of Cherokee, more than 12,000 people in hundreds of covered wagons, were forced out of Tennessee, traveling westward from the town of Red Clay. Taking the journey through an unusually cold winter, they suffered terribly from exposure, disease, and starvation, killing several thousand people while en route to their new designated reserve. They were also attacked by locals and economically exploited - starving Indians were charged a dollar a head, equal to $24.01 today, to cross the Ohio River, which typically charged twelve cents, equal to $2.88 today. --- - Date: 1838-10-01 - Learn More: [www.cherokeehistorical.org](https://www.cherokeehistorical.org/learn-more-about-the-cherokee-indian-removal-and-the-tragic-trail-of-tears/), [georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu](https://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/thisday/gahistory/10/01/final-council-meeting-before-trail-of-tears), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears). - Tags: #Indigenous. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/trail-of-tears-1838)
## Ole Miss Riot (1962) ### Sun Sep 30, 1962  Image: *Photograph shows James Meredith walking to class accompanied by U.S. marshals. The men flanking Meredith are U.S. Marshal James McShane (left) and John Doar of the Justice Department (right)* --- On this day in 1962, white supremacists protesting the enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi rioted, killing 2 and injuring 300. On Oct. 1st, Meredith became the first black student enrolled at the institution. Two civilians, one a French journalist, were killed during the night, and over 300 people were injured, including one-third of the federal law enforcement personnel deployed. In anticipation of violence, Meredith was escorted by Federal Marshals and state police immediately after arriving in Oxford. Responding to the federal presence, a crowd of a thousand, mostly students - led by right-wing activist Edwin Walker - quickly crowded onto campus. As the night went on, the crowd swelled to 3,000 and became increasingly violent. Early the next morning, a white mob attacked General Billingslea's staff car as it arrived at the university, setting it on fire with the staff inside. On October 1st, Meredith became the first black student to be enrolled at the University of Mississippi. With 24-hour military security, he graduated from the university on August 18th, 1963 with a degree in political science. --- - Date: 1962-09-30 - Learn More: [www.blackpast.org](https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/ole-miss-riot-1962/), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Miss_riot_of_1962), [www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRldEEztyjw&ab_channel=DillardUniversity). - Tags: #Riots. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/ole-miss-riot-1962)
## Michael Parenti (1933 - ) ### Sat Sep 30, 1933  --- Michael Parenti, born on this day in 1933, is a Marxist American political scientist and cultural critic. He has taught at American and international universities and has been a guest lecturer before campus and community audiences. Among Parenti's works are "Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism", which details political and living conditions in the Soviet Bloc, as well as "To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia", which vehemently condemned the NATO bombing of that country. > *"No surprise then that the 'pure' socialists support every revolution except for the ones that succeed."* > > `- Michael Parenti` --- - Date: 1933-09-30 - Learn More: [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Parenti), [www.michaelparenti.org](http://www.michaelparenti.org/). - Tags: #Marxism, #Birthdays. - Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/michael-parenti-1933-)