This was HEARTBREAKING

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, who volunteered in #GAZA exposed Israel:

"I held a lifeless child in my arms. There was no equipment to save him. This is not a #war; it is a #massacre of the innocent."
https://x.com/i/status/2061910193303347583

Today in Labor History June 1, 1929: A meeting of the Korean Anarchist Federation (KAF) was held in Peking in which it was decided to divert all resources outside Korea itself to Manchuria. Over 2 million Koreans were living in Manchuria at the time, and the KAF was a significant force. They were focused on providing mutual aid for all Koreans in Manchuria, establishing a society based on liberty and equality, in which resources were to be distributed "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Their significance was short-lived, however, as the Japanese attacked from the south, while Stalinists attacked from the north. By 1931, many of the anarchist leaders were dead and the region was devastated.

Image is of Kim Chwa-chin, the anarchist chairman of the Korean People's Association in Manchuria and commander of the Korean Independence Army.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #korea #china #manchuria #japan #stalin #communism #massacre #MutualAid

Corrido de Cananea, sung by Linda Ronstadt, about getting arrested during the Cananea strike, in Sonora, Mexico, 1906, a prelude to the Mexican Revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzJAovNXcU4

#workingclass #LaborHistory #cananea #mexico #copper #mining #anarchism
#RicardoFloresMagon #strike #massacre #mexico #Revolution #IWW

Today in Labor History June 1, 1906: The bloody Cananea copper miners' strike began in Sonora, Mexico. The miners were demanding 5 pesos a day and an 8-hour workday, commensurate with what the U.S. citizens who were working side-by-side with them were earning. As many as 100 miners were killed in the strike, mostly by U.S. citizens working for the company. Although they were forced back to work without winning any of their demands, it contributed to the general unrest that led ultimately to the Mexican Revolution.

The anarchist, Ricardo Flores Magón, along with members of his Partido Liberal Mexicana, organized a brigade of revolutionaries, who traveled from Arizona to the Cananea copper mines with the goal of exterminating all Americans employed there. The Arizona Rangers captured several of them. Magón and many others were extradited to Tombstone, Arizona, charged with violating U.S. neutrality laws, and imprisoned until 1910. After this, the Magonistas conquered parts of Baja California, including Tijuana, during the Mexican Revolution. Many IWW members from the U.S. joined the Magonista forces. Tombstone was the site of the gunfight at OK Corral, just a few miles away from Bisbee, where vigilantes would kidnap and deport IWW immigrant miners in 1917.

You can read my full article on the Bisbee Deportation here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2026/06/01/the-bisbee-deportation/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #cananea #mexico #copper #mining #anarchism
#RicardoFloresMagon #strike #massacre #mexico #Revolution #IWW

Today in Labor History May 31, 1838: Kentish peasants clashed with British troops in the Battle of Bosendon Wood. Sir William Courtenay led the uprising. Courtenay had previously run for public office and spent time in a lunatic asylum. He built up a large local following in the previous four years with his millenarian preaching and demonstrations against the New Poor Law of 1834. On May 29, 1838, he led a march through town, with a loaf of bread on a pole (a local symbol of protest). They continued protesting for the next two days, alarming the town’s wealthy elites. When the authorities tried to arrest Courtenay, he shot and killed a constable. The authorities quickly mustered a small army. Courtenay had a gun and a sword, but his followers had only sticks. Courtenay managed to kill a Lieutenant in the ensuing battle, but was promptly killed by other soldiers, who also killed eight of his followers.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #peasant #uprising #revolt #massacre #ClassWar #poverty #uk #britain
#hunger

Today in Labor History May 31, 2010: Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish ship MV Mavi Marmara, part of a six-boat Gaza Freedom Flotilla, while it was in international waters, and killed ten Turkish civilians, a few of whom may have been armed with metal bars and knives. The flotilla had been organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH). They were carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials to aid Gazans, living under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) concluded that six of the deaths had been summary executions. Israeli commandos boarded the other five ships, too, where activists employed passive resistance without any violent deaths.

A UNHRC report deemed the Israeli blockade of Gaza illegal. In 2013, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and offered $20 million in compensation. The Freedom Flotilla was the ninth attempt by activists to break the blockade of Gaza.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza began in 2010, in response to the Hamas election victory in 2007. It lasted the entire twelve years until the events of October 7, 2022, when Israel tightened the blockade further and initiated the final stages of their genocide. During the periods of total closure, Israel completely banned all movement of people or goods between Gaza and Israel, the West Bank, and foreign markets, including neighboring Egypt. The world Bank estimates that in 1996, alone, the blockade caused Gaza to lose 40% of its GNP.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #freepalestine #gaza #genocide #israel #palestine #idf #massacre #freedomflotilla #humanrights #civilians #endtheoccupation

Today in Labor History May 31, 1921: The Tulsa Race Riot. From May 31 through June 1, deputized whites (i.e., racist vigilantes) killed more than 300 African Americans in the worst race riot in U.S. history. The violence began in response to a false report in the Tulsa Tribune accusing a black man of attacking a white girl in an elevator. The headline made the front page. However, there was an accompanying editorial that called for a lynching. White Tulsans went to the African American community of Greenwood (the Black Wall Street) and started shooting black people. They looted and burned 40 square blocks, destroying over 1,400 African American homes, hospitals, schools, and churches. Ten thousand became homeless and had to spend the winter of 1921 living in tents.

Many African American residents fought back, including veterans of World War One. This attempt at self-preservation prompted the deputized whites and National Guardsmen to arrest 6,000 black residents. Furthermore, they bombarded the community from the air in what was likely the first aerial bombardment of mainland U.S. residents. At least a dozen planes, some carrying police, circled the community and dropped burning balls of turpentine. They also shot at residents from the air. Many of the whites were members of the Klan, such as W. Tate Brady, who had also participated in the tarring and feathering of members of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1917.

Just a few months later, the government again bombarded civilians from the air, during the Battle of Blair Mountain, when 15,000 coal miners battled 3,000 cops, private cops and vigilantes, in the largest insurrection since the Civil War. Up to 100 miners died in the fighting, along with 10-30 Baldwin-Felts detectives and three national guards.

You can read my full article on the Battle of Blair Mountain here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/14/the-battle-of-blair-mountain/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #tulsa #massacre #riot #racism #pogrom #IWW #police #policebrutality #massacre #greenwood #BlackWallStreet #kkk #klan #kukluxklan #blairmountain #miner #coal #union #strike #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History May 31, 1889: The infamous Johnstown Flood. 2,209 people died when a dam holding back a private resort lake burst upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Bruce Springsteen references the flood in “Highway Patrolman.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EVCO7ZKVDs

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Johnstown #flood #disaster #classwar #liability #novel #books #fiction #poem #poetry #writer #author #homestead #strike #union #massacre