On this day in 1898, the Battle of Virden began when armed members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) surrounded a train full of strikebreakers and exchanged fire with company guards. 13 people were killed, dozens more wounded.
After a local chapter of the UMW began striking at a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired black strikebreakers from Birmingham, Alabama and shipped them to Virden by train.
The company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany the strikebreakers, and an armed conflict broke out when armed miners surrounded the train as it arrived in town. A total of four detectives and seven striking mine workers were killed, with five guards, thirty miners, and an unrecorded number of strikebreakers wounded.
After this incident, Illinois Governor John Tanner ordered the National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from coming into the state by force. The next month, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company relented and allowed the unionization of its workers.
“When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden, Illinois…They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America.”
Mother Jones
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What is the point of consooming news these days? Why waste time being an informed public citizen. All there is is wall to wall ongoing genocide in which you can’t do anything, and horserace electoralism where your vote does not matter. What is the fucking point.
Checking the news mega to see the latest Zionist Ls, hopefully. A bit of respite.
We live in hell, it’s a form of torture
I stopped reading the news a long time ago and really only stay plugged in in my community and my city. Sometimes I get weird looks from people when I don’t recognize the name of some guy who’s in the news a lot, but I don’t care, I can’t deal with the impotent rage reading the news gives me
without bourgeois media how will the ruling class dab on you