On July 16, 1931, a white mob murdered the black sharecropper organizer Ralph Gray in Tallapoosa County, Alabama. This murder demonstrated both the very real communist organizing among black sharecrop
On June 21, 1935, three members of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union were murdered at the Holmes-Eureka Mill in Eureka, California, by anti-union enforcers of the company. This violent moment was t
On September 5, 1934, the governor of North Carolina called out the National Guard to aid mill owners in the textile strike overtaking their state and the east coast. This strike, not only mobilizing
On July 28, 1932, the U.S. Army 12th Infantry regiment commanded by Douglas MacArthur and the 3rd Calvary Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Major George Patton violently evicted the
On March 15, 1940, John Ford’s film version of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, was released to universal acclaim. This was perhaps the greatest moment of the cultural left during the
On November 30, 1932, the American Federation of Labor endorsed federal unemployment insurance. This was a remarkable shift for the AFL, which had long opposed any sort of government programs for work
Last weekend I was in New York for the Jason Isbell show (which I did not think was all that good. As much as I like his songs, playing 8 straight quiet acoustic songs in a big theater does not make f
Black Tuesday was 85 years ago yesterday. I went on the Rick Smith Show to talk about its legacy and how we are tearing down the institutions that ensured working people would not have their lives des