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/

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