Labor History in 2:00

On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. Three thousand five hundred buses rolled into Washington, D.C. 

They were loaded with protesters, there to participate in Solidarity Day.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. That was the day that one of most pitched battles in US labor history, the “Battle of Blair Mountain” began in West Virginia.  Coal fueled the engines of industry, keeping the trains moving and the steel mills humming.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1996.  That was the day that workers at the Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco made their final push to make their case for the right to join a union. They made history by winning the union vote fifty-seven to fifteen.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1963.  That was the day of one of the most iconic stands for justice and equality in United States history.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” to a quarter-million people in Washington D.C.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1950.  At 4 pm that day the US Army completed its take-over of the country’s railroads. 

They were acting on the orders of President Truman.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1919.  That was the day that Fannie Sellins and Joseph Starzeleski were murdered while standing up for workers’ rights.  Fannie was born in New Orleans, and then married a garment worker in St. Louis.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1925.  500 African American sleeping car porters gathered at the Elks Hall at 129^th Street in Harlem.  The meeting was called by A. Philip Randolph.  

The year was 1877. 

That summer during what came to be known as “The Great Upheaval,” police, the US Army, and the National Guard brutally crushed a national railroad strike.  The simmering anger of working people had many elected officials and industrialists on edge. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1912.  That was the day the US Congress approved the formation of the Commission on Industrial Relations.  In the early 1900s the terrible work conditions and entrenched resistance to union organizing had led to increasing labor unrest.  

On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day five women working for United Airlines formed the first union for airline stewardess.  Those women were Ada Brown, Frances Hall, Edith Lauterbach, Sally Thometz and Sally Watt.