Rev Left Radio - Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

Peter Cole is a labor historian, professor, and author of "Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly" as well as "Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area". He joins Breht for the third time to discuss the life of the greatest black revolutionary you've probably never heard of: Ben Fletcher. Check out our previous episodes with Peter Dockworker Power: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/dockworker-power-racial-justice-class-struggle-and-proletarian-internationalism History of the IWW: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/iww Outro Music: "Drop the Bomb" by YOTA: Youth of the Apocalypse Feat. MF DOOM (rest in peace, Doom!)  ----- Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio or make a one time donation: PayPal.me/revleft LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. On today's episode, I have back on the program for the third time, the wonderful historian Peter Cole, to talk about a book he wrote in 2006 and 7, but has now released just this month, a second edition, which expands the book almost twice its original size with brand new documentation, etc. And that book is Ben Fletcher, the life in times of it, black wobbly. This is an undercover figure in labor history and black liberation history and socialist history in this country. And it was a figure that I myself was not even fully aware of.

And so being able to prep for this episode and have this wonderful conversation with Peter I think is wonderful. And I want to extend and promote the life and legacy of Ben Fletcher. And this work by Peter is really an essential part of doing that. And then on the show, we pump it out to tens of thousands of more people. He really is a figure that needs to be remembered on the left, honored on the left. And at the end of this episode, we talk about how Ben Fletcher died. And because he was poor when he died, he was buried in an unmarked grave. And right now, the wobblies in New York are trying to campaign to get a marker at his grave.

And that campaign will start taking donations possibly in the next month or two. When it does, we'll make that known. all of our platforms and try to get the Rev Left audience to pitch in and then maybe beyond even that we can they can think about moving towards finding some sort of memorial founding some sort of memorial to Ben Fletcher in his life in his original city of Philadelphia so you know keeping the memory and the legacy of figures like Ben Fletcher alive is one of the you know really the core tenets of this program you know we want to tell proletoeuvre history, black history, the history of people who have always fought back against white supremacy,

against capitalism, against imperialism. And so often because the victors give the history of these things, these figures and these events and these movements are often whitewashed or completely suppressed. And so, you know, we're playing our humble role in reversing that travesty. And in this episode, we're focusing on the wonderful Glenn Fletcher. So I hope everybody not only enjoys this conversation, goes out, supports Peter Cole's work, and when that campaign comes up to get him a proper grave marking, I'll be sure that every single one of you know about it. So without further ado, let's get into this wonderful episode with historian Peter Cole on his book, Ben Fletcher, The Life in Times of a Black Woplin. Well, hello there. My name is Peter Cole. I am a

history professor. I work at a place called Western Illinois University. That's in a small town between St. Louis and Chicago. I also am the founder and co-director of the Chicago the Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project. And I'm very happy to be on the show today. Thanks. Yeah, absolutely, Peter. And it's great to have you back. You've been on two other times on our episode on Doc Worker Power as well as our big episode on the IWW and the history of it overall. So this is your third time coming back on the show. It's always an honor and a pleasure to have you on. And today we are talking about a book you wrote a while ago, but that has now been released as a second edition with some more content that we'll get into in a

bit. And that book, again, is called Ben Fletcher, The Life in Times of a Black Wobbly. So I'm really excited to have you on and to dive into the life of this important historical figure. But first and foremost, whenever we're recording an episode in the wake of a big historical political event in this society, which seems to happen every other week these days, I like to just ask the guests sort of their thoughts on what's happening and any sort of reflections that they might have about that particular event. So as we're sitting right now, this is a few days after the fascist riot on Capitol Hill, and we're still very much living in the immediate wake of that. A lot of questions are still unanswered. But I just wanted to sort

of see how you took that event as it was happening, were you at all surprised about it? And if you have just any general thoughts on what happened there? Well, I would sickened, but not surprised by what happened on January 6th in Washington, D.C. Many of us have been waiting for for this sort of action to happen. But truly, I mean, I'm a historian, the history of America is soaked in this sort of racism and anti-democratic tendencies. But I could say just quickly, you know,

part of it reminds me of Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which were the years leading up to the election of Adolf Hitler, but then the seizure of power after that. But, you know, we don't have to look overseas. For people who don't know much about the history of America in the 19th century, the period right after the Civil War reconstruction, is really one of the least known and understood parts.

In 1873, which is eight years after the Civil War ended, in Colfax, Louisiana, armed white supremacists seized control of the local government from elected black officials. The next year in New Orleans, then the capital of Louisiana, a group called the White League tried to overthrow the Louisiana state government, and a monument stood actually to that 1864 insurrection until 2017, when the mayor of New Orleans had it taken down. Or in 1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina on the coast, which was then the biggest city in North Carolina, armed whites, including a former congressman, actually successfully overthrew a biracial elected government and forced out the last known congressman who was black from

the south, and it wouldn't be another 70 years until an African American was elected from the South to represent anywhere in the former confederacy. And so, like, all of these connect events have happened, and although some people think of this as the past, quote-unquote, I mean, I'm a historian. I essentially see no disconnect. The past is never dead. That's what William Faulkner wrote. But if I may, I also would wish to say one other thing, which is that, you know, quote-unquote,

working-class whites are far too often blamed for Donald Trump's support. and I want to push back on that a little. I wouldn't suggest that there are not any men and women who are white, who are non-elite support Trump. That's obviously false. But who can take time off from work? Of course, who even has a job? Who can fly to Washington, D.C. and stay at a hotel, right, for several nights?

These aren't working class people who are actually, when I'm seeing from Illinois is that some of the people who traveled there were people actually who are, managers, executives, right, at corporations. And so this narrative that we have sort of poor whites and working that's whites to blame for Trump, obviously there's some support there, but really Trump's support has always come from the top, right? I mean, it's only in the aftermath of the insurrection's failure that corporations sort of suddenly are fleeing support of Trump, but they're very happy to support him when he was delivering tax cuts and deregulation.

And so to me, Trump support has always come from the really sort of capitalist class who may not like some of the things he tweets but actually were quiet for four years. And so I'm always focused on who's got power. And so for me, the fall of Trump is, of course, wonderful. But I do think that it was sort of supported by those who had tremendous power and therefore also benefited tremendously from the last four years, not just white people, but generally people with wealth. And so for me, that's the takeaway.

They may not have liked the way this insurrection looked, but in fact, you know, guys in suits were then still willing to defend Trump even after the failure of January 6th. So those are some of my incoherent thoughts on that subject. Yeah, no, I think they're very coherent and they're important. And we just released an episode on both Red Menace and Rev left where we sort of gave our thoughts on that. And one of the things that we highlighted on the event was precisely what you're saying. And this is true. Historically, it was true in Nazi Germany, et cetera, is that the primary class base of fascism is not the working class, but it's actually the Petit Bourgeois.

And in concert with elements of the big bourgeoisie and the elites, the initial lie of election fraud was an elite thing. It's handed down to this middle strata from people like Cruz and Holly and Trump and Rudy and McConnell. They all went along with it. Lindsay Graham, too, you know, they all went along with it. So it was an elite lie, but the forces that came really or that led, the class forces that led the riot, the insurrection, were that petty bourgeois sort of middle strata. And this is not just speculation. This is actually borne out by the people who have now been identified. These were, one of them was a son of a Supreme Court judge.

one was a state level lawmaker, the lady who was shot and killed owned a pool cleaning business. The red robe lady was a family medicine doctor. There were retired Navy vets who were a part of this. The guy who was sitting in Nancy Pelosi's desk was an independent contractor who got a $10,000 PPE loan earlier this year due to COVID. So, you know, and right before the night before on the streets as they were being interviewed, one guy was yelling into the camera, you know, we are the business leaders. And he wasn't lying. And if we look back over this summer, the reaction from the right against Black Lives Matter

and a bunch of other, you know, left-wing movements, I mean, these are people in 60, 70, $80,000 pickup trucks, you know, Trump's beautiful boaters. These are people with enough disposable income to buy boats and take them out with 17 flags hooked on them. This is not the poor working class, as you said. And so making that point and driving that home is really important. And I think it's one of the liberal centrist lies that are pushed is that this is a white working class thing, which just further stigmatizes lower class people and doesn't actually take account of the actual class forces at play. And the other big liberal lie that we've been hearing in the wake of this is that this is not who we are. And as a historian, you just laid out several instances, and there could be many more added,

that this is exactly who America is, and this is something that is not new, but in fact woven into the very fabric of this society. So those are definitely some wonderful and important thoughts. It leads well into this topic because Ben Fletcher, although just an individual, is also a stand-in for a bigger historical movement, black liberation, socialism, labor movement. And so, you know, focusing on him in the wake of this, I think, is actually fairly timely. So with that, all that said, let's go ahead and dive into the main topic, which is this wonderful book centered around this important figure, Ben Fletcher.

So for those who may not know who was Ben Fletcher, and why is he an important historical figure and not only the labor movement, but the socialist movement and the black liberation movement in this country overall. Yeah, of course, Fletcher, and many of us would combine those things into one, yeah. But Ben Fletcher was born in 1890. He was African American, born and raised in Philadelphia. His parents had moved from Virginia before he was born to the city of Philadelphia, and I could talk a little more about that in a second. So Fletcher, in his early 20s, became a member of the industrial workers of the world, the IWWBWB, a nickname the Woblies. And Fletcher was a leader in Philadelphia, then the third biggest city in the country,

in the IWW, and then in 1913, when dock workers in the port of Philadelphia went on strike, he and other Woblies organized them into a new chapter of the IWW, called Local 8, not the 8th Local in the entire IWW, but perhaps in the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union. And starting in May of 1913, Fletcher became a member of and a leader in Local 8. And Local 8 was a union of, say, 4,000 or so men, at that time, all men in the workforce in that industry, who were roughly one-third African-American, one-third, say, Irish and Irish-American, and one-third East Europeans. And this was, I suggest, and I still believe it,

the most integrated union of its generation, interracial, multi-ethnic, and committed to socialism. The IWW was, and actually still is committed to a socialist world and believes that capitalism is essentially the ultimate problem in America and the world. And so in 1905, when the IWW was founded, it was committed to sort of using industrial unions as the pathway towards socialism. And Fletcher, therefore, becomes a black leader in a multiracial branch of the IWW that was the most powerful example of what the IWW's ideas could turn into action.

And then for about 10 years, this union dominated the waterfront in Philadelphia, despite massive racism, despite massive anti-unionism, despite massive persecution, especially during World One, as well as rival unions. And so for those of us who believe in socialism, but also in an anti-racist country and world, this is actually what it looks like,

with a black leader, Fletcher, who was widely known and respected by his peers at the time, even if largely forgotten since. And so for, well, I know we'll talk about it more later, but if you're interested in the 21st century anti-racist labor movement and socialist movement, then actually studying what it looked like in action, to me is sort of obvious, but of course, I'm a historian, so I always feel that way. But I think there's a lot of lessons that can be

learned from the life of Fletcher, but also from the union that he was a leader and a part of for many years. Yeah. Wonderful. And just out of sort of an aside, my own curiosity, how did you initially become interested in Ben Fletcher? And why do you think that he's not as well known of a figure on the left that he should be. Do you have any reasons why that might be? So I became interested in Ben Fletcher when I was a graduate student in the early 1990s, the mid-1990s in Washington, C. And I read a book that's still, in a way, the best survey of the IW and the U.S. called We Shall Be All by a historian named Melvin Duboskian. There is just a sentence in this book about Ben Fletcher, literally a sentence in this 400-page book. And it

was noted that he was only African-American among the IWW leadership who had been arrested and put on trial in Chicago in 1918 for crimes against the state. And I'm like, who is this man? Because I already was interested in sort of in my, I guess, I could say my political view, I very much believe that the labor movement was the best way forward to redistributing wealth downward, even within the system or to sort of overturn the system. And in America, that means that you also have to grapple with the sort of central paradox, which is that we live in a society committed to equality yet fails to achieve that horribly. So I was interested in interracial unions. And as a history grad student, I was looking for examples. But the sad truth is that before really the 1930s, there are very few. And so when I came across Fletcher, I'm like, whoa, who is this person? And what is this union local aid that he was a leader in? And, you know, my ignorance about his existence is the norm, even among historians, right? So why is it that Local 8 and Ben Fletcher are not even well known among historians,

let alone radicals or ordinary Americans? I don't think it's a conspiracy. But I do think that the IWW generally is sort of under-experciated for its radicalism, but also for its impact and influence, especially in the first few decades of the 1900s. I also think that the subsequent rise of the Communist Party is an anti-racist force in the U.S., that they sort of like captured the wind, if you will. It wasn't a, like I said, sort of some conspiracy on the part of the communists in that case. But nevertheless, like too many people, and I should also say this is the case in other countries too, where the communists have been

given credit for being more anti-racist than other. forces or parties, but they often were not the first. They're actually built upon a longer tradition on the left. And in the case of the U.S., that includes the IWW. And so I think it's partially because the CP in the 1930s and 40s, and then the CIO, which was this big labor movement, really sort of took our attention away from these earlier times. Yeah, I, of course, have been spending the last 20 years trying to change that in a small way. And so I very much appreciate having your podcast to sort of amplify this message. Absolutely. Yeah. And we're happy to have you on. It's a perfect match. And we definitely appreciate that. So yeah, I was actually,

you know, pretty much oblivious to the existence of him either. And as I started reading your work and prepping for this episode, I was just sort of, you know, flabbergasted and a shame that I had never really heard of, much less knew anything about of this really important figure. And just for anybody listening who hasn't listened to our other episodes with Peter Cole, I'll link to them in the show notes so you can find them. And I think if you take all three of the instances in which Peter's come on the show and listen to all three of those episodes, you'll have a really, really profound understanding of the IWW, labor movements, and how it's been tied with Black Liberation, et cetera. So I see this as sort of a little serious.

series in a sense. But having addressed that, let's move on. And just going back to Ben's childhood, this is somebody who was born in the 1800s, lived, I think, until 1949. So can you talk a little bit about Ben's childhood and his younger life and sort of how he came to be radicalized? Yeah, of course. He was born in 1890. His name's Benjamin Harrison Fletcher. The president of the time was named Benjamin Harrison. And almost all African Americans were members of the Republican Party because it was the party of Lincoln. And so, So his parents named him after the sitting Republican president. Yeah, Ben Fletcher, Ben Harrison Fletcher, although he always went by Ben.

His parents, you know, we know almost nothing about his parents. They both were migrants to Philadelphia, but they were, therefore, fleeing basically, the Jim Crow South, right? Sort of the post-Reconstruction rise of a white supremacist or resumption of white supremacy in the South, you can say. We don't even know for sure, I don't even know for sure whether his parents were enslaved or not, but the odds are coming from Virginia and born before 1860 that his parents were probably enslaved, but he makes no mention of that. Sadly, very little is known about his childhood. We don't even know, well, I mean, did he graduate from high school?

Probably not. We do know a lot, though, about the place that he lived in and the sorts of experiences he would have had. So Philadelphia was the third biggest city in the country. At that time, New York, Chicago, then Philadelphia. It was a mighty industrial city. It's at the confluence of two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuyl, which is why William Penn, the Quaker, who founded the colony given to him by the English crown, located it there.

So it's a port city, even though it's not on the oceans, right? And it is pretty diverse, although not as diverse as Pittsburgh or Chicago or New York City. There was actually a large black population in Philadelphia in the late 19th century, had been for some time. It was the largest black city outside of the south, and it's just outside of the south. It was the place where, for instance, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the AME Church, the first black church in America was founded, for example. Right. And so there's an old black community. Of course, in the 19thans, during World War I and after the so-called Great Migration began that resulted in a influx. But so Fletcher's parents preceded that, right?

Like, we know that xenophobia was rampant, but also that there's a decent number of immigrants in Philadelphia, especially Italians, especially southern Italians, a lot of Eastern European Jews, but a variety of others, a lot of Irish. And we know the place where he lived, but now is called South Philly or South Philadelphia, would have been poor and working class people, but also actually some rich people. We know actually from census records that he lived on the same streets as white people. And so, in other words, residential segregation in Philadelphia did not exist yet. It actually would happen in the 20th century, but not in his childhood. And we would have known that he would have basically walked the streets of this relatively very old city in the U.S., old city. And it was on the streets of Philadelphia, right, where he was born and raised and then across the Delaware River and Camden, New Jersey. Jersey. His family lived there for a little while too. You know, his mother died when he was in his teens, although not why. He, you know, he had four siblings, right? And was generally a renter, right? And because, again, census records tell us that he was a Roger as opposed to, an owner of the place. And we know that his parents were originally from Virginia, right? And so those are the sorts of details that we know about this milieu that he lived in. That was a

actually pretty diverse, where working class people would have walked around, even though there were streetcars, you could save five times by walking, because the city is not physically large. And we would have guessed that he likely would have worked on the waterfront as a teenager because thousands of men were working on the waterfronts of the city. And although there are some skills involved in dock work, there's actually some jobs that simply require a strong back and the willingness to suffer pain, and that because black people in particular were denied missed other jobs, the Waterfront was one of the few occupations opened a black man in the early 1900s. Yeah, absolutely fascinating. So the part about radicalization might come in well

with his next question, because it's basically a question about when and how did Ben eventually come to be aware of and then eventually join the IWW? And what were his sort of specific talents that set him apart from others of his time. Yeah, so Fletcher, you know, like with a lot, I mean, I literally wrote a book on Ben Fletcher, and I can't even answer some questions that may seem very basic, which tells us a lot about how hard it is

to recover the lives of non-Oeat people in the past, right? And so, you know, we know around 1910 or at the latest 1911, he belonged to the IWW. He starts to show up in newspapers and IWW publications by 1912, right? We know he probably almost certainly also joined the Socialist Party of the United States at that time, which is interesting. It would have actually been common for leftists to potentially join both the IWW and the Socialist Party at that time.

One of the founders of the IWW is Eugene Debs, who was the leader of the Socialist Party. And Big Bill Haywood, another famous Wobbly, was among the leadership in the Socialist Party. Although in the late part of the first decade and then the early 19th teens, there was a rift between the IWW and the Socialists generally believing in an evolutionary or democratic. credit path towards socialism, i.e. electoralism, whereas the IWW increasingly rejected electoral means as a path towards it. But so Fletcher would have been, you know, around 20 years old, right, open-minded, as many young people are, and was probably exploring, right? How he learned about the IWWW, we don't know, but I suspect that he was just walking down the street, right?

Because at that time, it was very common for Wobby and other activists to organize street events, literally standing on a quote, soapbox, unquote, which is basically just a wooden box that you would stand on in order to be higher than the crowd. You might stand on a busy street corner and talk and or have, say, some of your comrades distribute literature. The Wobbies did this all over the country in the world, but they weren't the only ones. And so it's actually quite reasonable to suspect that Fletcher was walking down the street and heard someone speaking, and maybe the next day came back and saw them again and maybe stopped and listened and was convinced. He subsequently became a very well-known soapbox order himself, right? And so it's very early on, even when he's maybe just 22 before Local 8 is founded,

he's already being reported behind in IWW's papers as being a very dynamic street speaker and organizer, right? Because you could organize people in various ways, maybe your coworkers on the job, or you might try to organize people in other workplaces, right? And so I think it was more the latter for Fletcher, right, that he was starting to organize. And at that time, the IWW consisted primarily of European immigrants. And so he probably was a very unusual black man in meetings that very likely were people who are European immigrants or European Americans, even though he later came to organize a workforce

stock workers that were heavily black. And so his talents in particular are seen as being, it's repeatedly commented upon over the course of decades, that he's considered a really brilliant speaker, right? We also can read his writings, although they're limited in number, and see that he seems to be very smart and thoughtful, even though he doesn't have much formal education. It was actually quite common for working class people, especially maritime workers, to have a lot of free time when they didn't have work. And what did you do?

Well, this is even before radio exists, let alone other forms of mass communication. And so everyone was a reader. Yeah, of course, now we podcast, but he wouldn't have had that option, right? And so what set him apart at the time was really he's considered to be straightaway a great speaker. He is at that time also the only prominent African American in Philadelphia and one of the few black wobbles in the country. And so he shows up at the 1912 and 13 national conventions, for example, and is shown respect, but also written about in reports about the events, right? And so he's only 22, right, 23 years old at this time. And so I often compare him, as I'll talk about maybe later, to Fred Hampton, who was 21 years old in the late 1960s in Chicago when he was a leader of the Black Panthers, right?

And so we might think about him in those sorts of ways that he's a leader of a revolutionary organization, in this case a revolutionary labor union. He's a dynamic speaker, and he's brave. He regularly is sent into situations that are dangerous. As a black man, he's always at risk of being lynched. That may seem like an exaggeration, but, you know, literally hundreds of black men were lynched every year in America in the 19-teens. And in one instance, in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1917, that I highlight in my book, he was threatened directly with a lynching for when he was trying to organize black dock workers

in the port of Norfolk, Virginia. And so, and lastly, I would say he's also repeatedly praised for being funny. Now, people who are speakers know that humor goes a long way towards attracting and keeping an audience's attention, right? It's also often an example of intelligence, I say. Although we might laugh at stupid people, most comedians are really smart, right? You have to be in order to be clever with words in these ways. And so those are some of, I think, his characteristics that made him an effective organizer for the IWW. Yeah, yeah, wonderful.

I really love the analogy to Fred Hampton. The youth is always profound to me. As I get older, it just becomes more and more profound to me. I mean, like I always mention how young many of the founding members of the Black Panther Party were, for example, these are people in their late teens, early 20s for the most part. As you said, Hampton himself organized throughout his teens and was assassinated at the young. age of 21, but not before making his mark on this country and this world. And then speaking to his sense of humor, one of the things I came across just in my prep work was the IWW

leader, Big Bill Haywood, who were friends with him, and this was during the sentencing process after the indictments, which we'll get into in a couple questions. But Bill Haywood said that, you know, Ben Fletcher sidled over to me and said, the judge has been using very ungrammatical language. I looked at his smiling black face and asked, how's that, Ben? He said, said his sentences are much too long. So even in the context of sitting in front of a judge and facing down years in prison, he was still able to crack jokes and make the people around him laugh. And that really is a fundamental part of being a good orator, a good communicator, is being able to make people laugh and to have that connection with people. And so that's a

huge part of his personality and his success, absolutely. So moving on, we mentioned a little bit earlier, how he was a member and a leader of the local eight. Can you talk a bit more about this union, sort of its dynamics, and the role that he played within it? It's my pleasure. So for people who may have listened to my episode with you on, Doc Worker Power, I've spent a lot of my life as an adult, even though I'm not a Doc Worker, thinking about and studying and writing about Doc Workers. We do have to understand that this sort of work is really important to sort of get, right? Like, it is the sort of occupation that is both deeply exploited by employers

because there's a sort of, for the most basic reason, there's generally a labor surplus, right? And so wages get driven down because there's a lot of people who could potentially do this work. Just think about all the people like Ben Fletcher's family who are moving to the city, black and white rural Americans, who then need to find work,

as well as all these people coming off ships. And again, Philadelphia was a port city, right, who are looking for work, right? as well as those who already live in a city with a large population. And so the labor surplus, which was the norm, is one of the easiest ways for bosses to exploit. Also the fact that bosses had somewhat intentionally created a multi-ethnic workforce wasn't because they were generous and progressive,

but because they knew that the quickest way to weaken workers was to divide them, and that ethnicity and race don't just come in terms of prejudice from the top, but also comes from below. In other words, there is white, white, African-class Americans, who are both racist and xenophobic, for better or worse. And so we are mindful that this industry is actually deeply exploitative, workers are poor, it's incredibly dangerous work. Literally, you can die on the job any single day, right?

And so that the hiring system even nicknamed the shape-up was very exploitative, right, so that hundreds might show up for a job and only dozens might get hired, and then you have to wait until you find another work. This is sometimes called casual labor. Now, we often use the term precarious or contingent. But so, and this is the industry that Fletcher organized. So in May of 1913, dock workers went on strike. Despite all the oppression that they face,

dockwork also has embedded into it some collective action potential because people work together in gangs and groups to load and load ships. And so the work itself develops a collective identity. These workers go on strike in order to get a raise. During the strike, the IWW moves in to try to basically help organize. When they do so, they quickly create a strike committee that has representatives of every single nationality and ethnic group in it. The Wobbies did this in other places, famously in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the Bread and Roses strike from 1912. They did the same sort of thing with a very diverse workforce.

They made sure that all the workers of different groups had a seat at the table literally. So they created institutions that reflected what the workforce looked like. After the strike won or was victorious, I should say, in May of 1913, then Local 8 becomes a very powerful force. So, for example, they integrate the docs. What do I mean by say that? Before this time, employers usually used ethnically and racially segregated gangs, a Polish gang, an Irish gang, a black gang. Those gangs are literally played off of each other and basically push to work ever faster. Oh, look at those Polish people.

They must be stronger than you. Come on, Irish guys, don't you have the same strength of those poles? And so they integrate the gangs, right? Of course, how do you break down racism? You actually have to know people who are different than you, right? They get rid of the shape-up, the system of hiring that had existed. They instead, employers will have to call up the union hall and request workers be sent.

They also institute a system where members who have paid their dues, which are actually very low, but if you've paid your monthly dues, you wear the appropriate button for that month. That button basically is a pass, right? Anyone who doesn't have that button shouldn't be hired by a boss. However, of course, bosses don't like the union anyway. They might try to get away with it. Who's going to enforce not a so-called business agent as they're referred to in unions today,

but instead the other workers. And so time and time again, most of these are undocumented, workers would walk off the docks when employers tried to hire non-woblies, members who are not in good standing in local aid. They also integrated their leadership ranks by mandating essentially black and white elected leaders and their social events, right? And so they immediately did voluntarily,

although very much in keeping with their views, a fully integrated ethnically, racially, and nationally union, right? And really, as I already said, the best way to sort of overcomes xenophobia and racism is for workers to see that they share more in common than different, which is actually only by working together literally and within their union. And Fletcher was the most prominent black, but also the most prominent leader period in the local eight. And so what this union did from 1913 until almost the end of, 1922 was something that almost no other workforce, other institution in the United States did.

This is 50 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and this is, this workfront was segregated because of employers. The union forced integration, and they did it, the last thing I'll say, is without a contract because the Woblies believe that the most important tool of workers was to strike. Wobbies and other workers might still believe this. And so if you sign a contract, most union contracts in the U.S. have a no strike clause. Not all of them do, but most do. And the Wabwe said, we don't want to sign a contract because we're giving away basically

our most powerful weapon. And so there's a lot of examples of Wobby's trying to force changes to improvements to their wages, conditions, et cetera, through the threat of or an actual strike. And so it's not surprising for all these reasons why bosses hated them. But it's important to understand how impressive. of this was, but also how unusual it was. You would not have found almost any other union at this time doing these sorts of things other than the IWW. Yeah. Wow. Absolutely fascinating, fascinating history. I know we've talked about it a little bit. We've mentioned some figures and

some organizations, but can you talk a little bit more about the friendships, associations, and links with other radicals of the time that Ben had? Yeah, of course. Well, so Fletcher, of course, lives in Philadelphia, right? And Philadelphia is a big city. So that means sort of prominent radicals pass through the city periodically, right? And so when in terms of locals, right, well, the other leaders of local eight, we know also were his friends, a man named Jack Walsh, who was an Irish-American Wobbly, a man named E. F. Doree, whose parents were French and Swedish immigrants. A man named Walter Neff, who was a German Swiss immigrant, Walsh, Doree, and Neth, along with Fletcher, really the leaders of local eight for most of this time,

but also with Manuel Ray, who was a Spanish anarchist and Wobbly, and a sailor who made Philadelphia his home, right? And so these are some of his Philadelphia friends. We know from the records, right, that Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the quote-unquote rebel girl, Big Bill Haywood, John Reed, nicknamed Jack Reed, who wrote 10 Days It Took the World and later became a communist and died actually far too young, but knew him. Joe Hill, the famous Wobbly Bard songwriter,

might have known Ben Fletcher. Matilda Rabinowitz, who was a sort of a radical Jewish wobbly and union leader, especially in the needle trades in garments, you know, was a friend of his later in life in the 1930s and 40s, he became good friends with Sam Dahlgoff and his wife, Esther, who were Jewish anarchists and wobblies who lived in New York City and were among his closest friends for his later years. Yeah, we also know, thanks to his prison records, because he was thrown in prison, which I know we'll talk about more. We can see who he corresponded with because the government kept tracks of every inmate's letters, right?

And so we know that he wrote regularly to Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph, who were black socialists in Harlem and William Monroe Trotter. who was a prominent black newspaper man in Boston and other black radicals, as well as, of course, family and others. And so he would have been friends with and associated with really every prominent wobbly period, right? And then, of course, once he gets thrown in the prison, which someone referred to Leavenworth at the time

as the University of Radicalism, because there were so many radicals thrown into the federal pen after World War I, that he was respected by his peers along the way too, including, like you mentioned earlier, Haywood on multiple occasions, offers praise to Fletcher in print, right? Like all of this we know, thanks to the written records. We don't have any sadly, there's no oral evidence, no archive or recordings of his voice. Yeah. Absolutely interesting. And as you mentioned at the end there, the irony of prisons and particularly the irony

of putting a bunch of political people in prison for their political activity is that it often spurs and develops that political activity. And that was true of like, you know, figures like the IRA. I mean, you know, there's instances of members of the IRA reading France Fanon's Wretched of the Earth while in prison. Same goes for many of the Black Panthers who were in prison. Malcolm X famously went through a major transformation within prison. And so that's just something that's interesting and worth pointing out. And then just all of the people that you mentioned, you know, all of which could probably have their own episodes on this program. It just really reminds you that everybody today fighting for these things, right,

fighting for egalitarianism, fighting against white supremacy, fighting for basic human emancipation, we have this long, beautiful tradition in humans in every single generation who, you know, carried that torch forward. And in many ways, we all today humbly pick up that torch and carry it forward in our own ways. That history has largely been written out of main stream, you know, versions of history. Those figures have often been suppressed. Our knowledge of them have been suppressed. And so that's why it's so important for, you know, left-wing people in general to have their own outlets that we can tell our own stories, do our own history, and not have to rely on, you know, the ideology of the ruling class to hand us down fractured fragments of

history, erasing the parts of it that we so desperately need to connect with. So it's just absolutely fascinating to hear about all those connections. And, you know, talking about prison, this leads perfectly into the next question because Ben's organizing efforts and the efforts of the wobblies in general got them, you know, indicted and sent into prison for years. Can you talk about this indictment and this trial as well as how he spent his years inside prison? Of course. So in 1917, the United States declared war against Germany. But remember, the war began in 1914, right? And so the quote unquote great powers of Europe had already been killing each other for for three years right the wabwees had taken a very principled rhetorical stance against war one when it began

notoriously european socialists in many countries socialists being of course an internationalist vision sort of betrayed socialism one could argue by voting with their nations right so that german socialists ended up killing french socialists right how ironic eugene deb's most famous Lee was the one who criticized the United States and said, you know, working across people are being asked to fight, kill, and die on behalf of something that they really have no interest in. However, in 1917, the U.S. does declare war. President Woodrow Wilson at the time claims that it's going to make the world safe for democracy. The Wadleys didn't take an official stance against the war. By contrast, the Socialist Party actually took a principled stance

against a war. The IWW led by Haywood at that time was afraid. rightly so, that the war could be a weapon used against radicals like the IWW conveniently. And so sure enough, shortly after U.S. declares war, Congress passes something called the Espionage Act. They subsequently pass another law called the Sedition Act. And these laws basically criminalized dissent, which is to say if you disagree with World War I in America's involvement and you speak about it or write about it, you are committing

a federal crime. And so the Wobbies were already anti-capitalist and a thorn in the side of the American power structure. And these laws, the espionage and sedition acts are first used against the IWW. And so the laws are passed in June of 1917. Immediately we have records of the Department of Justice spying on and investigating Woblies across the country, including Ben Fletcher. At that time he was living in Boston, having Fred from Norfolk, having been threatened with

the lynching. And so he actually was living in Boston in the summer of 17 when federal agents find him, if you will. In the fall of 1917, the U.S. Department of Justice issues indictments against 166 leading wobblies, including Fletcher and five other Philadelphians. Most people are arrested and then released on bail. Fletcher actually knows he's been indicted but doesn't have a desire to go to prison. He doesn't hide or anything like that. He doesn't run, but he doesn't turn himself in. He, though, goes back to his home city of Philadelphia and gets a job working for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Philly, but it takes the federal government four months to find him. And when they find him, he's arrested. He's put into prison after several weeks he's released

on bail. And then he basically goes to Chicago in the spring of 1918, where he is put on trial with approximately 100 other IWW leaders, including some other Philadelphians, in a mass federal trial. Why Chicago, Chicago was the founding place in headquarters of the IWW. And so over the course of the spring and summer of 1918, the longest trial in the history of the United States until that time, I believe, 100 people tried. Basically, they're tried for their words, their beliefs, not really for any actions. There's no evidence that the IWW hindered the war effort. In fact, dock workers in Philadelphia loaded ships that were going to American and allied forces in France. So after four months, everyone, including Ben Fletcher, in under an hour, is found guilty on all counts.

And so Fletcher and everyone else is found guilty of five counts of basically espionage and sedition and sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison with $10,000 to $30,000 fines, Fletcher gets 10 years and, I forget, 20 grand. And then immediately, they're put back into Cook County Prison, which is still the largest prison in the United States of America. It's also where the Haymarket martyrs were in prison before execution. They were putting on a big train and sent to Leavenworth, Kansas, in eastern Kansas, where the United States had its first and most notorious federal penitentiary. And then Fletcher and others were, well, served a varied amount of time, 10 to 20 years, most of them ended up serving approximately four years.

Fletcher served two and a half years of a, during a four-year period because he was released on bail, in between, or bond, I should say, while he was imprisoned, as were many other wobblies temporarily. And so he's released actually in 1922 finally. And then subsequently, he and others were, had their sentences commuted, and then in the 30s pardoned.

So Fletcher spent like 19, 18, the end of 18, 19, 19, 19, 20, parts of 21 and 22, and 11worth, along with many others, including, you know, famous radicals like Ricardo, whereas Magone, right? One of the sort of Mexican anarchist revolutionaries who was also played very nicely with the wobblies, but also even there were black soldiers who were imprisoned in Leavenworth because they had been found,

well, it's a complicated story, but in Houston, 1917, a bunch of black American soldiers killed a bunch of Houstonians, and then were, some were executed, and others were imprisoned, and so Fletcher would have hung out with black soldiers who had been put into prison for life, quote-unquote, common criminals, i.e. people who might have committed, say, murderer, right? But then also all these radicals who wrote a newspaper, who would have meetings, who would talk, et cetera, the evidence from the correspondent suggested Fletcher

didn't change his political views simply because he was in prison for them. Yeah. Yeah, incredibly interesting. again this this long history in the u.s of using various crises as doorways through which to crack down and criminalize any form of dissent always disproportionately falling on the heads of not only left-wing people but specifically radicals in the communities of color as we've as we as we all know and right now you know in fact one of the most likely trajectories that we're already seeing sort of bipartisan agreement about in the wake of the fascist riot on capital hill is this immediate move just to solve the problem, quote unquote, solve the problem by this radical

expansion of the police state. Biden has already put out various things, you know, indicating that that's the direction that he wants to take this in. And this very well could turn into depending on what happens in these last couple of weeks, specifically with Trump and how the fascist reactors already, for example, talk on far right wing forums on the internet that January 17th, or even the inauguration day or leading up to it, could be other, you know, the other riots, insurrections, et cetera. And, you know, we can see already some of the charges being handed down, the guy that sat in Pelosi's desk, for example, that independent contractor I was talking about earlier, is now charged with various charges that amount to a maximum penalty of one year

in prison. And we can see in this instance where somebody like Ben Fletcher, who really didn't literally nothing wrong, spent years in prison, and he was lucky to do that and not spend much more. So I think one of the big things we have to look forward at as people on the left is how the liberal center will formulate this expansion of state violence and the carceral state in ostensible reaction to right-wing violence, but in practice it will be carried out in ways it's always been carried out, which is disproportionately used to attack, criminalize, in prison, and hound people on the left, specifically black organizers and brown organizers.

Do you think that that's more or less correct as a historian with the long view? Yeah, well, I mean, I hear you and I largely agree. I mean, I think about like, we want to sort of separate tactics and ideology somewhat, right? I think about the occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 when the state of Wisconsin was trying to, and successfully ultimately eliminated workers, public workers,

right to unionize, right? Yeah. That occupation was celebrated on the left, as it should have been, in my opinion. The idea that, so the occupation of the capital isn't inherently wrong. I mean, the Madison was a peaceful occupation. But, you know, like, nevertheless, the victims of government persecution have been, as you said, time and again, including in our times, disproportionately those on the left. I mean, there's people in prison right now for protesting this summer against racism and police killings.

And we can only hope that people who sort of actually wanted to overthrow the democratic state will also sort of very long prison sentences. Even, you know, it's also as someone who used to live in D.C., it's amazing that it was so easy, you could say, to sort of get in. It's a beautiful thing, right, that a democratic institution is actually open to the people. And it's a, it will now surprise me that the Congress is going to be much harder to access as an ordinary. person. Maybe because of this fear, but nevertheless, you know, the idea that we have to sort of basically create a police state in order to protect democracy is surely a sort of a path we don't want to go down. Yeah, absolutely. And we saw what happened after 9-11, and we always have to be aware that that's a very possible and likely trajectory. Also want to mention the J20

protesters, people who, you know, in the wake of Trump's inauguration protested, they were rounded up randomly, you know, and they were charged with heavy charges, some of them facing literally 80 years in prison just for being in the area where windows were smashed. And we can already see the difference in charges when it comes to these people so far. And I also want to emphasize that point you made is like, you know, people storming the capital is not an inherently negative thing. It's the intention behind it and what you do with it. Like if you're storming the capital because you want to increase equality and justice. You want to take serious action on climate change.

You want to root out corruption in our government and expand the ability for people to democratically engage with their government. That's very different than doing that exact same action on behalf of keeping a shitty conman millionaire in office for four more years, even though he lost. So I think that's an important distinction to make, if only because people who want to maintain the status quo we'll muddy the water around that distinction and act as if it's absolutely sacrilege to even think

about holding people in power accountable. And they'll use this as an example of why it's always bad in every instance. And we should at least make those distinctions and say intentions and actions and the forces that you're marshalling do matter. And that should be the main distinction, not just the act itself. So I appreciate you pointing that out. I would just add one more thing, which is that for, for the Woblies and other people who think like the IWW who sometimes are called syndicalists or anarcho syndicalists, right?

Where do we have greatest power? It's on the job, right? That was one of the key distinctions between, say, the IWW and the communists or the socialists. And the idea is that even today, right, I mean, a general strike is as fanciful as it may seem, or even a strike of just a much smaller group of people can deliver the goods as the wobble. would say, far better than, say, a vote, right? African-Americans in the early 1900s really didn't have the right to vote. And many millions of European immigrants didn't actually choose to become citizens, and so therefore, didn't vote. And so for the Wabwees at that time in Philadelphia, I'm thinking specifically, you know, they didn't sort of, quote, believe in this sort of democratic electoral

tradition in the ways that we are inculcated with through, living in America, but also if you've gone to school in America, where these sort of rituals are sort of celebrated. The Woblies believed actually that that was sort of political power only could come really through economic institutions. And so that was always their focus, and that is distinct from those who choose to sort of think about creating a party. I'm not necessarily endorsing one or the other, but the Woblies very much rejected this sort of electoral approach period. They just would say that the government is already captured, right, by those, by basically the elite, right? And the fact that many rich people donate to the Democrats and support the Democrats is only further proof in this view.

Absolutely. Could not agree more. And just to reiterate that point that strikes are probably the single most effective weapon that anybody on the left or in the working class movement has. And it's much more effective than protests than riots and much more effective than voting. And that's the task ahead of us is to try to see how we can leverage labor power. to really, you know, get certain demands met and to move in a direction of real progress that really impacts working everyday people's lives. So moving on, you know, as you said, Ben Fletcher spent a few years in prison, and then I'm interested in the years he spent after he came out, how he spent that time, and then how he eventually passed away. Yeah, so Fletcher got back to Philadelphia. After World War, it was very different than before the war. There was actually a huge wave of strikes in 19, 1920, 21, almost all of which were defeated.

I mean, strikes that were, like, for instance, included, like, the Great Steel Strike of 1919 with 400,000 workers, right, across multiple states. Philadelphia's dock workers also engaged in workplace actions in 1920 and 22. Fletcher, of course, could be thrown back in the prison if he's found guilty of any crimes. So he's not as visible, although as far as we know, he still was very supportive of But nevertheless, local aid actually was ultimately defeated by a combination of employer resistance with support from the government and the rivals in the AFOVL. So although Local 8 survived the war, even though its leaders were in Ravenworth,

by 1923, Local 8's power had been broken. On the waterfront, segregation returned to gangs, to workplace gangs. And although later the AFL reorganized a union in what's called the International Longshoremen's Association, ILA, The shape-up also would return, and it wouldn't be until the 60s that the shape-up would be eliminated, and it wouldn't be until the 70s, perhaps, that segregation had been eliminated. And so you're looking at a 50-year period after Local 8, where the material existence, but also sort of the racial commitment of the waterfront, radically shifted for the worst. Somewhere along the way, we don't know when, around 1930, 31, Fretter moved to New York City.

I wish I knew I don't but he shows up there's no later the 1931 he's interviewed there's a wonderful interview with him in the book from a black newspaper

in New York City called the Amsterdam News which is really sort of a jewel in the book and he's listed as and there's other stories about him speaking in New York City including on behalf of

the Harlan coal miner strikers that bequeathed us on which side are you on right that Kentucky the Mine Wars. We know that he's still speaking in the early mid-30s and committed to the Wobbies. We also know he had a stroke somewhere around 1935, even though he was only like, you know, in his do the math theater, early 40s, and that he really disappears, right?

Like, we don't even know, honestly, if he had regular work. We know he got married a second time to a black woman named Clara and that she was very likely the breadwinner. They lived in Brooklyn for most of that time in a neighborhood called Bedford-Stuyvesant, nicknamed Bed-Stuy, that's sort of now widely known and is a very black place, but it wasn't before War II. It actually became more black over time. And so he actually lived in the same neighborhood with the dog-offs, with E.F. Rie's widow and children with big Baltimore.

Walter Neff's wife and kids, they were all living the same neighborhood. And Fletcher corresponds with some people, but he really sort of remains committed to the ideas of the IWW, but really from the mid-30s onward is not a player. That's, of course, in the same period when the CIA will be sort of explode and where the CP will become more powerful, where the left is really more influential than most other times in U.S. history, Fletcher is physically unable, right, like to sort of be a part of the this. It's sort of, to do sort of be hypotheticals, like what would Fletcher have been? He would only been in his 40s, right? Like, could he have still been a real player in the 1930s and 40s

if he had been physically healthy? Yeah, it's possible, right? We simply don't know if that didn't happen, right? And then ultimately he dies in 1949 at the age of 59, after many years of being considered unhealthy, and is buried in an unmarked grave in Brooklyn. I'll Although a group of people who I know, and some of whom are IWWs or people like me who are sort of fellow travelers are creating a campaign to sort of actually fund and create a marker so that, starting in 2021, he will be commemorated, honored where he was buried in Brooklyn, New York. Although that hasn't yet happened. We're in the process of making that happen. Yeah, wow. Well, that's absolutely commendable.

Is there any way that anybody could help, or is that something that it's just being taken care of and just takes time? Well, anyone who wants to find me can find me sort of easy enough, but actually this week, hopefully the New York City branch of the IWW will sort of create a committee that will basically take over the work that I've begun. But I'm going to help, and so we will be fundraising, which is to say that anyone who's listening, probably it'll still be an opportunity to donate a couple bucks. we anticipate this as we're thinking about three or four or five thousand bucks maybe which I actually am pretty confident that we will be able to raise pretty quickly and then sort of yeah it's sort of amazing actually to me when he went when I learned he was buried in unmarked grave I'm like why well I guess it's because he had no money right like so he and his life right like it's sad right but that's the story of millions of people right

who don't even have the money to bury themselves. Although his death was noticed, there was a New York Times obituary about him. There was write-ups in a number of different black newspapers in different parts of the country. Of course, he was written about in the IWW press. Because even though it had been decades since he had been an active leader,

he was still very much loved. And some of the later section, of my book really speak to the, our documents that sort of speak to the memories of those who knew Fletcher best. Well, that's wonderful. And when you get that campaign off the ground, if you want to shoot me an email and let us know how we can help, we'll definitely promote that to make that absolutely happen. I think it's a really important and beautiful, beautiful thing. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So zooming in towards the end here, a couple more questions for you. And this is more personal. So for you personally, you know, what makes Ben Fletcher such an

intriguing and important figure. And what are some maybe lesser known aspects about him in his life that you personally find interesting or worth noting? Yeah. So like Fletcher to me, well, I mean, I've devoted a lot of my life to thinking about and working on trying to sort of rescue him from obscurity, right? Like I mean, to me, I sort of see the disappearance of Fletcher and more importantly than this one person, right, the union that he was a part of, is sort of shocking, right? And so I, for me, it's very important. I mean, now we think about, oh, we want to sort of listen to black and ground people, indigenous people, and center them and trust them.

Well, like, Fletcher is, you know, I consider it be one of the greatest black Americans in the history of the country, right? Like, if you've heard of A. Philip Randolph, right, who was an important black socialist and a labor leader in the 20th century, Randolph loved Fletcher. He wrote repeatedly about Fletcher and praised him in his, in his magazine, The Messenger, right? Like, as I mentioned earlier, if you've heard of Fred Hampton,

if you've heard of Silpy Carmich or Ella Baker, right? Like, I mean, sort of among the pantheon of black revolutionaries, Pretcher was among them, right? That's why he was imprisoned, yeah? That's why he was sort of persecuted for his beliefs, but it was only because of the effect of this of his work, right? Because literally there was no evidence introduced in the trial against him. As the Attorney General for that part of the state of Pennsylvania said in 1922,

he wrote a letter to pardon, encouraging the pardoning of Fletcher. He's like, there is no evidence that this man did anything wrong, right? He was simply punished for his beliefs and for the membership in the IW. Like, you know, as far less or known aspects of him, I just discovered something that's not even in the book, right? Because the second edition of the book is twice as long as the first edition. It's not just a sort of a reprint, right? Since 2007, when the original edition was published, people have found me and I have found more about Fletcher, fortunately.

And so the original book has about 50 or 60 original documents. That's the majority of the book. But the new edition, the second edition, has like 125 or more documents. However, even now, after the book is published weeks ago, I'm still finding stuff. So I just learned for the first time in some like four-sentence story in a newspaper

in New Jersey from 1912 that he was musical, right? That he was part of some musical group called corporation. Now, I could start to imagine what that means. All we know is that, right? I don't know if he was a singer. I don't know if he played an instrument. I don't know why the hell this organization was called the corporation, although I might guess, right? But I could be wrong. Like, I mean, so for all I've done, there's more work to be done, right? Like, although it's harder and harder to sort of recover these sort of figures, right? But, you know, so one of the lesser known aspects is something that I only learned about. It's not even in the book, right? Like

as sort of embarrassing as it may seem. And so for me, he's so important because he was a black socialist unionist. So as you began this sort of questions with us, let's think about him as a labor leader, as a socialist leader, as a leader of black liberation. Well, Fletcher is actually a fascinating figure to understand. The only other thing I say about that, before shutting up for a second, is that unlike many people today, including myself, he actually took the stand that essentially a socialist revolution would end racism. He wasn't a deep intellectual thinker, and he didn't write a lot about this. And so I could be wrong about actually.

But based on the things that he did write, he seemed to think that basically black people, like white people, suffered from capitalism in the same ways. He understood very well better than I could, you know, that racism was real. But he was a believer in this notion that, you know, that you didn't need to do something, quote, special to ensure the end of racism. Even though he simultaneously was part of an institution that commonly centered racism. So, for example, in 1921 after the Tulsa Race Massacre, we have evidence of a local eight having a forum where they talk about it, right? And we also have evidence in the messenger of how they, white and black workers condemned what happened in Tulsa because they saw it as a workplace union issue, not just a sort of a race.

issue. For me, I just say that that's why the term racial capitalism is so useful is because I don't want to separate out these sort of strands of white supremacy and capitalism. To me, they've been inextricably linked for 400 years. And therefore, it's a waste of our time to say which is more important or which we have to attack first. We attack both and we always think about both. But Fletcher didn't necessarily make that sort of argument. Although at that time, that wasn't an argument made in the same ways that subsequently we've thought more about maybe these issues. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's incredibly interesting. And regardless of your position on that, you know, I would just say that, you know, socialism is probably a necessary but probably not

sufficient mechanism to eradicate racism, but clearing the field of capitalism and the way it relies on racism is certainly a major, monumental, and essential step in that direction. And I also wanted to say, you know, genuinely, like, salute to you for keeping his memory and his legacy alive. Like, you're talking about an unmarked grave, so many documents that nobody ever really talks about. So little is known of him among historians, much less among left and black liberation fighters to this day. And so you're doing monumental work in keeping that legacy and that memory alive. And we're honored to be able to have you on and help promote that. before I'd let you go, can you maybe, if you want to, maybe what we can learn today from the life and struggles of Ben Fletcher and then also where listeners can find this book and your work online.

Yeah, of course. I mean, anyone who's paying attention in our times knows that racism is xenophobia are alive and well, right? And they continue to divide us, right? Like, some are attacked by these ideas and some are sort of embrace these ideas. And so for me, like, we continue to have to put front and center, fights against xenophobia, fights against racism, fights against sexism, fights against homophobia, transphobia, all these phobias, they just weaken us, right? Fletcher understood this very well, right? And so for me, the most important lesson is that if you're against any of these, you have to be against all of these things. And that for Fletcher in particular, but also I would tend to agree, right, And as you said, a few minutes ago, right, like, where do we have power, right?

I mean, so if you're against these things, what can you do about it? That's really what we want to know. It's easy to be against racism. It's harder to defeat it. And the answer is it's only through organization, right? And so the wobblies, of course, are loved by some, including by people who identify as anarchists. Anarchists, of course, there's a very diverse lot, right? And for people who are too individualistic, I reject that, right?

because, like, we're always weaker independently or individually. And so for Fletcher and the lessons, really, I say, is that the most important thing you do is actually join a union and then work to make that union better, right? Because there's, of course, unions are very imperfect beasts. And as far as where one can get this book if one wishes, well, PM Press is the publisher, and PM Press is the best way to go to ensure that,

a publisher of books like mine and many other awesome books continue to publish, right? If this is still January 2021 right now, they have a sale on all their e-books for a buck 99 a month. If you want, there's a new website as a last year called Bookshop that you can buy books online like you could at Amazon, but where the profits go to independent booksellers. And you can even earmark which independent bookshop, you can earmark that, percentage that's profit if they are already registered in the bookshop system, which thousands are. So I just bought a book and donated the profits to women and children first, which is a great Chicago bookstore, right? And so I also encourage people to go to their public library or school

library and ask the librarians to buy the book. That way more than one person can read it. And so PM Press website, p.m.press.org or bookshop, those are where I recommend people to purchase their books. Wonderful. And I'll link to as much of that in the show notes as possible to make it as easy for listeners to do that. And, you know, always, Peter, it's an honor and loving, love having you on and talking with you about the stuff.

I learn amazing stuff every single time you come on. You always have a place here at Rev. Left to come on and talk about anything you want, any time you want. And you did mention something about the imperfection of unions today, but they're continuing necessity. And I think that's incredibly important, a note to. reflect on and end on. My stepdad is a union steward and he unionized his workplace in the last several years and is continuing to be a leader in the union and fighting. And he's always talking to

me and coming and getting some of this more historical perspective, asking me questions on how he can address, you know, people of color in his workplace that, you know, because of his own background, he doesn't have a lot of experience in. And, you know, this, I see it in my life and I see it in his life, how monumental, even imperfect unions, how monumental change they can make in regular working people's lives. He just told me a story the other day of him having to fight for an indigenous woman who works there at the factory. It's a dairy plant. And, you know, her son, she was supposed to come in for an eight-hour shift. When she got in, management told her, actually, you have to work 12 today. And she didn't have anything to do. Okay, I'm working 12 hours, I guess. But 10 hours into that

shift, which is supposed to be an eight-hour shift, her son call says that there's, you know, guns being shot on their block. She lives in a rough, poor part of town. And she, you know, had to go home to her, to her child and management wanted to, to dock her a point. And, you know, which goes into making it very hard for her to do things like take time off in the coming year. And my stepdad was, you know, luckily able to use the union power to fight against that and get that mark removed and defend her. So, you know, this is, you know, a tiny little thing. And but to her and to her family, it's huge. And so unions are incredibly important.

And one of the topics I would want to have you come back on, perhaps, if you wanted to or you know somebody who would be perfect for such a discussion, I really want to tackle the history of unions in the U.S. and how the capitalist state has reacted to and over time dismantled them. You know, you can think of the Red Scare and McCarthyism and the purging of radical leadership. You can think of Reagan and the neoliberal era weakening unions overall. This is a long historical process, and it was in many points in time, a conscious process taken on by the elites, by the ruling class in government and in business.

And so maybe tracing that history and seeing the nuances of it very specifically, I think could be very helpful. So if you're ever interested in that, definitely let me know. Just tell me when. Yeah, perfect. You'll definitely be back on. Thank you again. It's an honor talking to you, and we will talk again soon. Thank you so much

And to everyone listening on this awesome podcast I've left Thank you for your attention I appreciate this so much Straight from out the wilds of Turtle Island Where the fellas be building And the girlies be smiling

Hell of a thing when these worlds be colliding They all sing jingle bells Complete with violent pedophileing Rush hour traffic and human cargo To nowhere in a hurry During the truth embargo It seems so odd though How they're so cocky

We're blatant disregard for life Like Hiroshima Nakasaki Watch it when we Drop the ball This is in our eyes And we got no less in our eyes Drop the ball Drop the ball

This is in our eyes And we got no one Drop fall Trumbull. Trumbull. Antilles and all rise going to do. Attees and all rise going to... Drop jewels like they drop toxic napalm

or even one of the most prized possessions, a H-bomb. Guaranteed to kill for generations to come and degenerate the own civilizations to bunch of bums. And it's the same ones who started this calamity. the discolamity, turn right around and ask for amnesty, insanity, doom representing Renan squaw, Kess, Kess, Kess, Bormin since yes, yes, y'all, and the fresh fest. Drop ball.

Chuck ball. They're seen as in our eyes. And we can all raise in her. Jump on Jump on This is in our race And we can know that to hide Drum ball

Trump Drum fall Teaching no rest To do it Teaching you know The abomination of colonization Maturio greed straight pawn of Satan, hating, what is at the core of your defiance?

You focus on destruction, we focus on science like the Mayans. Biker, it's time to pay the piper, so foul and rebellious, the sun don't even like you. Homey, you should have took the time to get to know me. Now I can't do nothing, but watch you burn slowly. I fly. Drunk to fall Drunk to fall There's tears in our eyes

And we come over to hell Oh Trunk to fall Drunk before There's tears in our eyes And we go nowhere to Oh I

Trondon ball Trump upon This is in our eyes I'm going to know we are to hell Come upon Trump upon Teens you know as we're to do

and teens you know as you're true