Every business was shut down. People gathered on street corners and started directing traffic. They made a rule: restaurants were going to close, bars could stay open if they didn't serve hard liquor. They put the jukebox out on the street and people were actually dancing on the streets.
Dancing in the streets during a shutdown? That seems impossible in our current pandemic, but seventy-four years ago, there was indeed a spirit of rejoicing and solidarity in the city of Oakland, California when 100,000 workers walked off their jobs in the last general strike this country has seen.
We’re devoting our entire show this week to remembering the 1946 Oakland General Strike, as Work Week’s Steve Zeltzer interviews labor historian and researcher Gifford Hartford, who talks about how the strike happened and why it’s still relevant today.
On this week’s Labor History in 2:00, Breaking Through the Racial Divide; Rick Smith tells us about the founding of the Colored National Labor Union.
Music: General Strike by Moe Shinola, a musician and former cab driver who lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
Produced and edited by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. We're a proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network, nearly 80 shows focusing on working people’s issues and concerns. #LaborRadioPod
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Escape on the Pearl; Black Labor Week
Labor Day: no picnic in a pandemic
“Boomer Jones": Vintage labor radio show (LHT podcast extra)
We Do The Work; Working History
Cutting along the Color Line
A travel guide to labor landmarks
“The Flintstones” and class struggle; The Ford Hunger March
Remembering Gene Debs; Waging Peace
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Why America’s most radical union shut down ports on Juneteenth
SCOTUS bans LGBTQ workplace discrimination; Queer history of the UAW
Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
Labor supports DC Black Lives Matter protests; “Debs In Canton” preview; Revisiting The Battle of Homestead; Voices of exiled Iranian workers
The Minneapolis general strike; “Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property”
“Politics of the Pantry”; “We Just Come to Work Here”
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