#BlueCollarWriter Labor News Update - October 28, 2025:
https://www.bluecollarwriter.com/home/labor-news-update

#1u #UnionStrong #UnionYes #ItsBetterInAUnion #LaborHistory #NLRB #Jobs #Economy

Today in Labor History October 28, 1902: Anarchist feminist Kate Austin died from tuberculosis. She was influenced by the Free Love Anarchism of Moses Harmen (publisher of the journal Lucifer), and particularly by the Haymarket affair. She was a member of the American Press Writers' Association, and wrote for many working-class and radical newspapers, including The Firebrand, Free Society, Discontent, and The Demonstrator.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #kateaustin #feminism #freelove #haymarket

Today in Labor History October 28, 1882: Luisa Capetillo Perón was born. Puerto Rican labor organizer and journalist. An anarcha-feminist who advocated for collective ownership of scientific advances, free love, universal education, and women's liberation. She helped organize an agricultural strike in Arecibo. In 1915, she was arrested for wearing trousers in Cuba. She continued to travel and organize until her death in 1922. In 2014, the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico honored her with a plaque in the Plaza in Honor of Puerto Rican Women in San Juan.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #feminism #union #strike #puertorico #luisacapetilloperon

#BlueCollarWriter Labor News Update - October 27, 2025:
https://www.bluecollarwriter.com/home/labor-news-update

#1u #UnionStrong #UnionYes #ItsBetterInAUnion #LaborHistory #NLRB #Jobs #Economy

Today in Labor History October 27, 1942: Helmuth Hübener, 17, was beheaded for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda. He was the youngest person to be sentenced to death by the Sondergericht "special court." He was a Mormon and a Boy Scout, at least until the Nazis banned Scouting in Germany. He had originally joined the Nazi Youth, as all boys were required to do, but quit after Kristallnacht. After middle school, he began listening to enemy radio broadcasts and developed a friendship with a communist boy. He began composing anti-National Socialist texts and anti-war leaflets, which he distributed throughout town.

In one of his leaflets, he wrote: "German boys! Do you know the country without freedom, the country of terror and tyranny? Yes, you know it well, but are afraid to talk about it. They have intimidated you to such an extent that you don't dare talk for fear of reprisals. Yes you are right; it is Germany – Hitler Germany! Through their unscrupulous terror tactics against young and old, men and women, they have succeeded in making you spineless puppets to do their bidding."

As he faced the judges, he said: "Now I must die, even though I have committed no crime. So now it's my turn, but your turn will come."

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #fascism #antifa #antifascism #hitler #germany

Today in Labor History October 27, 2006: U.S. anarchist activist and journalist, Brad Will, was murdered by a government-affiliated paramilitary while covering the teachers’ strike in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was affiliated with Indymedia. In the 1990s, he worked as a teaching assistant to Peter Lamborn Wilson (a.k.a. Hakim Bey). He later moved to a squat in New York’s Lower East Side. He once participated in a protest against a proposed amendment to the Colorado constitution that sought to curtail gay rights, by pretending to marry another man, dressed in drag, with a parade in front of a Promise Keepers event in Boulder, Colorado. He was also active in Earth First, pirate radio, and other causes.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #bradwill #oaxaca #union #teachers #strike #assassination #mexico #paramilitary #deathsquads #anarchism #pirateradio #earthfirst #lgbtq

Today in Labor History October 27, 1967: Catholic priest Philip Berrigan, along with artist Tom Lewis, writer David Eberhardt, and Rev. James L. Mengel III, who was a United States Air Force veteran, occupied the Baltimore Selective Service (i.e., draft) office, where they poured blood on Selective Service records to protest the Vietnam War. They came to be known as the Baltimore Four. Berrigan said that their act was meant to protest "the pitiful waste of American and Vietnamese blood in Indochina." In 1973, Berrigan was excommunicated for marrying a nun. For 11 of the 29 years they were married, he was in prison for Civil Disobedience against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #civildisobedience #directaction #antiwar #vietnam #philipberrigan #nuclear #atomic #antinuke #catholic

Today in Labor History October 27, 1912: Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) was born on this date in Texarkana, Arkansas. Nancarrow was a Chicano Avant guard composer, who was also a communist activist, who fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades against the Franco dictatorship, in Spain. In 1940, he fled the U.S. to México City to avoid being arrested for his former leftist affiliations. He is best known for his Studies for Player Piano, which he wrote, in part, because it was so difficult to find musicians who could perform his technically complex music. He was largely unknown to the public until the 1980s, when he was in his 70’s, and only then became recognized as one of the most significant composers of the century. Some consider Nancarrow’s work to be the analog predecessor to the Black MIDI genre of electronic music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwamzM7fPHw

#workingclass #LaborHistory #spain #civilwar #abrahamlincolnbrigades #antifa #antifascist #mexico #composer #piano #music #communism #chicano

Today in Labor History October 26, 1881: Dolores Cacuango, pioneer in the fight for indigenous and farmers rights in Ecuador, was born near Cayambe, Ecuador. Born to indigenous, campesino parents, she never learned to read or write, but learned to speak Spanish after running away from home as a young woman. She led several rebellions against the systemic abuse of the hacienda owners against the campesinos. In 1930, she was one of the leaders of the workers' strike at the Pesillo hacienda in Cayambe for indigenous and peasant rights. Jorge Icaza portrays this strike in his 1934 novel Huasipungo. In 1946 she founded the first school in Ecuador that taught in both Quechua and Spanish

#workingclass #LaborHistory #indigenous #racism #ecuador #rebellion #strike #union #books #novel #fiction #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History October 26, 1926: Augusto Sandino took up arms against the Nicaraguan state and the U.S. military that was occupying Nicaragua. Sandino had been living in exile in México during the early 1920s, where he participated in strikes led by the IWW. Inspired by the IWW, he adopted the IWW's black & red colors for the Sandinista flag. One of the original Sandinista army manifestos read, “It is better to be killed as a rebel than to live on as a slave.” The U.S. didn’t withdraw its troops until 1933, when Juan Sacasa took over as president. Sacasa named Anastasio Somoza head of the hated Guardia Nacional. Sacasa met privately with Sandino and won his support. However, Sandino continued to call for the dismantling of the Guardia Nacional. Somoza assassinated him in 1934. After that, the Somoza dynasty ruled Nicaragua until the FSLN (the modern Sandinista Nation Liberation Front) overthrew them in 1979.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Nicaragua #sandino #sandinista #Revolution #IWW #anarchism #socialism #imperialism