On July 17, 1944, a group of sailors and civilians were loading ships with ammunition and bombs at Port Chicago, a naval magazine and barracks in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tragically, the ships blew up in a massive explosion that instantly killed 320 workers and injured hundreds more. Most of the dead were African Americans, since racial segregation consigned Black soldiers and sailors to manual labor and service, including the dangerous work of transporting munitions. When the surviving workers were ordered back on the job without any additional safety measures or training, 50 refused to re ..read more

Chris talks with labor historian Dana Frank; her new book is What Can We Learn From the Great Depression? Stories of Ordinary People and Collective Action in Hard Times. The book takes a new look at working-class activism during the 1930s from the perspective of our own time, examining mutual aid, eviction protests, the expulsion of a million Mexicans, a sit-down strike by African American women working as wet-nurses, and a white supremacist fascist organization in Ohio known as the Black Legion. Dana will be in conversation with Bill Fletcher Jr. this Tuesday, October 7, at the K Street Busbo ..read more

William Lucy – an icon of the labor movement -- died this past Wednesday at the age of 90. “Bill Lucy served as a brilliant strategist whose words instantly cut to the heart of an issue,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, who called Lucy “a bridge across generations of our movement; and a leader in connecting the fights of working people all across the world.” As Shuler noted, when Lucy was just 34 years old, “he wrote four simple words—'I Am a Man’—that would change the course of history in Memphis, Tennessee,” helping “all Americans see the humanity of Black sanitation workers in their stru ..read more

The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 of the Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), resumed negotiations with Hollywood studios this week and are fighting for pay equity for color designers, a job historically staffed by women. Today’s show originally ran on July 6, 2023, when the strike by Hollywood writers was in its’ 10th week. Among those turning out to support that strike were members of the Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839); in March of 2023, the animators staged a “solidarity walk” around Walt Disney Studios in Burbank with dozens of the studio’s animation production workers prote ..read more

Labor journalist Hamilton Nolan on the labor movement past, present and future and his new book “The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor.” Recorded live at the eighth annual Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium on August 31 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Music by the Pittsburgh Labor Choir.  On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1970; that was the day 350,000 GM workers kicked off a 67-day strike. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail ..read more

J. Albert Mann, author of “Shift Happens: The History of Labor in the United States,” a children’s book that’s unusual not just in its subject matter but in the way it treats kids seriously as the future citizens they are. Recorded live at the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium in Wheeling, West Virginia on August 31, 2024. Recording by Patrick Dixon, produced by Chris Garlock. On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 2011; that was the day hundreds of ILWU strikers blocked railroad tracks near Longview, Washington. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out ..read more

Labor action is effectively one of two things: political action, or direct action. This week, from the Solidarity Forever podcast, we learn about political action, in the courts through the landmark Pullis decision, and charting the rise and fall of the Working Man's Parties in the days of Andy Jackson. On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1925. Five hundred African American sleeping car porters gathered at the Elks Hall at 129th Street in Harlem. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at&nb ..read more

Blood in the Streets, photographer Chuck Avery’s illustrated history of American labor struggles, and Kurt Stand shares an excerpt from his essay, Peekskill, 1949: What Was Lost, What Remained, What It Means Today. On this week’s Labor History in Two:  the year was 1918; that was the day that 101 leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies were convicted in a Chicago Federal Court. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced b ..read more

Labor historian Peter Rachleff on how a Midwest strike helped shape national labor law plus a preview of his talk on the 1886 takeover of the Richmond (VA) City Council by black and white union activists.   On this week’s Labor History in Two: the birth of the original Rebel Girl, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #Labo ..read more

Between 1955 and 1965, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) investigated numerous southern institutions of higher education that had dismissed faculty members for publicly supporting desegregation and racial equality. In today’s episode, from the AAUP Presents podcast, a discussion with Joy Ann Williamson-Lott, dean of the graduate school and professor of social and cultural foundations in the College of Education at the University of Washington, drawing on her recently published article, "The AAUP and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1955–1965.” On this week’s Labor History in ..read more