Today in Labor History January 7, 1939: The authorities finally freed Tom Mooney, a labor activist who they wrongly convicted of murder in the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916, along with fellow labor organizer Warren Billings. They had been convicted based on the false testimony of Martin Swanson, a detective with a long history of interfering in San Francisco strikes. On this day in 1939, the governor granted Mooney an unconditional pardon after 22.5 years of incarceration. As a result of the bombing, 10 people died and 40 were injured. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. Mooney and Billings were also members of the IWW.

You can read my full article on Tom Mooney here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/19/tom-mooney-and-warren-billings/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #TomMooney #anarchism #SanFrancisco #bombing #prison #IWW #EmmaGoldman #AlexanderBerkman #wwi

Today in Labor History October 26, 1889: The Ukrainian anarchist general Nestor Makhno was born in Huliaipole,. Makhno led a large insurrectionary army of peasants and helped defeat the reactionary White armies. His Black Army ultimately liberated and held onto the Free Territory within Ukraine, known as Makhnovia, from 1918 to 1921. It was a stateless, anarchist society that was defended by the Black Army. Roughly 7 million people lived in the area. The peasants who lived there refused to pay rent to the landowners and seized the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and share them among the various villages and communes of the Free State. His uprising was eventually crushed by Trotsky. Makhno died in exile in Paris, July 25, 1934.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #MestorMakhno #anarchism #ukraine #russia #communism #trotsky #alexanderberkman #Makhnovia #Revolution #insurrection

Today in Labor History October 17, 1939: Warren Billings, labor activist, and falsely imprisoned for the 1016 San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing, was finally released from Folsom Prison. As a result of the bombing, 10 people died and 40 were injured. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. Tom Mooney and Warren Billings were both anarchists, and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. Billings and his codefendant Tom Mooney were wrongly convicted. They served 23 years in prison and were released in 1939. Governor Edmund G. Brown pardoned them in 1961. During the Spanish war against fascism (AKA the Spanish Civil War), many Americans volunteered to join the antifascist cause as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades. One of the battalions was named the Tom Mooney Machine-Gun Company. It was led by Oliver Law, a communist, and the first black man known to have commanded white U.S. troops.

Read my full article on Billings and Mooney here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/19/tom-mooney-and-warren-billings/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #prison #anarchism #tommooney #warrenbillings #sanfrancisco #emmagoldman #alexanderberkman #IWW #fascism #antifa #antifascism

Today in Labor History September 30, 1892: In the wake of the Homestead Steel Strike, union leaders were prosecuted for the crime of treason for the first time in U.S. history. Henry C. Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, convinced the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to issue warrants for the arrests of every member of the advisory board of the striking steel union for treason against the state. The 29 strike leaders were ultimately charged with plotting "to incite insurrection, rebellion & war against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." During the strike, Pinkerton detectives killed seven workers, who were protesting wage cuts of 18-26%. Alexander Berkman tried to assassinate Frick, but failed, and spent many years in prison. He wrote about his imprisonment, and about anarchism, in his “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist,” published by Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth Press.

Read my article about the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #carnegie #homestead #steel #strike #union #pinkerton #anarchism #union #treason #rebellion #alexanderberkman #EmmaGoldman #prison #memoir #books #author #writer @bookstadon

Livre QU’EST-CE QUE L’ANARCHISME ? Alexander Berkman 13€
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Voilà (dans sa réédition poche) un incontournable "classique de l'anarchie" édité pour la première fois en anglais en 1929 pour expliqué de façon didactique et simple la vision du communisme anarchiste d'Alexander Berkman aux ouvriers américains.

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Today in Labor History July 23, 1892: Anarchist Alexander Berkman tried to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick in retaliation for the 9 miners killed by Pinkerton thugs on July 6, during the Homestead Steel Strike. Frick was the manager of Homestead Steel and had hired the Pinkertons to protect the factory and the scab workers he hired to replace those who were on strike. Berkman, and his lover, Emma Goldman, planned the assassination hoping it would arouse the working class to rise up and overthrow capitalism. Berkman failed in the assassination attempt and went to prison for 14 years. He wrote a book about his experience called, “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist” (1912). He also wrote “The Bolshevik Myth” (1925) and “The ABC of Communist Anarchism” (1929).

You can read my complete article on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #communism #alexanderberkman #prison #assassination #strike #steel #carnegie #massacre #emmagoldman #pinkertons #books #writing #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 22, 1916: Someone set off a bomb during the pro-war “Preparedness Day” parade in San Francisco. As a result, 10 people died and 40 were injured. A jury convicted two labor leaders, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, based on false testimony. Both were pardoned in 1939. Billings and Mooney were both anarchists and members of the IWW. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local San Francisco paper. They also threatened to arrest Berkman.

In 1937, Mooney filed a writ of habeas corpus, providing evidence that his conviction was based on perjured testimony and evidence tampering. Among this evidence was a photograph of him in front of a large, ornate clock, on Market Street, clearly showing the time of the bombing and that he could not have been at the bombing site when it occurred. The Alibi Clock was later moved to downtown Vallejo, twenty-five miles to the northeast of San Francisco. Alibi Bookshop, in Vallejo, is named after this clock. On May 11, 2024, I did a reading there from my working-class historical novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, during the Book Release Party for Roberta Tracy’s, Zig Zag Woman. Her novel takes place at the time of the Los Angeles Times bombing, in 1910, when two other labor leaders, the McNamara brothers, were framed.

In 1931, while they were still in prison, I. J. Golden persuaded the Provincetown Theater to produce his play, “Precedent,” about the Mooney and Billings case. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote, "By sparing the heroics and confining himself chiefly to a temperate exposition of his case [Golden] has made “Precedent” the most engrossing political drama since the Sacco-Vanzetti play entitled Gods of the Lightening... Friends of Tom Mooney will rejoice to have his case told so crisply and vividly."

You can read my complete article on Mooney and Billings here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/19/tom-mooney-and-warren-billings/

You can get Anywhere But Schuylkill here:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!
And purchase Zigzag Woman here:
https://www.powells.com/book/zig-zag-woman-9781962465267

#workingclass #LaborHistory #warrenbillings #tommooney #sanfrancisco #bombing #anarchism #union #IWW #labor #alexanderberkman #prison #emmagoldman #playwright #theater #books #writer #author #historicalfiction #novel #author #anywherebutschuylkill #zigzagwoman @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 9, 1917: Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were sentenced to two years in prison, $10,000 each, and deportation to Soviet Russia for their antiwar efforts and their anarchist activism. Their persecution by the U.S. government was part of the Palmer Raids, or the first anti-communist witch hunt in the U.S., which led to the imprisonment, death and/or deportation of hundreds of anarchists, communists, and labor organizers. The witch hunt decimated the IWW. And it jump-started the career of J. Edgar Hoover, future head of the FBI and persecutor of activist groups under COINTELPRO, who was then the underling of his mentor A. Mitchell Palmer.

Though Berkman and Goldman were both born in Russia, they were also naturalized U.S. citizens. The U.S. also deported anarchist Mollie Steimer in 1922. So, Trump’s threat to strip Zohran Mamdani of his citizenship and have him deported would be nothing new for the U.S. The U.S. has also denaturalized and deported people on the right, including several dozen Nazis in the 1970s-1990s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #communism #immigration #deportation #trump #russia #ussr #emmagoldman #alexanderberkman #molliesteimer #nazis #prison #IWW #fbi #cointelpro