#laborhistory

Today in Labor History September 23, 1945: Vietnamese workers rose up against French and British troops to create the Saigon commune. Fed up with racism and violent harassment by the French colonialists, they shot and killed police, officials, and at least 100 French colonialists living there. They built barricades with overturned cars and trees, chopped down from the outskirts of town. The official resistance, the Vietminh, stayed out of the direct conflict, limiting their support to providing food and supplies to the insurgents, to show the British they supported “law and order,” in hopes of winning recognition as the true leadership of Vietnam. #workingclass #LaborHistory #vietnam #rebellion #uprising #colonialism

Today in Labor History September 22, 1919: 400,000 steelworkers, in 50 cities, went on strike to protest intolerable working conditions. Union leaders believed that if they could organize the steel workers, it would lead to a massive wave of unionization across the country. Thus began the Great Steel Strike of 1919. The bosses, however, were able to turn public opinion against the workers by calling them Communists and immigrants. They attacked strike organizer William Z. Foster as a revolutionary syndicalist and Wobbly (IWW). They hired Pinkertons, who kicked out any workers who came from out of town to support the strike. And they got local governments to shut down meeting halls on the grounds of health and safety violations. Ultimately, they called upon federal troops, which helped crush the strike after 3½ months, killing several workers, and imprisoning hundreds. However, the leadership of the American Federation of Labor also doomed the strike. Their racist, nativist, and disdainful views toward the increasingly immigrant workforce, and their autocratic strategies, alienated many of the workers. And U.S. Steel’s labor spies within the workforce were quick to exploit and deepen the riffs these attitudes and tactics produced among the workers. #workingclass #LaborHistory #union #steel #strike #IWW #anarchism #communism #immigration #policebrutality #police #racism

Every U.S. anarchist has heard of anarchist-controlled Catalonia (1936-1937). Many have heard about Makhnovshchina, the anarchist autonomous zone in Ukraine (1917-1921). How 'bout the Korean anarchist autonomous zone in Manchuria (1929-1931)? Today in Labor History September 18, 1931: The Korean People's Association in Manchuria was dissolved by the Japanese, after they invaded and established a dictatorship over the anarchist autonomous zone. Two million Korean migrants lived in the autonomous zone, after having fled Korea in the wake of the Donghak Peasant Revolution of 1894 and subsequent Japanese invasion, in which hundreds of thousands died. The anarchist autonomous zone they created in Manchuria, in 1929, was built upon the principles of stateless communism and mutual aid to support the numerous refugees with food, shelter and self-defense. They were repeatedly attacked by both Japanese imperialists and Korean communists. #workingclass #LaborHistory #korea #anarchism #imperialism #japan #communism #mutualaid #dictatorship #Revolution #uprising

Today in Labor History September 15, 1923: Osugi Sakae and his partner Noe Itō, both anarchists and feminists, were murdered by the Japanese military, during the 3-week long Kantō Massacre. They also murdered Osugi’s six-year-old nephew, who had dual US-Japanese citizenship. Over the course of the massacre, Japanese authorities slaughtered over 6,000-9,000 ethnic Koreans, along with Japanese political dissidents. The massacre began on September 1, 1923, the same day as the Great Kanto Earthquake, a magnitude 7.8-8.2 temblor that killed up to 140,000 people and destroyed much of Tokyo, Yokohama and Chiba. The massacre began as a pogrom against Korean immigrants who worked in the Kanto region. Korean labor unions had organized a very effective food relief program to serve quake victims. The police considered them a den of socialists. Many were members of the Korean Independence movement and had been organizing to end Japanese colonial rule. On September 2, police began spreading false rumors that Koreans had been seen carrying gasoline cans in preparation for burning down Japanese neighborhoods, and that Koreans were raping Japanese women. In Yokohama, Kanagawa and Tokyo, police gave residents permission to kill Koreans. The police even formed their own vigilante gangs in some towns. The police and army also used the ongoing violence as justification and cover as they slaughtered union leaders, communists and anarchists. The great film maker, Akira Kurosawa, who was a child at the time, was horrified by the event. “With my own eyes I saw a mob of adults … chasing a bearded man, thinking someone with so much facial hair could not be Japanese....Simply because my father had a full beard, he was surrounded by a mob carrying clubs.” The massacre is still denied to this day by many mainstream politicians. As recently as August 30, 2023, just before the 100th anniversary of the massacre, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that the government believed there was no adequate evidence that the massacre occurred. In 2017, the Cabinet Office removed historical evidence and acknowledgement of the massacre from their website. In 2022, Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike refused to send a commemorative message for the sixth year in a row. She has argued that the occurrence of a massacre was a matter of historical debate. In July 2020, Koike was re-elected as mayor of Tokyo in a landslide victory. Annual events to commemorate the massacre are regularly met with counterprotests, sometimes violent. Novelist Ushio Fukazawa, a Zainichi Korean (Korean nationals living in Japan, prior to World War Two, and their descendants), wrote about the massacre in the 2015 novel “Green and Red.” There have also been several plays written about the massacre, translated into Esperanto. Osugi Sakae, the anarchist assassinated in the massacre, was Japan’s first Esperanto teacher. #workingclass #LaborHistory #japan #korea #earthquake #massacre #pogrom #racism #anarchism #feminism #union #tokyo #esperanto #books #novel #play #writer #author @bookstadon @a.gup.pe

Today in Labor History August 23, 1927: Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists living in the U.S., were executed murder during a botched robbery in Boston. However, there was no evidence linking them to the crime. They both had alibis, too, including an official at the Italian consulate. Their trial was rife with racism and political bias. The judge, Webster Thayer, said the following about Vanzetti: "This man, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions." The jury foreman, who was a former cop, said he didn’t care if they were innocent: "Damn them. They ought to hang anyway." The author, John Dos Passos, who came to Boston to cover the trial as a journalist, was arrested at a solidarity protest along with writer Dorothy Parker. Einstein, H.G. Wells, and Bernard Shaw all appealed for Sacco and Vanzetti lives. The IWW called for a 3-day nationwide General Strike, which was heeded by 1,132 out of the 1,167 miners in Colorado’s Walsenburg coal district, leading to the Colorado coal strike of 1927. The day after their execution, there were violent demonstrations around the world, including in Tokyo, Geneva, London, and Paris. In South America, wildcat solidarity strikes completely shut down many factories. In Germany, 3 protesters were shot dead. In Boston, over 200,000 came to the funeral procession. Upton Sinclair’s novel, “Boston,” explores the trial, and Vanzetti's life. Woody Guthrie recorded a series of songs known as the Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti. In 1971, Joan Baez recorded her song "Here's to You," with music composed by Ennio Morricone, a tribute to Sacco & Vanzetti that went on to become a symbol for the human rights movement of the 1970s. #workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #saccoandvanzetti #IWW #coal #miners #strike #generalstrike #solidarity #riot #author #writer #books #fiction @bookstadon@a.gup.pe

Today in Labor History August 4, 1974: The fascist terrorist organization, Ordine Nero, set off a bomb on the Italicus Express train at San Benedetto Val di Sambro, Italy, killing 12 people and wounding 22. Their goal was to destroy the liberal-democratic state because of its alleged tolerance of Communists, dark-skinned immigrants and Jews. #workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #terrorism #italy #communism #antisemitism #racism #bomb

Today in Labor History August 4, 1942: U.S. and Mexico began the Bracero Program to provide cheap Mexican labor to replace U.S. workers who were being sent to fight in World War II, and to replace the 500,000 Mexican workers who were deported during the Great Depression in order to mollify xenophobic demands for “white jobs.” The Bracero program also gave farm-owners an alternative to hiring Anglo farm workers who hadn’t been drafted, many of whom were affiliated with the radical IWW. The Bracero program promised decent and sanitary housing and a minimum wage, but these were generally ignored by employers. Additionally, the workers were often subjected to racist attacks. The abuses contributed to the development of the Chicano Movement, the United Farm Workers and other forms of activism. #workingclass #LaborHistory #bracero #chicano #ufw #union #unitedfarmworkers #racism #xenophobia #ww2 #IWW #minimumwage

Today in Labor History August 4, 1964: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21. They were activists with the Congress of Racial Equality promoting voting registration among African Americans. Seven Klu Klux Klan members, including Deputy Sheriff Price, were convicted. #workingclass #LaborHistory #racism #kkk #KuKluxKlan #CivilRights #core #mississippi #murder

“Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.” — August Spies, Haymarket martyr, revolutionary anarchist https://libcom.org/article/address-august-spies 1/4 #AugustSpies #subterraneanArt #calendsArt #anarchism #laborHistory #history #historyOfAnarchism #Haymarket #HaymarketAnarchists #HaymarketMartyrs #illustration #drawing #anarchistArt #art #noAI

Today in Labor History July 31, 1922: A General Strike against Fascism began in Italy, running from July 31 to August 2. Socialists led the strike, which the fascists defeated. Rudolph Rocker, an Anarcho-Syndicalist of the period, said: "… the democratic government armed the Fascist hordes and throttled this last attempt at the defense of freedom and right. But Italian democracy had dug its own grave. It thought it could use Mussolini as a tool against the workers, but thus it became its own grave-digger." In October, 1922, the fascists led a march through Rome, which ultimately led to a coup and their ascension to power. During the march, Mussolini was in Milan, supposedly with a ticket for an ocean liner to flee the country should the fascists fail in the coup. #workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #mussolini #italy #anarchism #generalstrike #socialism #antifascism

Today in Labor History July 28, 1917: The Silent Parade took place in New York City, in protest against murders, lynchings, and other violence directed towards African Americans. Organizers set up the parade to protest the East Saint Louis race riots (May-July 1917), when whites murdered up to 200 African Americans, and caused 6,000 black residents to become homeless. While Woodrow Wilson was entering World War I to “make the world safe for democracy,” black Americans were asking when he’d do the same for them. The Silent March was organized by a coalition of groups, led by the new NAACP. Up to 15,000 participated. Organizers wanted president Wilson to enact anti-lynching legislation. He refused. Wilson appointed numerous racists to his cabinet and was an outspoken defender of segregation on “scientific” grounds. He was also fond of telling racist jokes. As an academic, prior to his political career, he was an apologist for slavery. And he used his authority to actively prevent admitting African Americans into Princeton as students or faculty. Ironically, one of the primary organizers of the Silent March, W.E.B. DuBois, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Woodrow Wilson presidential candidacy, calling him a “liberal Southerner,” who would deal fairly with Negros. The East Saint Louis racist pogrom occurred during one of the largest migrations of black workers from the South to the North. Between 1910 and 1920, half a million African Americans migrated north to Chicago, Saint Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia, and other cities. In 1919, there were 38 different racist riots in the U.S., all directed against the black community. The massacre in East Saint Louis began in response to a strike by white employees of the Aluminum Ore Company, after the bosses hired black replacement workers, a common practice of the bosses to divide the working class and weaken unions. Additionally, many of the unions were overtly racist and excluded black workers, including the Aluminum Ore union. To make matters worse, employment agents were going to the South and recruiting African Americans under false pretenses, offering them stable jobs and housing when, in reality, they were being recruited to work as scabs. So, it is likely that many, if not most, of the workers didn’t even know they were being hired as scabs. Regardless, they wouldn’t have been allowed to join the union, either. Racism by unions and white workers was not inevitable in those days, and it was certainly counterproductive to the aims of working people of all backgrounds and identities. Consider that in 1920, in rural Mingo County, West Virginia, when the coal bosses brought in African American workers as scabs, the UMWA encouraged them to join the union and the strike, and achieved solidarity between white, native-born workers, African Americans from the South, and Italian immigrants. This is portrayed in John Sayles film, Matewan. And by 1916, thanks largely to the superb organizing of Ben Fletcher, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW, uniting a workforce that was 33% Irish, 33% Polish & Lithuanian, and 33% African American. Fletcher also traveled up and down the east coast organizing dockers across race. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Read my biography of Fletcher here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/05/13/ben-fletcher-and-the-iww-dockers/ #workingclass #LaborHistory #africanamerican #racism #lynching #protest #riots #naacp #union #strike #scab #IWW #benfletcher #webdubois #BlackMastadon

Today in Labor History July 27, 1918: Miner and union organizer Ginger Goodwin was shot by a hired private cop outside Cumberland, British Columbia sparking Canada's first General Strike. He was a labor activist and a member of the Socialist Party of Canada. Additionally, he was an antiwar activist who said that workers of one country should not be employed to kill workers of another country because of capitalist conflict. “War is simply part of the process of Capitalism,” he said. “Big financial interests will reap the victory, no matter how the war ends.” However, in spite of his protests, he was still drafted to fight in the First World War. In order to avoid conscription, he fled into the mountains, where he was murdered by a cop in 1918. Canada’s first General Strike began in response. https://youtu.be/GrwUueuW6rs The Ballad Of Ginger Goodwin Ginger Goodwin is a name you don't often hear or see. They don't say a word about him in our country's history. He was a labour leader and he wouldn't go to war. "While the army breaks our strikes at home, its strikers I'll fight for." In Trail back in the summer of 1917. Ginger fought against conscription even though he was class D. But when he led a miners' strike to spread the eight hour day Conscription checked him out again and found he was class A. Ginger hid from cops and soldiers in the hills near Cumberland. Miners brought him food and sheltered him, they knew he was their friend. So the bosses hired special cops when their power was at stake. Dan Campbell murdered Goodwin at the head of Comox Lake. The whole damn town of Cumberland turned out for the funeral hike. Vancouver's workers shut her down for a one day general strike. Soldiers back from foreign wars then attacked the labour hall. Both the bosses and the workers knew who caused the Czar's downfall. You can still see Ginger's grave along the road to Cumberland. He didn't win no medals and no one understands. Don't tell me that a hero has to die in foreign lands. We lost heroes here in labour's wars and they all had dirty hands. #workingclass #LaborHistory #gingergoodwin #canada #union #strike #miners #antiwar #police #policebrutality #folkmusic #generalstrike #socialism #onebigunion

Today in Labor History July 26, 1944: The Red Army liberated Lviv, Ukraine, from the Nazis. Only 300 Jews survived the Nazi occupation out of 160,000 who were living there before the Nazi invasion. The occupation is depicted in several books, including Robert Marshall’s “The Sewers of Lvov” (1991) and Krsytyna Chiger’s memoir “The Girl in the Green Sweater” (2007). Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s film “In Darkness,” which was nominated for an Oscar, is based on these two books. #workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #fascism #holocaust #redarmy #russia #soviet #ussr #ukraine #books #fiction #historicalfiction #author #writer #film @bookstadon@a.gup.pe

Today in Labor History July 26, 1990: President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. On April 5, 1977 U.S. disability rights activist stormed and occupied the offices of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle. They demanded enactment of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which had passed Congress four years prior. The law mandated that no federally funded programs could exclude persons with disabilities and put into place legal protections, and the right to accommodations, for students with disabilities. During the San Francisco protests, disability rights activists Judith Heumann, Kitty Cone, and Mary Jane Owen organized a 25-day occupation of the US Federal Building with 150 other activists. Solidarity support was provided by the Black Panthers, allied politicians, and the International Association of Machinists, who donated food, mattresses, wheelchairs, and other equipment, and who helped a delegation get to Washington, D.C. The regulations for section 504 were ultimately signed into law on 28 April, 1977. For a really great documentary on the birth of this movement, please see “Crip Camp, A Disability Revolution” (2020). #workingclass #LaborHistory #CivilDisobedience #occupation #directaction #disability #ableism #union #solidarity # #blackpanthers #sanfrancisco #JudithHeumann #KittyCone #MaryJaneOwen #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History July 26, 1894: President Grover Cleveland created a Strike Committee to investigate the causes of the Pullman strike and the subsequent walkout by the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs. After four months, the commission absolved the strikers and placed the blame entirely on Pullman and the railroads for the conflict. Roughly 250,000 workers participated in the strike. An estimated 70 workers died, mostly at the hands of cops and soldiers. To appease workers, the government came up with a new holiday, Labor Day, to commemorate the end of the Pullman Strike. However, President Cleveland had other interests in creating the new holiday. Rather than rewarding workers, his goal was to bury the history of the Haymarket Affair and the radical anarchist and socialist history of the labor movement by choosing any day other than May 1 as the new national labor holiday. On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers went on strike across the U.S. to demand the eight-hour workday. It was the world’s first May Day/International Workers’ Day demonstration—an event that has been celebrated ever since, by nearly every country in the world, except for the U.S. Two days later, Chicago Police and Pinkertons attacked protesters, killing at least one person. On May 4, anarchists organized a demonstration at Haymarket Square to protest that police violence. Somebody threw a bomb, which killed at least one cop. The police opened fire, killing another seven workers. Six police also died, likely from “friendly fire” by other cops. The authorities went on a witch hunt, rounding up most of the city’s leading anarchists and radical labor leaders. They ultimately convicted seven anarchists, even though none of them were present at Haymarket Square when the bomb was thrown, and executed four of them in 1887, including Albert Parsons. After her husband’s execution, Lucy Parsons continued her radical organizing, writing, and speeches. In 1905, Lucy cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), along with Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, James Connolly, and others. You can read my complete article about the Great Upheaval here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/31/the-great-upheaval/ You can read my biography of Lucy Parsons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/ #workingclass #LaborHistory #pullman #strike #railroad #eugenedebs #socialism #laborday #haymarket #anarchism #union #policebrutality #police #IWW #lucyparsons #pinkertons #mayday

Today in Labor History July 26, 1937: Photojournalist and antifascist Gerda Taro was killed while covering the Spanish Civil War. She was 26. Thousands attended her funeral. Taro was a German Jew, who had to flee Germany after being imprisoned for her anti-Nazi activism. While living in exile, in France, she met another Jewish exile and photojournalist, Endre Ernő Friedmann. Together they published their work under the pseudonym Robert Capa. Scholar Hanno Hardt described their work as such: "Taro and Capa helped invent the genre of modern war photography while fueling the vicarious experience of the spectator by offering an approximation of life in the conflict zone." After Taro’s death, Friedmann would retain the name Robert Capa and go on to become recognized as one of the greatest photojournalists ever. In 1947, he cofounded the Magnum photojournalism cooperative, which included other great photographers, like Maria Eisner, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and William and Rita Vandivert. Madrid and Paris both named streets for Taro, Calle Gerda Taro and Rue Gerda Taro, respectively. Helena Janeczek portrayed Taro in her historical novel, The Girl With the Leica (1917). #workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #nazis #antifascism #jewish #antisemitism #hitler #franco #gerdataro #robertcapa #journalism #photography #photojournalism #spain #civilwar #fiction #historicalfiction #novel #books #author #writer @bookstadon@a.gup.pe

Today in Labor History July 26, 1877: Federal troops killed up to 30 workers at the "Battle of the Viaduct," Chicago, during the Great Upheaval (AKA Great Train Strike). This came after the Workingmen’s Party (affiliated with the First International), organized a rally of six thousand people. At this gathering, a former Confederate Army Officer from Waco, Texas, named Albert Parsons, gave a fiery speech. The events of the Great Upheaval radicalized Parsons and his wife Lucy. In the years following it, they became some of the nation’s leading anarchist organizers. The state executed him in 1887 as one of the Haymarket Martyrs who had been fighting for the eight-hour workday. His widow, Lucy, an African American woman, went on to cofound the radical Industrial Workers of the World, in 1905, along with Mother Jones, Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, and others. The day after Parsons’ speech, protests erupted. Police fired into the crowd, killing three men. The next day, an armed demonstration of 5,000 workers fought the police and soldiers in the Battle of the Viaduct, when they killed as many as 30 more workers and injured over one hundred. One journalist wrote, “The sound of clubs falling on skulls was sickening for the first minute, until one grew accustomed to it. A rioter dropped at every whack, it seemed, for the ground was covered with them.” A judge later found the police guilty of preventing the workers from exercising their right to freedom of speech and assembly The Great Upheaval was a national strike wave involving major uprisings in Martinsburg, WV, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Boston, Reading, PA, New York and many other cities. I write about it in my historical “Great Upheaval Trilogy.” My first book, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” takes place in the years immediately preceding the Great Upheaval. Book II, “Red Hot Summer in the Smoky City,” my current WIP, takes place in Pittsburgh, at the height of the Great Upheaval. You can read my complete article about the Great Upheaval here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/31/the-great-upheaval/ You can read my biography of Lucy Parsons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/ And you can get my book ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL from these indie book sellers: https://www.keplers.com/ https://www.greenapplebooks.com/ Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy! #workingclass #LaborHistory #chicago #massacre #railroad #GeneralStrike #wildcat #strikewave #IWW #socialism #haymarket #anarchism #lucyparsons #policebrutality #policemurder #fiction #novel #historicalfiction #writer #author #books @bookstadon@a.gup.pe

Today in Labor History July 25, 2010: WikiLeaks published classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history. The leak included 91,000 Afghan War documents, covering the period from January 2004 to December 2009. Prior to the release, WikiLeaks made the logs available to “The Guardian,” “The New York Times” and “Der Spiegel.” The Times said the leak "offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war." The Guardian called it "one of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history ... a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighboring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency." The documents also revealed that U.S. military contractors had hired local male child prostitutes. As a result of the leaks, the U.S. government launched a criminal investigation into Wikileaks, and its founder, Julian Assange, who spent years under British custody. And the U.S. fought aggressively to get him extradited to the U.S., where he would have faced multiple life sentences for espionage. Watch the original leaked footage here: https://youtu.be/5rXPrfnU3G0?t=2 #workingclass #LaborHistory #wikileaks #julianassange #imperialism #freespeech #censorship #prison #politicalrisoners #espionage #nato #warcrimes #humanrights

Today in Labor History July 24, 1777: The Boston Coffee Riot occurred when a mob of at least 100 working-class women seized coffee from Thomas Boylston, who was deliberately hording it to further inflate prices. When he refused to hand over the keys to his store, they seized him by the neck and tossed him into a cart, threatening to deport him from town, according to Abigail Adams. She also claimed that the women spanked Boylston, while a crowd of men watched. There were regular food shortages in the revolutionary period of the early United States, from 1776-1779, and merchants often exploited these shortages by inflating their prices, resulting in over 30 riots, mostly led by women. In August, 1777, there was a food riot in East Hartford, CT, in which the mostly female crowd seized over 200 pounds of sugar being stored for the Continental Army. #workingclass #LaborHistory #women #inflation #foodprices #revolution

Today in Labor History, July 23, 1944: Madeleine Riffaud, 19, got off her bicycle, pulled out a gun, and assassinated a Nazi military officer as he took a stroll over the river Seine. She was pursued by French collaborators with the Nazis, beaten, tortured and imprisoned in a concentration camp. She escaped, but was later caught, eventually being released in a prisoner swap. She then joined the armed uprising against the Nazis. She had said she wanted to murder a Nazi in broad daylight to encourage the demoralized population. At the age of 18, she worked as a midwife in a Grenoble sanitarium, where she also helped hide Jews and Resistance Fighters, and helped operate a clandestine printing press. After the war, she was inspired and encouraged to write by the surrealist poet, Paul Eluard. She became a journalist for the communist newspaper L'Humanité, and other left-wing publications, reporting on anti-colonial rebellions in Algeria and Vietnam. She saw her reporting as a continuation of her anti-fascist fighting, writing that "a people who oppress another can never be a free people." In another quote, she said: “I didn't want France to do elsewhere what the Nazis wanted to do here.” She also wrote poetry and a memoir: On l'appelait Rainer (Called Rainer). Her first poetry collection was published in 1945, with a preface by Eluard, and a portrait of herself on the cover, drawn by Pablo Picasso. In 1974, after working in a Paris hospital, she wrote her best-seller “Les Linges de la nuit” exposing the poor working conditions of hospital workers in France. She died, at the age of 100, in 2024. #workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #fascism #antifa #antifascism #journalism #france #communism #poetry #memoir #books #author #writer #poet #bookstadon@a.gup.pe