#massacre

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 22, 1946: In a terrorist attack, the right-wing Zionist group, Irgun, bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. The hotel was the site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, a League of Nations political entity set up from 1920-1948. During World War I, the UK promised independence to the Arabs in Palestine if they rose up against the Ottomans, who controlled the Levant at that time. The Palestinian Arabs did rise up, helping to force out the Turks. However, the British betrayed them, dividing up the land with the French under the Sykes-Picot Agreement. During that same time, Jewish militias were organizing to create an independent Jewish state in Palestine. The attack on the King David was part of the “Jewish Insurgency” (AKA “Palestine Emergency”), a paramilitary campaign carried out by underground Jewish terrorist organizations against the British in order to create a Jewish state. Disguised as Arab workmen and waiters, Irgun operatives gained access to the hotel basement, where they placed a bomb. They did it in retaliation for Operation Agatha, when the British authorities raided Jewish Insurgency members’ homes and offices and arrested many of their members. Much of the British intelligence on the Jewish militias was stored in the King David Hotel. Mechachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister from 1977-1983, had been a leader of the terrorist organization Irgun. He specifically targeted the British and supported the King David bombing. The British declared him a terrorist and refused to let him enter the UK from 1952-55. Other Israeli prime ministers also had backgrounds in Irgun, Haganah, and/or the Jewish Resistance Movement. Irgun was an offshoot of another terrorist organization, Haganah, which would ultimately evolve into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Irgun was based on Revisionist Zionism, which promoted maximum expansion of Jewish territory on both sides of the Jordan River. In addition to attacks on the British, Irgun routinely attacked Arab villages, slaughtering men, women and children. Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein, both Jewish, wrote a letter to the New York Times in 1948 comparing Irgun to the Nazis. #LaborHistory #workingclass #israel #palestine #terrorism #zionism #bombing #massacre #turkey #jewish #arab #FreePalestine

Today the U.S. funds and arms Israel’s genocide against Palestinians In the past, Israel funded and armed the Guatemalan genocide against Mayans Today in Labor History July 18, 1982: Over 250 Achi Maya (mostly women and children) were murdered by the Guatemalan armed forces and paramilitaries in the Plan de Sánchez massacre. They separated the girls, who were 15 to 20 years old, and raped them. Then they broke their arms and legs and killed them. Children were smashed against the floor and then thrown into the flames with their parents. Many of the weapons used by the Guatemalan military had been supplied by Israel, particularly after the U.S. Congress banned military aid to the country because of its atrocious human rights record. One relative of the victims said, "in church they tell us that divine justice is on the side of the poor; but the fact of the matter is, it is the military who get the Israeli guns." The massacre was part of the scorched earth policies of dictator Rios Mont. Despite his history of genocidal war crimes, Rios Mont was repeatedly elected to Congress in the 1990s and early 2000’s. In 2013, he was sentenced to 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity, but his sentence was overruled by the Constitutional Court and he never served time. #workingclass #LaborHistory #massacre #genocide #maya #guatemala #imperialism #rape #torture #israel #indigenous

Today in Labor History July 6, 1889: Striking construction workers in Duluth were shot down by the police. The workers, mostly immigrants, went on strike when contractors reneged on an agreement to pay them $1.75 a day. Mayor John Sutphin ordered police to keep strikers away from scabs, leading to fighting between strikers and police. There was an hour-long gun fight on the corner of 20th Avenue West and Michigan Street that killed two strikers and one bystander and wounded an estimated 30 strikers. The police eventually suppressed the strike through violence. #workingclass #LaborHistory #duluth #police #policebrutality #acab #strike #union #massacre #policemurder #immigration

Zionist ideology in practice! “Israeli Soldiers Killed Gaza Aid Workers at Point Blank Range in 2025 Massacre: Report” by Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Drop Site News on Substack @palestine@fedibird.com @Palestine@masto.ai @palestine@lemmy.ml “Israeli soldiers fired nearly a thousand bullets during the massacre of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025—with at least eight shots fired at point blank range—according to a joint investigation by the independent research groups #Earshot and #ForensicArchitecture. The report, based on eyewitness testimony and audio and visual analysis, shows that a number of aid workers were executed and that at least one was shot from as close as one meter away” https://open.substack.com/pub/dropsitenews/p/israeli-soldiers-tel-sultan-gaza-red-crescent-civil-defense-massacre-report-forensic-architecture-earshot #Press #SocialMedia #PalestinianGenocide #Gaza #Massacre #IDF #Report #AidWorkers #Execution #Zionism #SettlerColonialism #Resistance #DismantleZionism #DecolonizePalestine #GlobaliseTheIntifada