MikeDunnAuthorToday in Labor History May 8, 1911: The anarchist Magonista army captured Tijuana, with support from IWW members. As result, they now controlled of most of Baja California. During their short revolution, they encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands, create cooperatives and refuse the establishment of any new government. Among those surviving and escaping when the federal forces recaptured Tijuana was the famous Wobbly (IWW) songwriter, Joe Hill. Another Wobbly bard, Haywire Mac (composee of The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum), also participated in the occupation of Tijuana. Today there is a Ricardo Flores Magon Street in Tijuana, near Avenida Revolution. Lowell Blaisdell writes about the Anarchist revolution in Baja California in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962).
In 1903, the Mexican dictator, Porfirio Diaz, arrested Ricardo Flores Magon, and his brother Enrique, for ridiculing his regime. After their release, they moved to Los Angeles, where they founded and edited the anarchist paper Regeneracion, as well as the Partido Liberal de Mexico. A few years later, they began working with the IWW and planning their assault on Baja California. Los Angeles and San Diego were both hotbeds of labor organizing, particularly with the IWW. In 1910, radical unionists were blamed for the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building during a bitter Iron Workers Strike. And in 1912, the IWW led a Free Speech fight in San Diego, in which two men were killed by police. During the Free Speech fight, vigilantes kidnapped Emma Goldman and her companion Ben Reitman, who had come to show their support. However, before deporting them, the vigilantes tarred and feathered Reitman and raped him with a cane.
Ricardo Flores Magon was one of the major intellectual forces during the Mexican Revolution. In 1918, the U.S. arrested him under the 1917 Anti-Espionage Act, for publishing an anti-war manifesto. This was part of the First Red Scare, also known as the Palmer Raids, which also swept up Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman. Ricardo Flores Magon died 4 years later, in Leavenworth Prison, under suspicious circumstances. Chicano inmates rioted after his death and killed the prison guard they believed executed him.
You read more about the San Diego Free Speech Fight here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2026/05/08/san-diego-free-speech-fight/
And the LA Times bombing here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2026/05/08/the-la-times-bombing/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #RicardoFloresMagon #anarchism #tijuana #mexico #revolution #IWW #prison
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