otd

#OtD 23 Sep 1893 feminist and Spanish Civil War fighter Libertad Rodenas was born in Valencia. She was involved in the @Cntsindicato textile workers' union, workers' armed defence groups, and Mujeres Libres (Free Women). She later moved to Mexico https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9609/libertad-rodenas

#OtD 24 Sep 1945 in NYC up to 1.5 million workers got an impromptu day off when elevator workers in over 2000 city high-rise buildings, including the Empire State building, went on strike against pay cuts https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9699/high-rise-elevator-workers-strike

#OtD 24 Sep 1994 residents of Dublin, Ireland who had been opposing new council water charges formed an all-city federation of groups. A widespread campaign of non-payment eventually defeated the charges https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9702/federation-of-dublin-anti-water-charges-campaigns-formed

#OtD 24 Sep 1934 the month-old Salinas lettuce strike ended after workers won concessions. The strike of the Filipino Labor Union faced massive repression from racist mobs and armed vigilantes but they won union recognition and more pay https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9698/salinas-lettuce-strike-of-1934-ends

#OtD 24 Sep 1918 the revolutionary @iww union in Canada was declared illegal due to its opposition to WWI. However it survived and continued to have successes organising lumber workers and coal miners, amongst others. Learn more about the union in Canada: https://workingclasshistory.com/2021/05/17/e52-the-iww-in-canada/

#OtD 24 Sep 1883 during his Address to the National Convention of Colored Men in Kentucky, Frederick Douglass criticised trade unions that refused to organise Black workers. But most unions continued to be whites-only, with exceptions like the @iww. https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9696/f.-douglass-criticises-unions-over-racism

#OtD 24 Sep 1968 14 men (including five priests and a minister) raided a federal office in Milwaukee, took 10,000 draft cards, and set them on fire with homemade napalm in protest of the Vietnam war. Learn more about opposition to the war in our pod: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/09/23/e43-46-the-movement-against-the-vietnam-war-in-the-us/

#OtD 24 Sep 2003 27 pilots in the Israeli air force wrote to their commander refusing to participate in assassination missions in the West Bank and Gaza. They stated the attacks were "illegal and immoral" and harmed "innocent civilians" https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9703/israeli-air-force-pilots-refusal-to-partake-in-assassination-missions

#OtD 25 Sep 1952 influential Black author, activist, and feminist theorist, bell hooks was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She wrote over 30 books during her life, often critiquing what she termed the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12599/bell-hooks-born

#OtD 25 Sep 1912 sheriff's deputies in Louisiana caught up with Charles "Leather Britches" Smith, a former logger who was wanted for firing at a sawmill during the Grabow timber strike. He died after refusing to surrender https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9786/charles-smith-killed-by-police

#OtD 25 Sep 2003 noted Palestinian intellectual Edward Said died. A founding father of postcolonial theory, he wrote extensively on the Middle East and Palestine, and how Western culture has been moulded by imperialism https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9791/edward-said-dies

#OtD 25 Sep 1919 in retaliation for arrests and raids, Russian anarchists bombed the Bolshevik's HQ in Moscow during a meeting, resulting in 12 being killed and 55 others being wounded, including Pravda editor Nikolai Bukharin https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9787/anarchists-bomb-bolshevik-hq

#OtD 25 Sep 1903 abstract expressionist artist and anarchist Mark Rothko was born in a working-class, Jewish town in what is now Latvia. Moving to the US, he got involved in radical politics, including attending @iww meetings https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9785/mark-rothko-born

#OtD 25 Sep 1945 Italian resistance militant, Nelly Pelliccia, died of typhus, aged 20. She took part in partisan activities in Carrara throughout the Nazi occupation following the fall of the Italian fascist regime. More about the resistance in our pod: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e77-80-italian-resistance/

#OtD 25 Sep 1968 Seattle city council brought in a gun-control law at the behest of the Republican mayor to prevent self-defence patrols by the Black Panthers. Many gun-control laws were introduced around then with NRA support to disarm African-Americans https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/black-panthers

#OtD 26 Sep 1940 German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist, Walter Benjamin died in Portbou at the French-Spanish border while attempting to escape from invading Nazi forces. The most likely cause of death was suicide https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9870/walter-benjamin-suicide

#OtD 26 Sep 1950 a US naval ship sprayed Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii bacteria into the air two miles off the coast of San Francisco for six days as part of a secret experiment in biological warfare. Officials believe they exposed 800,000 https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9872/operation-sea-spray

#OtD 26 Sep 1919 during the Russian revolution, the anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine ended months of retreat and turned in a successful surprise attack on the pursuing counter-revolutionary White Army of Gen Denikin. Learn more: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/no-harmless-power-the-life-and-times-of-the-ukrainian-anarchist-nestor-makhno-charlie-allison

#OtD 26 Sep 1944 Nazis and their Italian fascist henchmen murdered 31 partisans in the town of Bassano del Grappa, Italy. Partisans had handed themselves in after being told those who surrendered would not be prosecuted. More in our pod: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e77-80-italian-resistance/

Frontispiece to Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904), a classic collection of Japanese ghost stories compiled and translated by Lafcadio Hearn, who died in Tokyo #onthisday in 1904. Read its wonderful stories here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-1904/ #OTD

#OtD 26 Sep 1932 Pierre De Geyter, Belgian socialist and composer of the music to the famous revolutionary anthem, L'Internationale, died https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12666/pierre-de-geyter-dies

#OtD 26 Sep 1939 actor Ricky Tomlinson was born. Before acting, Ricky worked in construction and took part in the 1972 building workers' strike. He was later framed for picket line violence and imprisoned for two years. More on the strike in our pod: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e65-66-building-workers-strike-w-ricky-tomlinson/

#OtD 26 Sep 1990 the Oka Resistence ended after 78 days of struggle by Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk) people against expansion of a golf course on their land. Barricades were set up and armed stand-offs took place, leading to two deaths inc one land defender https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12600/oka-resistance-ends

#OtD 27 Sep 1936 1000 uniformed fascist Blackshirts led by Oswald Mosley in Leeds, UK, were confronted by 30,000 anti-fascist locals who attacked them, pelted them with stones, hitting Mosley, and drowned out speeches by singing The Red Flag https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9965/battle-of-holbeck-moor

#OtD 27 Sep 1960 Sylvia Pankhurst, prominent suffragette, left communist, and anti-fascist, died in Ethiopia https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/sylvia-pankhurst-sexual-politics-and-political-activism-barbara-winslow